Do you have employees--What kind of boss are you

[The empressof all]

SO and I do have occasional disagreements regarding employees. I tend to want to be more generous even when it's at my own expense. We gave bonuses at Christmas which were equivalent to more than a weeks worth of pay. We can't afford to offer health insurance or other kinds of benefits. We have mostly part time employees and try to be as flexible with their hours as possible. We tend to give them time off when they ask even at short notice if we can make sure all is covered. What kinds of things are you able to do for your employees?

[Longhorn]

1. Right now, our only employee is our daughter.

But even when we had about half a dozen others, we offered six paid holidays and a year-end bonus of 1 percent of annual salary. We also have a SIMPLE IRA with an employer match of up to 3 percent. Now that it's just our daughter and us, we give her two weeks paid vacation and sick days as well. We can't afford health insurance, though.

[mongo]

2. I give free housing to my employee

Actually, he lives in his camper in our parking lot. But he doesn't have a toilet in his camper, and uses our electricity. He makes enough to pay for a cheap apartment, but prefers to live in his camper.

We gave him (and ourselves) a $100 Christmas bonus this year, and did Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners at the store. And of course, he gets to watch all the porn he wants, and read the magazines for free.

Wish I could afford to cover him (and us) with health insurance, but we just don't make enough money for that yet.

[DaveinMD]

3. no employees yet

I hope to have employees by June of 2006.

[Stinky The Clown]

4. 3 Partners and 1 Employee

We almost never see each other. I am in the Baltimore/DC area, one partner in Virginia and one in TX. Our employee is in NC. While we don't see much of each other, er're in touch by phone several times a day. We probably speak more now than we were all togther in one place.

We all used to work together in the same office before we started this business. We set it up to be home based and remote from the outset (13 years ago), so trust is a huge part of it.

Our employee has two kids, one in ES and one in HS and she's your typical soccer mom. Since she works only as needed to support us, she's free to set her own hours. All she gets from us is instructions and a deadline. She's never missed one. We value her immensely and take good care of her. More per hour than the job's worth (cuz she rarely gets 40 hours) and a very generous bonus on her birthday and at the holidays.

[superconnected]

5. Yes, and I'm too easy going.

I would want me as a boss.

I was a waitress for 3 days once in my teens and had a boss who wanted us to be busy no matter what. Always wiping tables, filling the salt etc.

I will never be that kind of a boss.

When my employees get done early, they're still paid for the full time of the job they were to do (they clean houses), and I don't act like they're lazy for sitting around on the clock, afterword for it. IE if they have a house slotted for 2 hours, to clean and they get done in an hour, I'm not going to punnish them for being effecient. They get done fast and do a good regularly now because they know the rest of the time is theirs. They can go home afterward for all I care.