Some professions and lines of business lend themselves well to this concept, whereas to others it is as alien as the planet Tharg. Should vocational careers such as teaching be bracketed with the cut and thrust of bottom-line led businesses?
I doubt whether anyone regards the security industry as a vocation, but there are good, solid arguments for continuous assessment of performance in either field.
After all, it is continuous measurement and compliance with standards of performance which keeps many a regulatory authority gainfully employed. In its place, this is the best possible thing. So should your engineers be paid on performance? The indisputable fact is that the great majority of security engineers/technicians are paid a flat salary, with no particular incentive to "perform". If they fail to get out of bed in the morning they might get shouted at, but not usually to the extent that it affects their take-home pay. This being the case, the employer is always wide-open to the engineer being tempted by a greener field with higher pay.
- FACT 1: There are not enough capable, hard-working, self-managing engineers within the industry. Many just do not have the incentive to train themselves or have employers who wish to train them to a higher form of engineering life.
- FACT 2: Training is viewed by the majority as a cost, not an investment. So there is the conundrum – everyone gets out what they put in.
But there are those enlightened installation companies who think through this situation and rightly regard their engineers as a profit and business generation centre, from which the company reaps a significantly higher return per capita on the investment which they make in the engineers.
Their engineers achieve levels of pay which are considerably above the average for the industry, providing they "perform" in accordance with the company model. They do not have to be supermen, or work outside normal working hours (although the added rewards are there if they do). But they are well-motivated and committed to the cause. So the company earns more, and the engineers earn more – and they are both happy with this situation. So there is no downside to this. Interested? Of course you are.
I say straight away that an MBA is not a pre-requisite for making this work. The installer's most prized assets are his employees. Of these, the engineers see the customers most often, and so ARE the company to the customer. So – presuming that you have engineers to be proud of – who else will the customer turn to for advice, and whose recommendation will they tend to accept? Hole in one! But don't restrict the benefits. Extend them to all members of staff on a profit-sharing basis.
Ground rules
We are talking teamwork, and if everyone plays their part in the performance, you will have the equivalent of a major West End hit on your hands.
Some professions and lines of business lend themselves well to this concept, whereas to others it is as alien as the planet Tharg
There are, of course, ground-rules for making a performance-related pay (PRP) system work. For example: As management, you must have a crystal clear idea of what you see as positive outcomes from PRP.
A support/admin system must be in place before implementing PRP. If an engineer does his job properly within the parameters of the system, there is no need to consider abusing it. And a properly implemented monitoring system will uncover any anomalies.
There must be willingness on the part of staff to commit to PRP.
- Keep everyone informed
- Training has to be full and proper
- There must be Quality Audit on service standards. For example, if you adhere to British Standards properly, chargeable system upgrading happens as a matter of course
- You need to negotiate long-term support contracts with your customers, to afford this way of working. Isn't this desirable anyway?
- There should be a balance of work in each engineer's area, which is achievable. Your continuous assessment procedures will uncover any imbalances
- The company must be customer care oriented. A lost customer = lost wages. New customers and existing customers who purchase = money in everyone's pockets.
PRP is inevitably the way the industry must go. There are different shades of PRP, and there is an investment to be made in setting it up, but these will be far outweighed by the wholesale and continuing benefits to the installer and his employees alike.
Source
Security Installer
Postscript
Robert Barnes is a Director of ACA Systems, suppliers of business management software systems to the security installation industry. You can contact him at 0191 417 3166 or e-mail: Robert@acasystems.co.uk