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For you guys who hire route driver/delivery guys........How are you setting up pay for them?  We have heard a number of different ways.......Small % of route gross each day??  So it benefits them for the company to make good $$$. And the less that comes in the less they get paid........By the hour ?? Per Stop ??  But we have guys go and buy inventory at Sam's and can drinks too, so not sure what that would look like for Non-Vending days (Inventory Pick up)     So we are looking for best way to be fair to employees as well as best benefit to the company.....Any suggestions appreciated...........

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I pay hourly, in part to make sure I don't run afoul of minimum wage laws, and in part to simplify the process for myself.  I have one part time driver and I trust him, and I have a good VMS (parlevel) that helps me keep track of his work.  I have considered a bonus commission and might do that in the future instead of a flat raise, will have to see.  Use a good payroll service whatever you do, it gets pretty confusing otherwise....

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We pay $100 a week plus 10% commission. Also have a guaranteed weekly pay, mainly for around Christmas time because sales can drop a lot during that time. It really just depends on makes sense for your company. We bought a company a while back and one of the drivers was complaining because he wanted to be paid hourly...that is until he got his first paycheck and saw commission was more than he had been getting paid the 15 years prior

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SouthEast.........What is a good VMS ?  Is that someway to track where he is at........??  We have a guy who we trust......And has only been working for 2 months........We were hoping that he would pick up the pace a little, but not really happening.  We have been giving him some tips on efficiency. Don't think he is purposefully milking time (Since we are paying by the hour) but A little concerned.  He just doesnt work stops at the same rate as myself.........And it could be I ve done it a while and he is only 2 months in.  But I was looking for a way to improve his speed.......... 

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We pay hourly plus benefits. Clock starts when they pull out.  Ends when they pull in.  We tried the commission program but then the route drivers got too involved in the money.  Now with CC readers and cash we have a collection bag for each machine.  They dump and lock.  We have also used the remote monitoring which has made tracking it all much easier.

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VMS is a vending management system, a computer program that keeps track of the nuts and bolts of operations.  I use ParLevel and I like it a lot, but there are others out there.  If you are big enough to have an employee you are probably big enough to be looking at some level of computerization.  When I went from paper route cards to the VMS it was a big change for me and took about 4 months; I was keeping all inventory on the truck, now I prekit everything.  I like not having to assemble orders at the truck in the Florida heat and afternoon thunderstorm!  It speeds up the route considerably as well, but you add warehouse time to get everything organized.  Realize too that you may not ever find an employee who is as dedicated to or as good at your business as you are.  But there are minimum performance standards and you should be giving him goals he and you can measure, in a positive manner....

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The hard part is that drivers only work for themselves.  If you pay them hourly they will dog it all day and not get enough done or work slower to get to overtime.  If you pay a commission then they slam the machines full of whatever they have without regard to planograms or stales just so they can 'maximize sales'.  If you pay them a salary they think they are getting screwed on the long days and don't see the benefit they get on a short day.  

Regardless of how it's done it must be done with supervision, auditing, supervisory ride alongs, key security, safes on the trucks, over/short monitoring and lots of training.  Expect and Inspect is the way to do it.  

 

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We pay our employees salary, which we have at double industry standard for our area. We always use the mentality if you treat your employees right,  they will treat the company right. We also have a commission bonus system in place. They get 10% commission on any money they collect over $10,500, which is what we require from our routes a week to cover their salaries. Our guys work 50-60 hours a week.

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On 10/20/2016 at 3:23 PM, Drhester126 said:

We pay our employees salary, which we have at double industry standard for our area. We always use the mentality if you treat your employees right,  they will treat the company right. We also have a commission bonus system in place. They get 10% commission on any money they collect over $10,500, which is what we require from our routes a week to cover their salaries. Our guys work 50-60 hours a week.

You must live in a high priced area or have some monster accounts.  I was fast when I was a driver and I could only get about $1200 in a day with a mixture of low, medium, and high volume accounts. I serviced one monster where I would collect about $1,000 in 4 hours, but I was working my butt off.

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On 10/23/2016 at 2:04 AM, AngryChris said:

You must live in a high priced area or have some monster accounts.  I was fast when I was a driver and I could only get about $1200 in a day with a mixture of low, medium, and high volume accounts. I serviced one monster where I would collect about $1,000 in 4 hours, but I was working my butt off.

I think it's moreso how you have the route setup. We are an extremely healthy small vending business on the east coast. Our guys days are set up pretty tight geographically (they never make more than a 10 minute drive between stops). Your driving distance can kill your time which in turn hurts your daily sales. Plus we very rarely work an account where you get less than 120 bucks every time. It's just a matter of adjusting the frequency of when the stops are worked. A standard two machine set up should take 20-30 minutes tops. Our guys run an average of 13-17 stops a day. Among those standard 120 collection we have scattered accounts that do 250+. Each route has at least one account that does anywhere between 800-1500. I can't speak to your speed (1000 in 4 hours seems within the realm of reason) so it's most likely a matter the driving distance between your accounts,  plus working low volume ones when they don't need to be worked (push the frequency out).

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In all fairness, at the time, 20 oz soda was $1.00.  I was working pretty hard.

I understand how it can be done and I see your area has a lot of density. You simply cannot get that many accounts that close together around here.

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