Dear Mr Siamak,First of all, the reason for using capital letters, was that I wrote in a existing text, and wanted my reply to be noticed as a separate remark - simple as that! If you think that making smart remarks is a way of debating, well that is up to you.
When it comes to your questions, here are the answers:
1. No I did not get everybody together. I did get, though, all managers and all employees that worked above 15 hours a week together.
2. We did examine the budget for the coming year, including all income and all expenditure. After that we set goals for the coming year. We then had a meeting once a month, during which I explained the result for the previous month. This did not only include financial results, but also results in areas as satisfied customers, satisfied employees and QSC. We then set our goals for the coming month. By doing this, everybody knew why we were doing thing, why we wee focusing on the yield on fries for instance.
3. The wage for each employee is individual. When they start, they get the wage as set in the agreement with the union. We then, after 3 months, sat down and evaluated the performance. In this meeting were 4 people present; Myself, the employee, a manager and the union representative. If the performance was good, they got a raise. In a sense, their pay was set based on us meeting our goals. The better we did, the more we paid. The bonus was a just another incentive.
4. The size of the bonus was set beforehand, and everybody had their say. It goes without saying that a bonus can not be as high as 100% of the result. We agreed on a pecentage if we reached our budget, and a higher percentage on the amount over budget. By the way - the amount was the same for everybody in the store, as long as they worked 15 hours or more per week. The managers did not get a cent more than the others - I got nothing of this sum. The reason for this, was that we felt that more money should go to the people for which it is their living, i e those working full time.
5. What the wage is in Sweden is not really comparable, but to give you some guideline - If you take the average wage for people working in industry in Sweden, then my people had roughly about 70-75% of that. What has to be taken into consideration, is that initially we work with unskilled people. When they got skilled, they got more.
6. My own, as my managers wage, was higher than that of my employees. The reason for this is simple. I ran three stores, I did not get any overtime, no extra money for working on "red days", had worked for more than 10 years, had a hell of a lot of more responsiblities and met the goals set out by the company. My managers worked with sceduling and other duties. More responsibilities - more pay! Easy!
Is it not like this in all companies? How are you going to get people to accept more tasks and responisibilities if you do not pay them more?
Explain please!
7. If any of my people wanted to be a member of a union, they of course had that freedom. I had a union representative in my stores. Of the people working fulltime, I would guess that about 20% were unionmembers. The reason for this is also simple. Our employees are often young and feel that paying a fee of 8-10£ a month is to much. Not so much because of the money, instead they felt that the union was of "no use"
The reason for this, is that in Sweden labour right and democracy is accepted. We allow unions, we have wage agreement between the union and the emplyoers, we have freedom of speach etc etc. The need for a union is, perhaps, not as pressing. I would though, go as far as to say that we have gone too far in Sweden. I do not want a system where you can get fired on the spot. That is no way of creating satisfied employees. But, in Sweden today, it is virtually impossible to fire anybody - including theft! There has to be a middleway, which both satisfies the needs of the emplyeers and the employed . As it is today," nobody" dares to hire new employees
I would finally say that I take offense in your comment of my credibility. How is it, that you in one follow up ask of us to accept McSpotlight as a credible source, and then will not accept my statement.
I fell, quite frankly, that you have one or two things to learn about debating - the "nice" way that is.
I have given you an answer. If you choose to believe it or not - that is entirely up to you.
P.S It might interest you to know that we "abolished" the manager in my stores. We still had managers in the store all the time, but they focused on scheduling, training and other duties. The people "ran the shift". We felt no need of having anobody telling somebody to do something. Our people knew their duties and did them. In case somebody did not, then the other people, their friends and fellow workers, made sure that so was the case. If not, then the manager stepped in. Democracy for you? D.S
