Staff wage rates, views and opinions please?

[Martyn Heath]

I agree david, wages in the uk seem to have gone through the roof in the last 5 years. I notice this especially as i live in the Nordics with the high wage, high tax model but compared to the uk wages are lower now.

10 years ago i left the uk, 15 yrs ago i was employed as an experienced vinyl fitter, sign fitter, computer operator general bod that can do everything. My basic was around 18k + overtime. I then went as a Sub-contractor and running my own little shop and yearly was hitting 25k-30k.

When i return now everyone seems to be on 30k + infact that would be classed as a bad wage amongst the people i know.

So to answer your question, yes we shoud all close up shop and go get a job 🙂

[Mark Johnston]

wages are one thing, try finding a sign fitter or wrapper worth paying anywhere close to these prices. no end of problems!

[RobertLambie]

Employing people is like crossing a minefield blind, and offering high wages guarantees you nothing.

If a company offers high wages “and knows what they are doing” they will also know what they are looking for in an employee and will use the advert as a hook. But there will be caveats, terms and conditions and tight contracts in play. And rightly so!

You then have the naive companies that will simply look at these same adverts “and think” This must be the going rate and stick an advert up, hoping that offering an extra £5k+ is going to hook them a star employee. Wrong!

What I am saying does not mean there aren’t plenty of great employees out there, and worth every penny, of course, there are!

Keep in mind, just because some companies appear to offer this and that does not mean that you should.
Offer what your company can afford and hope that you land lucky!
In the past 33 years in this game, I have found that the best employees are not the most experienced, the best are the ones that are Honest, Hard working and Keen to Learn. everything else will fall into place, with a bit of guidance.

Experience is great, but it is only as good as the company or people/person that taught them.
i.e.
Would you rather have the football player coached by Alex Ferguson for 5 Years or the player that has spent 10 years playing for the local village?

[Adam McMonagle]

Hi David, depending on location that seems to be pretty normal. In my recent experience I think part of the problem is that most people looking for work rely on agencies whose model is to get the highest wage for their commision, thus increasing the rates of pay. Agencies used to contact me with “this highly experienced operator is looking for a new position and wants ££££££” 🙄

[RobertLambie]

Exactly, Adam.

I once did wall prints for a recruitment agency. Spent the day in their offices.
Whilst working, right next to all the telesales people, I was shocked by what they were doing.
Basically…

Customers called them looking for staff, and they would respond by telling them they would call back once they checked their database. I am sure they have people on their database, but without any exaggeration, the telesales person along with one or two next to them, would search the “online job website” and spot a candidate, and call the candidate there and then.
They would speak to the candidate as if they had especially been selected by their client and would like to know more about them!
They then went back to the caller that enquired, telling them that they had a perfect staff match but the wage offered was on the low side. They bigged the staff up, saying they had previously turned down an offer but had a mortgage and car to pay and needed more money. blah blah.
down goes the phone, back onto the “staff match” only to play the reverse game with them, but actually putting words in their mouth to get them a better deal, but also to say this and that, to get the job!
The phone tennis ended with some sort of deal. but the reality was, the company was paying way over what they had intended to and for a member of staff that was most likely “joe-average”. which is a form of entrapment for the employer.
As i said, i was there all day and heard this type of scenario continually with different sales people throughout the offices.

I also know first-hand of a well-known sign company that used an agency and again, the sign company paid top dollar for the new member of staff. They were told the staff was the best of the best blah blah. The reason I was finding this out was because they told me they were now going into a tribunal with the member of staff for various things leading to a dismissal. now they were claiming unfair dismissal. the best part of it is, the staff member has a history of previously taking multiple companies to court. Their argument with the Agency was that if this person was vetted properly, this bad history must have been flagged up, yet they pushed the person forward as a perfect candidate!

As I said, I know there are excellent, experienced and talented people out there, but waving a few grand extras in a job advert guarantees you nothing! If you want to stick down £25-£30k+ for whatever position, then yes, it will generate more enquires, but make sure you have caveats in place, weekly/monthly evaluation periods and targets along the way of 6+ months.

[Adam McMonagle]

That does not surprise me at all, I once interviewed a guy who was really good, had not met him before and he was recomended by someone he used to work with. I took him on and a few months later I got a bill from a recruitment agency for a lot of money relating to hiring him. I phoned them quite angry and they said that one of my previous managers had interviewed him 11 months ago, so under their conditions we were in their pocket! I put a few F’s into them but ended up having to pay it or go to court. So I’m not a big fan. After that I did an experiment by advertising only in the local papers, directories and Indeed, we didn’t get any responses for the job, so goes to show that anyone looking was only using recruitment agencies.🙄

[David Hammond]

I’m not looking to employ anyone, and have no intentions too. I don’t have issue with the wages, but it’s got to up the prices. The companies charging £200 for a van, it’ll take an awful lot of vans to get near paying those wages.

Assuming £30,000 salary, and a 50% margin, it’s 300 £200 vans to pay the salary, excluding NI, pension etc. (By they way I’m not in that bracket)

[Jeff]

agencies are a joke. some of their practices are verging on illegal.
i agree with rob, offering more money guarantees you zero.

[Phill Fenton]

I regularly get sent details of individuals looking for employment in the sign business by a recruitment agency. I recently replied back saying we weren’t looking to hire anyone but as we were approaching retirement would their candidate be interested in buying our business? I didn’t get an immediate response, but some months later the agency emailed back saying their candidate was interested and was the business still for sale? When I wrote back saying yes they sent me a contract to sign before they would release any details of the candidate in question. That contract was an agreement to pay them a tidy introductory fee should the individual end up buying our business. Their fee was much higher than any professional fees I had been quoted by an agency that actually specialises in business sales. Needless to say I had no further correspondence with them.

[RobertLambie]

That would bug me, Phill. Especially when you know the type of practices they conduct in the background. 😏
I also get regular emails to uksignboards.com I unsubscribe for them all, as and when they come in, only for them to change the email name, but the same company. one company has at least 6 different emails contacting me with the same crap. I actually think I will start naming and shaming them in a post on here. 🤨