Computer Tech Employee Pay Rate?

[ascendant]

Ok, so I'm starting up a small private computer repair business at this time. So far, I've been doing all the repairs myself, but I'm looking to have someone work under me so I can just focus on promoting the business.

The thing I'm not sure about is how I would pay the employee. I am thinking for some jobs, such as virus removal, data retrieval/backup, and other fairly basic things, I would give them a cut (50%) of what I charge the client. For jobs that would require hourly time (like hardware repair/replacement), I would do the same as far as the cut from what the client pays. Not sure if there is a set way most people in this field get paid, or if it varies from employer to employer.

Also not sure of the best way to keep them from stealing clients other than a basic contract. Figured in the contract, it would inform them that if found to be working with a client under the table, they will be terminated immediately. Also, since all clients would be contacting me first, I would be able to do 30 day check ups on client satisfaction and could find out at that point if any additional work had been done that I was unaware of.

If anyone on here has any suggestions for any of this based on their own personal experiences, I would love to hear them. Thanks.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Ok, so I'm starting up a small private computer repair business at this time. So far, I've been doing all the repairs myself, but I'm looking to have someone work under me so I can just focus on promoting the business.

The thing I'm not sure about is how I would pay the employee. I am thinking for some jobs, such as virus removal, data retrieval/backup, and other fairly basic things, I would give them a cut (50%) of what I charge the client. For jobs that would require hourly time (like hardware repair/replacement), I would do the same as far as the cut from what the client pays. Not sure if there is a set way most people in this field get paid, or if it varies from employer to employer.

Most people doing that kind of stuff just get an hourly rate.

When I still did that stuff, I was making between $12 and $17 an hour. If you hunt around on Glassdoor, you'll find "Geek Squad Advanced Repair Agents" which basically do that, and are making $13-14/hr.

Also not sure of the best way to keep them from stealing clients other than a basic contract. Figured in the contract, it would inform them that if found to be working with a client under the table, they will be terminated immediately. Also, since all clients would be contacting me first, I would be able to do 30 day check ups on client satisfaction and could find out at that point if any additional work had been done that I was unaware of.

A non-compete is pretty standard stuff for small business like this. You should be able to find a boilerplate one pretty easily - don't write your own.

If anyone on here has any suggestions for any of this based on their own personal experiences, I would love to hear them. Thanks.

Qualified people are pretty common (A+ certs, basically) but expect some turnover as they move on to bigger and better things.* You don't necessarily have to pay more than Geek Squad if you are a "cool boss" or if you're paying them cash and/or under the table. (Also, tell the IRS I said hello!) But you do need to come in a little higher if you're not providing health benefits.

Paying on a per-job or per-task basis is a little less common. It's more common for car repair techs, though. It might insulate you from some legal liability if you pay them as an independent subcontractor / 1099 income (It definitely keeps your business taxes simpler!) but then, realistically speaking, your non-compete becomes a lot harder to enforce, since they are now technically their own small business, and one of your competitors.

*Hopefully. You might get lucky with somebody who is both good at their job, and not ambitious, in which case, you have a new best friend for life. But most people who do this sort of entry-level computer work are either going to move on to more lucrative work, or find out that they have no business fixing computers for a living.

 

[pontifex]

Ok, so I'm starting up a small private computer repair business at this time. So far, I've been doing all the repairs myself, but I'm looking to have someone work under me so I can just focus on promoting the business.

The thing I'm not sure about is how I would pay the employee. I am thinking for some jobs, such as virus removal, data retrieval/backup, and other fairly basic things, I would give them a cut (50%) of what I charge the client. For jobs that would require hourly time (like hardware repair/replacement), I would do the same as far as the cut from what the client pays. Not sure if there is a set way most people in this field get paid, or if it varies from employer to employer.

Also not sure of the best way to keep them from stealing clients other than a basic contract. Figured in the contract, it would inform them that if found to be working with a client under the table, they will be terminated immediately. Also, since all clients would be contacting me first, I would be able to do 30 day check ups on client satisfaction and could find out at that point if any additional work had been done that I was unaware of.

If anyone on here has any suggestions for any of this based on their own personal experiences, I would love to hear them. Thanks.

Unless you're charging exorbitant rates, then I wouldn't expect anyone outside of high school to apply. Even then McDonald's probably pays better.

 

[Jeffg010]

https://www.technibble.com/

You can thanks me later.

 

[thesmokingman]

You probably won't keep anyone good. Your customers will steal the good ones. And then when they are good and realize they are good, they will eventually figure out that they can do it on their own.

 

[ascendant]

Thanks for all the information. Since I live in a college town, I'm figuring I can have college kids working for me that don't have the time to market themselves, but have spare time to fix computers if I'm the one driving the business to them.

In this area, at a price of $84 for virus removal, I am cheap. Since I can typically clear out viruses in no more than an hour or so, this means my employee would be making $42 for an hour or so of work. I don't see how "McDonalds pay" would be better than that.

As far as jobs that I would need to charge hourly for, any suggestions on how I would hold the employee accountable as far as honesty with hours so my clients don't get gouged?

 

[pontifex]

Thanks for all the information. Since I live in a college town, I'm figuring I can have college kids working for me that don't have the time to market themselves, but have spare time to fix computers if I'm the one driving the business to them.

In this area, at a price of $84 for virus removal, I am cheap. Since I can typically clear out viruses in no more than an hour or so, this means my employee would be making $42 for an hour or so of work. I don't see how "McDonalds pay" would be better than that.

As far as jobs that I would need to charge hourly for, any suggestions on how I would hold the employee accountable as far as honesty with hours so my clients don't get gouged?

Yeah, but how many hours are they going to be working. Mcdonalds is guarranteed work. Are you going to have constant work for them or is it going to be 1 hour every few days?

 

[Kaido]

And then when they are good and realize they are good, they will eventually figure out that they can do it on their own.

That's the biggest hassle with hiring people...you have to offer an awfully enticing package for creative, intelligent, motivated people to stay with your company. Google is smart because they offer free food, games like volleyball, let you work on your own projects, and give you a fat paycheck. One of my buddies started programming for them after high school & never wants to leave, even though he could do super-well on his own. It's hard to offer that level of compensation & packages to people for a few bucks above minimum wage & still get awesome performance from people. There are workers here & there who are talented & simply have a good work ethic, but that's why they say good help is hard to find...it actually isn't, it's just hard to find on the cheap

 

[sourceninja]

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[luv2liv]

I work in consulting. I make a salary that breaks down to about 55 an hour and my company charges around 190 an hour for my time.

Of course we don't do desktop break fix, but to me it shows that you should expect a 3X markup to be profitable.

im guessing network or security consulting??? holy cow!

 

[dave_the_nerd]

im guessing network or security consulting??? holy cow!

Not necessarily. We were paying a contracting firm $200/hour to write a database migration utility. (They sucked, we ended up scrapping the project and hiring our favorite intern from the year before to do it instead.)

 

[Kaido]

im guessing network or security consulting??? holy cow!

Nah, that's pretty normal. In CT, a few years ago the going rate for IT business services was $130 an hour, and that's just for generic stuff. Overhead & profit = high hourly rate. Don't know what that rate is in 2016 dollars, but I'm sure it's even higher!

 

[sourceninja]

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[Insomniator]

All of that is way over what OP is talking about. He needs some entry level help desk type guy to work for 15 bucks an hour.

While finding help may be difficult, I find the bigger problem being finding enough business in general. How many people still get actual viruses these days? I haven't seen those take-over-computers style viruses since Windows 7 came along.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

All of that is way over what OP is talking about. He needs some entry level help desk type guy to work for 15 bucks an hour.

While finding help may be difficult, I find the bigger problem being finding enough business in general. How many people still get actual viruses these days? I haven't seen those take-over-computers style viruses since Windows 7 came along.

Ransomware is definitely still a thing. And people still get their OSes hosed/unbootable due to corruption or bad HDD sectors, and need their photos and music copied off to a backup (what's a backup?) drive.

I knew a guy who would restore his computer from the manufacturer image every 2-3 months, he would get so much malware and crapware from... umm... sites.

 

[sourceninja]

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[AznAnarchy99]

Yea, I have seen 3 crypto infections in the last month. My mother-in-law, a customer, and myself (Long story, but I did a fresh install of W10, opened up IE so I could download chrome while windows patched and then left the room to go to dinner. Came back to crypto virus that I somehow got though an ad on bing.) I should have known better myself.

You're 99% fucked if you get one of the cryptos anyway.

 

[sourceninja]

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