Hiring staff

[MicGoogle]

Hey guys,
Usually to hire staff i know theres the monthly payments and per commission based payments, which ones the best for both the host and the staff?

and usually what amount or commission base do hosts usually pay their staff? is it different for sales and support staff?

[Keagle]

Support = fixed rate.
Sales = Perhaps a lower fixed rate, and with around a 5-10%commision on each sale. Although, you could remove the fixed rate and add a high commision.

[utcrazy]

I generally pay out per ticket so they only get paid for the work they do. 20% commission on sales as well.

[MicGoogle]

utcrazy, i like that idea, but is it common or have you heard of support staff being paid on a comission basis, like high comission, sort of like i guess per ticket , but you get paid commission of what the user pays as their monthly bill, you know what i'm saying?

[SDW_G]

I generally pay out per ticket so they only get paid for the work they do. 20% commission on sales as well.

Yeah, I believe this is the best way to do it. The host I worked for paid like this and the more work you did, the more you got paid.

[Blaster]

MicGoogle I would love to help you out again. The question is do you trust me. As long as you don't have the staff that you did I would love to help out.

[JewlzK]

For a smaller company its easier to offer commission on sales, and pay per ticket for support.

Once you establish yourself you can do a mixture of commission + salary, or simply go to salary alone.

[RadixHosting]

For a smaller company its easier to offer commission on sales, and pay per ticket for support.

Once you establish yourself you can do a mixture of commission + salary, or simply go to salary alone.

Hmm, but if your company is TOO small, there won't be much tickets so your staff won't be motivated (since no tickets = no work = no incomine, even though they keep themselves available, for nothing). I mixture between salary and commission would be best in my opinion: Fixed salary even if they don't have anything to do, because they are available/online (you can let them do other work for you in meanwhile, like researching etc) and commission as extra motivation to do their work well.

[AMC]

Yes, you could pay $8 per hour and/ or $1 per ticket. So they get a fixed salary and stay motivated, but they also get rewarded more if they have a very busy hour where they have to deal with a lot of requests.

note: $8 is an imaginary figure - you should. pay what you and your staff are happy with :)

[RadixHosting]

It depends on where your staff lives basically. Europeans and Americans will expect a bigger salary than people from Azia. (Well that might be not exactly true, but you get what I'm trying to say)

[AMC]

yeah true. You have to consider minimum wages etc as well.

[RadixHosting]

The educational level of your staff counts as well. And the tasks they perform. If they only do low level tickets (such as cpanel issues) you shouldn't pay them as much as your technical experts who deal with more advanced issues (such as your server management or even development).

[MicGoogle]

ah i see, so i should first start out with 2 staff or something very low, and only as customers increase hire more? yeah i was thinking of $1 per hour, but some insisted $1.50 is better. I'm leaning towards per ticket payment and also the 20% comission from sales, since we're probably going to be employee-operated, that should be a good deal.

Blaster, i'm aware you work for couple of hosting companies, and it might go against their nda, so atm i can't hire you, but defiantly glad we've resolved our issues.

[RadixHosting]

It depends, if you want to offer 24/7 support, you'll need 3 people to cover the 24 hours in 8-hour shifts.

[Calinax]

I pay per ticket, based on the level

L1: $0.50
L2: $3.5
L3: $6+

No sales person hired till date though :D

[gentle]

If you don't have that many users, pay per ticket. If you have a steady user base: hire someone to take care of the support.