I’ve been in business 20+ years - starting alone for the first years. Built it up and now have 5 employees. Recently I have been talking to my employees about buying into the company as I am nearing retirement. I gave two of my employees raises one of them a percentage based on his production. after that I got total silence never a thank you or anything so that caused some concern right there. One of the employees was receiving over $1000 a month raise. Recently I got Covid-19’s bad and was out for 2 months. I I have cameras at work so me and my partner were reviewing the cameras and noticed they were talking a lot of shit about me and making plans to start their own business I’m presuming stealing all the high-end clients. The Reality is that is if you put employee in the responsibility of dealing with clients you have to deal with the prospect that he might steal them eventually. less people and less drama and possibly hiring subcontractors to handle the business that I pay these people a lot of the time to stand around and do nothing might be better. We have a established a business location and will probably be fine. previously I’ve been talking with my right hand man about my exit strategy but now I want to talk to him about his exit strategy, one of the employees is poison to the others I can hear him talking shit about me and the business. I’m sure a lot of you experience the same type of situation’s any advice on how you handled it and the outcomes thereof would be appreciated thanks guys
I legitimately did not know it was standard (or legal) practice to record video and audio of your employees.
Given the nature of their conversation, I wonder whether this was made known to them at the time they received their offers.
But to address your post, if an employee isn’t expressing gratitude for a raise, they probably don’t agree that the raise was fair. This is the important issue and one that you may want to gently broach with the employees if you value them at all. But keep in mind that they’re not obligated to be grateful for what is contractually due to them any more than you’re obligated to thank them for what you feel is mediocre performance.
Employment is a two-way street.
And yes, employees who feel like they’re not being valued (in terms of compensation) are going to think of other ways to increase their compensation. You would too.
And in fact, you did. You went into business for yourself because you obviously saw an opportunity to do better financially in the long run, and have more control over over your working conditions. (Case in point, you’re out sick for two months and have the ability to watch what your employees are up to when you’re not there. You don’t have to worry about whether you’ll still have a job when you return. Or whether the company will find some other reason to let you go as an excuse. And presumably you still received compensation during your absence. This would not be the case if you worked almost anywhere else for anyone else.) I don’t know why you guys can’t see that (at least some) employees want the same for themselves.
You should offer to sit down with them and have an honest discussion/airing out of grievances for both parties and see if you can’t come to some mutually beneficial resolution here. If you can’t, then you can’t. Part ways amicably like adults and go on with your respective lives.
But disabuse yourself of the notion that anyone who works for you should be ever so grateful to be there and never question their compensation. They have aspirations and needs just like you did when you struck it out on your own.