Emplyee that keeps asking for a raise

[Kari]

I just purchased a mat / carwash 40 days ago. I have one employee that has asked for a rasie three times already. The first time she asked was three days after we bought the place. The second time she asked was after we raised prices on the carwash. The third time she asked was after our cleaning lady quit. She first asks my husband and then will talk to me about it. She is an OK emplyoee but I have better. Grated she has been there 11 years and is biligual (80% of our clients are hispanic) but she is getting paid really good money for the area we are in, gets lots of tips from the WFD, has flexable hours and is able to bring her children in with her on Saturday when she needs to. What really ticks us off is that we are around her everyday that she is there and she rarely even talks to us. But in 40 days she has approached my husband three times and has approached me twice about a raise. My husband keeps telling her that we are putting a lot of money into the mat/carwash. Today when she brought it up to me agian I finally told her the dollar amounts that we have been spending. It seemed to shock her. But all she sees in one side of things - the money that comes in. She never sees the maintance bills. (but this is not something I should have to share with my emplyees). Hopefully it will get through to her this time. 40 days... Give me a break!. It is really starting to make me mad! but of course I can not afford to lose her.

What would you do?

[SecretarytoBraveDave]

Kari,

Every employee is replaceable and neither you nor your employee should ever forget that. The employee has put eleven years of service to the business and that should be considered a good attribute. Laundromat employees usually are not well educated nor high on the totem pole of the employee mix, there fore you should forgive your employee for their forthcomings about pay raises.

You must determine the overall worthiness of your employee. Can she be replaced by another that could get to speed rather quickly? Could you re-define her employment to make her more productive and increase her wages upon her performance? Replacing an 11 year employee could be good, but then it could be bad as well.

Managing employees is a challenge. YOu should promote the strengths as well as the weaknesses of the employee. If you determine they have growth potential you should fairly determine when and if the employee will see an increase in wages. You must understand what the top salary you are willing to pay is for each position. Employees deserve a employee handbook that defines your position, even if you are a small entitiy. If money cannot be added to the employees package you may be able to add "benefits". Sick days, holidays, vacation time is a great added benefit to the hourly employee. If this employee will be missed, what would you offer the attendant to perform better and guarantee they retain their position? Get on the same page. You as the owner are in the drivers seat, as you do not want to lose the employee, they too do not want to lose their position.

[millenniumplus]

What Kitty said in the previous post is absolutley correct. We had a good employee who alway complained
about getting more OT hours. She would slow work just to stay 2 hours past closing each night where everyone
else closed in a timely manner. We offered her more hours by coming in on other days or to come in earlier.
That wasn't good for her schedule/life style. Okay. In the end we terminated her. It took us a while to do so
because she was reliable. But we realized other employees were even tired of her complaining. The negative
outweighed the positive. She brought down moral and there was an air of negativity in place. Initially we
regretted letting her go because she was reliable but after some hiring trial and error we replaced her with
someone else as reliable and a better worker. That experience has made us better managers of staff. Meaning,
if we are being fair and still the employee is always moaning, we don't hesitate to give a few verbal warnings,
a writen warning, then we let them go. I'm not saying terminate this person. I am saying, advise her to get to
work. If you have a "raise, bonus or incentive schedule", let her and everyone know about this. Give her
verbal/written warning if she continues. Being an owner is easy right (smle). How many times will we hear
from customers or employees that we are rich. The reality is most of us are not rich. We all have a wide range
of bills to pay and unforessen problems that unexpectedly come up. You'll get some fantastic advise from the
owners here (I have!). In the end, you gotta make the final decision. Good luck and keep us posted.

[Kari]

Thanks for the advice everyone.

The samenight that I posted this she again asked my husband for a raise. This time she told him that even a 25 cent an hour raise would be fine, so he gave it to her. The poor girl had not had a raise in three years. We do plan on doing really good christmas bonuses. hopfully that will help her out as well. Again Thanks everyone - all of your advice through out this whole discussoin forum has been GREAT!

[petefritz]

3 years and no raise? I will side to the employee, just to make things different. What you SPENT on the business is not her problem, it is yours. If she is a good employee than you take care of her, If she is not then fire her. You pay what "really good money" is but maybe she is worth more, or less. Take a view from her shoes, and take a look at what she does for your revenue, the make a descion based on real business, not what you have spent out of pocket fixing up the place. Your last few words say it all. Don't be cheap on good employees.
>>>>but of course I can not afford to lose her.

[Kari]

Pete - you are so correct. you need to pay for good employees. I have been in her shoes and understand what she is going through. Before we even purchased the place we talked about giving her a good raise. We have all been int their shoes. but I wanted to understand where we stood money wise before I committed to anything. That way I would have known how much I could give the employees without hanging myself. I wish it was as easy as "If she is a good employee than you take care of her, If she is not then fire her". she is a so-so employee, but at least she gets her work done. I may not like her manerism or the fact that she rarley talks to me or the customers or that she reads her bible when it is slow instead of finding something that needs to be done, at least she shows up to work and gets her work done in a timely manner.

[SecretarytoBraveDave]

She is in your business for customer service, she needs to speak to the customers. She is an extension of you and she is the first and last thing your customers see, be sure that is a positive and not a negative.

[Howard]

You have another major problem that you may or may not want to hear about. You and your husband have a communication problem. You guys need to have a united front and not let the employees know that they can go after one of you if the first says no. Its just like dealing with kids, if they see they can do this it becomes the norm.

If you were considering giving a raise why did you guys just tell her that you would not be making any changes for let's say 90 days and that you would be evaluating performance at that time. That would have given you time to determine if she warranted it and would have kept her quiet also. Further, you should have discussed pay rates and raise dates with the old owner before you bought the place. Hopefully things will work out, but please work on that communication with your partner.

[actionmedia]

Let me tell you an interesting story. It is real and it happened 1 year ago, at the company where I work today.
In January 2003 Ringier (the company) just bought a sport daily newspaper called "ProSport", including editorial stuff (200 peoples). All ProSport employes got rise of their salary after transaction.
After few weeks they asked again to plan gradual rise for 2003 and 2004.
Never reach to an agreement and finaly all 200 employes quit and get to the competition.
ProSport survived got new employes and is still number 1.
Good Luck

[brucehwalker]

Asking for a raise constantly is considered insubordination and grounds for termination. You need a written policy that states when and how raises will be determined. When forming company policy decisions I always ask the question, "Would this be allowed at JCPennys?"

For instance- If you were working at JCP would they allow you
1. to have your kids with you will at work?
2. Make and receive calls on your cell phone?
3. Complain about wages?

Never. You would be out on the street. Wages are determined by the company's profitability and the employees contributions to the company. If they have a better offer they need to pursue it and you should encourage it.

I have one employee that has given me 110% since we've been open, 1 1/2 years. He is great and it would hurt to lose him. I have had to cut his pay 3 times because the money isn't there to support what I initially paid him- $1,500/ month. I might not handle this piece of my business very well but when this comes up at my store I tell him/whoever it is I am not married to anyone here and that the only person who has worked longer for less is me. I didn't open a mat for him to have a job, I opened it to have an income.

My wife tells me I should say that, but I do... I say it less than I used to.

[millenniumplus]

Hmm, your original post did not state no raise in 3 years. If that was verifiable and true what about the other
employees now that you decided to give her a raise. Was everyone treated this way by the previous owner
or just her? You've got a lot of good feedback from what I read. Agree with previous post that you have a
potential communications problem with your staff. You need to lay down your bonus/raise/incenive schedule
perhaps after a 90day break-in period, hold an employess meeting. Good luck and hang in there...

[Kari]

Our mat is pretty small and only has two emplyees; one that is full time and one part time. The part time employee has only been there 6 months. The previous owner owned the mat for 7 years and in that time gave her (the full time emplyee) one raise (at his 4 year point). Yes I plan on having a one-on-one with both of my emplyees next week. I have been working on the agenda for the meetings this week. I plan on having quarterly one-on-ones with each of them. This employee thing is very new to me. I am learning as I go. You are VERY correct when you said that everyone has given good feedback. It is well appriciated. It has to be very tough on her to have two new people (younger then herself) come in and change things after her doing it one way for 11 years. But she needs to understand that with new owners there will be changes.