Being responsible for job estimate

[shacked]

Ok, thanks to everyone that responded to my last post. Wow, I didn't think I would get that many responses. Since I got a lot of varied responses I will clear this up with a little background about the company I work for.

I work for a small structural engineering company in Southern California. When I say small I am talking about 2 registered P.E.'s including the owner, myself and another engineer, as well as a drafter/designer.

We mainly work in custom residential including shoring systems, and some light commercial.

Now my question:

I have almost 4 years of experience and I am currently studying for my P.E. For the past year when a new job comes in for bid, the owner will give the job to one of us and ask us to tell him how much time we think it will take us, so basically an estimate. He never directly told us that this will be the final estimate that he sends out to the client, as I always assumed that he adjusted the times that we gave him because he has a lot more experience then us.

Well just today he told me that he will start holding us responsible for our estimated time and that if we go over the time we will not get payed for that. Since we are all paid hourly we will basiclly be working for free if this happens.

Now I'm all for this, except I think that with this added responsibility should come added pay....but not in his eyes. All this on top of the fact that I make little more then some people that I know who don't even have a college degree.

Now I can already hear the old guys, "you should be lucky you have a job, or if you wanted a lot of money you should have went into another field...blah blah."

Let me explain my point, so it is clear:
I agree that as a structural engineer we should be professionals and do whatever it takes to get the job done right. Since I am not even a registered engineer I have very little "weight" as to the final structural design of a project. So by putting this added responsibility on us it is a win win situation for the boss. If we estimate too many hours he will chock it up to in-experience and re-evaluate the hours and send out the bid at a lower time. If we are under, then he gets free labor. But how do we benefit besides the increased stress? We will not see added compensation.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Thanks

 

[moltenmetal]

Time to start looking for a better employer!

If the guy wants you to be a contractor rather than an employee, he can pay you a contractor's rate. THEN, and only then, can he feel free to only pay you for the hours you worked up to a maximum of the hours you bid.

Accepting compensation based on hours worked up to a maximum of your bid estimate is referred to as a "time and materials- not to exceed" contract. Having done some of those for clients while at a previous employer, I will NEVER enter into such an arrangement again. It is lose-lose for the supplier of the services: come in under the estimate and you lose revenue; go over the estimate and you don't get paid for work you actually do. What's in it for you? Such contracts are ONLY for the desperate, and the stupid.

If the guy wants you to take ownership of your job estimates but still pay you as an employee, paying you a reduced SALARY plus a profit-sharing bonus is the way to do this. Or he can make you a partner in HIS business. Such an offer is not much use unless you have the money to buy in so you can truly share in the profit.

Before you say yes to any such scheme, you'd need a defensible agreement with him. In lieu of a track record with other employees who are satisfied with the scheme, you'd need to see his financials to verify that you're being compensated fairly (which implies an ownership position).

In my view, anyone unethical enough to attempt to coersce employees to accept compensation as if they were T&M not to exceed contractors is NOT going to be trustworthy enough for you to risk accepting a profit sharing bonus scheme in return for reduced salary or uncompensated overtime. Even if the business succeeds, he'll simply lie and claim that the profit was lower than it actually was, and put the extra into his own pocket. Unless you have access to the financials and are willing to (and can afford to) sue your boss, you're going to be out of luck.

 

[lowedogg]

It sounds like your boss is copping out on his responsibilities. The only other possibility is that he's testing you to find out what you can do. IMO, a better tst would be to give you a project and a budget and see if you can design to the budget, basically test whether you can control your effort and concentration to provide the "Ford" that the client paid for rather than the "Cadillac" that you learned to build in college.

To realistically hold you responsible for estimates, he has to open up the books to you and offer some reward for profitability.

 

[csd72]

quoting is his job, not yours.

Simple solution,double all your estimated times!

 

[B16A2]

Sounds to me that he's forcing you to learn how to track your time better (not a bad thing to know). You may want to self reflect before accusing him.

Maybe he is a jerk, but maybe he sees a lot of inefficiency and disregard for current budget hours.