Calculating wages to compare jobs

This gets mentioned in various threads, trying to compare one wage to another when considering jumping ship, or more to the point when you get cheesed off with your current job which may not be quite as bad as you think when you examine it.

As was the case couple of weeks ago i was talking to a young driver on for another company who was thoroughly cheesed off and we got chatting as you do, pay was the problem it wasn’t high enough.
Anyway he told me his pay which admittedly didn’t sound high, then his overtime on top every other saturday, but its the short hours he does that makes the job better than he realised, say 35 hours a week and between 6 to 9 hours OT so 35 hours weeks 1 and 3 and roughly 42 hours weeks 2 and 4 inc overtime, no nights away and dead easy work.
Ok he might break down or summat odd might come up once in a blue moon where a 7 hour days suddenly becomes 13 but thats always been the case in transport, his lorry was good and the work local so breakdown rare.

I did a back of ■■■ packet calculation for him which ended up as he’s on near enough £18.50 an hour average during the week and £30 an hour on his overtime shifts, that is good money in anyones book.

Whilst he agreed with these calcs he still couldn’t get it, i suspect he’s been wound up, hopefully i’ve scuppered that plan cos he’s a nice enough young bloke who i see now and again, he’s only just developed this attitude and i’m certain some bugger’s got to him, probably after his job

Right, the calculation.

There is only one way to compare pay IMHO, and that is to work out a mean average hourly rate for the hours you actually work.

So take top line (exclude any ex’s etc) and divide it by the number of hours you work to earn it, that will give you the hourly rate across the board.
You can factor in weekends, bank hols, earlies, lates, shifts, skills, graft etc to the caluculation, ie if you’re permanently on weekends and work many of the bank hols then that rate needs to average at least £5 an hour more than if you are on weekdays only.
This is the calculation i believe for day/night/shift workers who don’t have nights away.

I’m not sure how a tramper could calculate wages, because expenses and night out payments will feature in a trampers income more, plus their car fuel costs might be considerably less due to a once a week commute instead of daily, any ideas on a calculation for the drivers who do nights away? how do you lot compare jobs?

35 hrs a week pull the other one

Then add in oddments like us doing long ferry journeys, 24 hour types, pay 12 hours, so a return trip will see 24 hours pay for sitting on a ferry. I’ve really no idea how you’d work a system whereby you could compare that kind of job. And at least half of our nights out are in hotels on expenses.

In terms of work, without going through it all, ( will do if anyone’s desperate), technically speaking some of the jobs we do, one of a double manned crew could not ‘work’ or drive at all in a week, still get to Sweden and back and be on |POA all week. Often our lads will return a timesheet that might say 80 hours, that’s what we pay, but work and driving together come in under 25 hours for the week.

How do you compare that with someone that has to handball and drives pretty much nine - ten hours a day?

albion:
Then add in oddments like us doing long ferry journeys, 24 hour types, pay 12 hours, so a return trip will see 24 hours pay for sitting on a ferry. I’ve really no idea how you’d work a system whereby you could compare that kind of job. And at least half of our nights out are in hotels on expenses.

In terms of work, without going through it all, ( will do if anyone’s desperate), technically speaking some of the jobs we do, one of a double manned crew could not ‘work’ or drive at all in a week, still get to Sweden and back and be on |POA all week. Often our lads will return a timesheet that might say 80 hours, that’s what we pay, but work and driving together come in under 25 hours for the week.

How do you compare that with someone that has to handball and drives pretty much nine - ten hours a day?

Just missed out me n the old Foden going to Oslo this week ,51 hrs on the ferry to Gothenburg and 26 hrs back ,no thanks ,it was bad enough last time and it didn’t go via brevic then .

It’s a bit like a mate of mine, he’s on salary and he works the balls of the motor, maxes out, srarts at stupid times, uses his hours as targets rather than limits and all the rest of it.
I’ve explained the more he does the less hourly rate he is on, I aint saying do next to ■■■■ all and toss it off in a lay by either btw, but there is a happy medium between the two.
They don’t all work like that in his firm btw,.and it counts for nothing as he stlil gets stitched up by them regularly, …mostly because he is further on than they expect him to be.
Why work like that when you don’t have to, and when you can get paid for doing the job at a less stressful more sensible way.
Maybe he’s too conscientious and I’m too cynical who knows.

Punchy Dan:
Just missed out me n the old Foden going to Oslo this week ,51 hrs on the ferry to Gothenburg and 26 hrs back ,no thanks ,it was bad enough last time and it didn’t go via brevic then .

You’d hate us, Cuxhaven, Esbjerg, Gothenburg, all around the 24 hour mark. Might be doing a few trips over to Finland direct, that would be three days on a ferry!

I think that some drivers just get into that mindset. When I was on agency, paid by the hour with 45 taken off the day, you can be sure that I kept to all the speed limits and took an hour for lunch. If some FLT driver said that I would have to wait - fine “wake me up when you are ready.” Back at the yard, I would hear fellow agency drivers boasting about how fast they could do some of the regular runs.

Our firm no one boasts about how fast you can do it. Just do the job safely, inform the office any delays and when finish for next job all local work. home every night take home around £550 cushty

Santa:
Back at the yard, I would hear agency type Down right bellends boasting about how fast they could do some of the regular runs.

FTFY.

The concept of “down time” (NOT “POA”) makes what looks like a crap job far better as well, of course.

You can re-calculate your TRUE “Hourly rate” for comparisons here.

Example: Job (A) has you working 40 hours for 40 hours pay @ £15.00 per hour. Sounds good? £600 gross per week, no nights out?

There might be NO overtime, and you might find yourself either going over on a salaried basis (no paid overtime either!) OR run ragged as such that you are lucky to make 10-15 minutes per week on the job, no overtime qualified for alas.

Then there’s Job (B) which also pays £600pw, officially for 48 hours rather than 40 - and on the face of it looks crap compared to job (A)…

But with job (B) you spend 3-4 hours sitting somewhere like Tilbury Docks during which time you’d hopefully be getting your head down. If your basic duty is a 12 hour 4 shift week, let’s say - then you might only be work 8 hours x 4 shifts (32 hours!) for the same £600 that Job (A) is getting. Now 32 hours could be argued to be a part time job!

You only need the timings to be reliable week in and week out - to do quite nicely out of such a regime.
…And the extra bonus of course is that you’ll never be tired and fatigued on duty - because there’s always chance to grab some z’s each and every day!

I agree the calculation of hours spent on the job divided by gross pay is a very good base line to start with, particularly as you go to work to earn a living.

There are however for myself personally and I would assume many other drivers, other factors such as.

Sick pay
Holiday pay averaged over the previous 12 weeks hours worked
Bonuses (not related to individual performance)
Staff discounts
Licence renewal/digi card/CPC paid for
Sensible hours sensible work load
Well maintained kit with no corner cutting
No favouritism

Obviously the above usually only applies to large own account operators, there are many advantages working for small family owned concerns.

A couple of minutes with a calculator before you jump ship is always a good idea, when you are younger net pay is all consuming, as you get older and wiser other factors come into play like pensions sick pay and other benefits, my basic hourly rate is not great its the little add ons that make a sizeable difference.

I would rather even take a lower hourly rate for an easier/more interesting job involving more driving than a higher hourly rate for a zb job.IE distance bulk deliveries involving few or just one drop/collection as opposed to the boredom and all the aggro of multi drop etc etc type dross for example.

Hi all first post been offered job which is salaried please give pro,s and con,s and best way to use to my advantage ? many thanks

I’ve done both salaried, and hourly paid in general haulage. Setting aside the argument regarding general being a festering pile of maggot infested baboon crap for a minute, I would strongly advocate being paid by the hour.

Unless you work for a very good firm, the general haulage players will have little to no regard for WTD. Using POA/breaks a lot makes a mockery of it anyway, so you are ripe for a good bumming if you opt for a salary on general.

If you look hard enough though, there are a few own account salaried positions which offer good pay for less than 50 hours per week. These jobs are seldom advertised though and having a ’ friend of a friend ’ often helps along with a clean licence and a decent helping of manners.

csideyosser:
Hi all first post been offered job which is salaried please give pro,s and con,s and best way to use to my advantage ? many thanks

I have been paid both by the hour, and salary. To reiterate what EB said I would always aim to be paid by the hour in transport, as it can go wrong and there is nothing worse than being sat somewhere waiting to tip or be recovered watching your hourly rate go down.

I have been self employed for a few years now, and get a bit of variety both sides of the job, but even the jobs I do in transport offices I ask if I can book by the hour.

I do know people who are happy on salary however.

Also can I say the best job I had was about the lowest paid… but I had no family or responsibilities back then.

eagerbeaver:
I’ve done both salaried, and hourly paid in general haulage. Setting aside the argument regarding general being a festering pile of maggot infested baboon crap for a minute, I would strongly advocate being paid by the hour.

Unless you work for a very good firm, the general haulage players will have little to no regard for WTD. Using POA/breaks a lot makes a mockery of it anyway, so you are ripe for a good bumming if you opt for a salary on general.

If you look hard enough though, there are a few own account salaried positions which offer good pay for less than 50 hours per week. These jobs are seldom advertised though and having a ’ friend of a friend ’ often helps along with a clean licence and a decent helping of manners.

I wouldn’t have given general that vote of confidence other than that spot on

Salary will be there whatever you do, and should, after a time, include full sick pay not as i’m advocating drawing it, but you leave yourself open to abuse by getting you to work more hours for free, so from day one do not use POA or book breaks other than the statutory requirements, that way you are limited to the 48 hour average week always assuming that is your pay is based on 48, but make sure that you get paid for any stand down time to allow hours to even out of they’ve got you running over 48 regularly.
As Darkside mentions, it can play against you too but any breakdown and waiting time is counted as other work in my book, so still counting towards the 48 hour max.

Salary suits own account work, always assuming the employer is a good one, it doesn’t usually suit general haulage but there are always exceptions to every rule.

Hourly pay at least you know where you are, well assuming basic pay is mon/fri between the hours of 6am and 6pm for 40 hours, with overtime @ X 1.5 after 8 hours daily, saturday @ x1.5 till midday when double pay takes over, and sundays @ x2, plus 25% loading for before 6am and after 6pm on top of those rates, all overtime calculated daily not weekly.
Well thats how it used to be.
But on the minus side they can send you home early when work is short, hence why you want overtime calculated daily not weekly and a guaranteed 8 hour day…you can find guaranteed 10 hour days advertised but that tends to go hand in hand with 10 hours being basic pay and even worse overtime rate after 50 hours at summat stupid like another ■■■■■■■ £1 an hour

I dont think you can easily do it. Everyone has a different opinion on what is important to them, and there are too many varied jobs out there which will appeal to different folks. I value my time and I wouldnt be happy sleeping for 3hrs mid shift for a low wage. I would still count the hours and do the division sum for an hourly rate.
Im on a decent rate as it happens but I want to earn the money in the shortest time possible and if that is achieved by "working" all day, then so be it. Having said that I try and avoid fridge work, retail generally, RDCs and container stuff…but thats just me. Im sure theres plenty who wouldnt do steel/flat work but I prefer it. Then theres the shiny lorry question! Thats one thing which doesnt figure in my calculations, but might be vital to a trucky type person. Nah theres too many variables. If your happy and you know it…stay. If not move on.

Many thanks for your prompt reply much appreciated the firm is near Barbridge it has a high salary base once again cheers

Salaried here, on Own Account work (managed by a major logistics company). Average a little under 40 hours a week. No time pressure, no phone calls from the office, no use of POA, no tipping on Break, no reduced Rests. Reasonable company pension scheme (they match my contributions), sick pay, clean work. Drive whatever they want me to drive (from Sprinter van to Class One - although majority of my work is on 18T rigid). Normally no weekend working, no nights out. O/T if I work a Bank Holiday, DCPC training provided (and training hours done on a Saturday at O/T rates) Hourly rate works out at a bit over £13. But if I quoted my weekly take-home figure I daresay there’d be a lot of “wouldn’t get out of bed for that money” comments…

csideyosser:
Hi all first post been offered job which is salaried please give pro,s and con,s and best way to use to my advantage ? many thanks

Having done percentage(20% of vehicle earnings) salary and hourly pay, I would always recommend hourly pay.

On salary you will likely be doing 60+ hours a week tipping on break and living on P.O.A if something like a breakdown tyre problems traffic issues all of which are highly likely you won’t be getting paid for it.

On the other hand hourly pay you are paid for you’re duty time usually less breaks, any problems like the ones listed above you get paid, also with salary you are unlikely to earn any more for overtime.