Money to Me NOT the Temp Agency! HELP!I have been working for a small company for 9 months on a temp-to-hire basis, and am told that I will finally receive an offer by the end of this week. Since placement of this job, I have shown that I am able to take on many roles in the company and have shown that I would be a valuable asset based on my knowledge and ability in such a short period of time. I currenlty feel that I am not being fully compensated for my posistion. Also with the upcoming months my co-worker will be leaving on maternity which means I will be taking over her job and still managing my job during this time adding an additional 20hrs of OT. I’m not quite sure on how to approach this pay negotiation b/c working through the temp agency I know that they are taking half of my paycheck every week (Possible Finders fee? Not sure). Now that I know an offer will be made, would it be reasonable to approach the offer in asking for the full pay they are paying the Temp agency currently? ($2,200 weekly direct to me instead of temp agency?) As an example: I take home $1000/wkly and the temp agency gets $2,200/wkly after taxes; I am on an hourly basis and do about 8 hour of OT a week. Should I calculate on an hourly or stay with a base salary considering I will be taking on extra 20 hours of OT a week? Any help or suggestions you may have would greatly be appreciated. Sorry for the poor grammar. First of all, congratulations on your offer! I honestly never worked through temp agency, solely for the fact that I lose out on my pay to them. But I had no idea how much the agencies were being compensated for! It almost seems ridiculous in your situation. How could they be paid twice as much as you?? Who knows? Maybe I'm just naive. Anyhow, I'd think you have the right to negotiate for the full pay. You've said so yourself: you've proved your worth and shown how well you can adapt to the company. Have you had any reviews yet to support your case? Bring up some of the positives from that could help out tremendously. Another thing to consider...is this offer going to be salary or wage? From my experiences, an offer doesn't always constitute a salary. You may simply get a higher hourly wage than before. Now, if you'll be offered a wage with overtime pay option...there really isn't much to worry about with you taking on your co-worker's work load. If it's going to be salary, you could perhaps use the fact that you are already putting in overtime (and more to come the next few months) to negotiate a bit higher pay. I hope this helps. And you'll get a response from the negotiation expert soon enough so sit tight and wait for his two cents. I know he has helped me when I felt hopeless sometimes. Your offer will likely be somewhere between what you are currently getting and what the temp agency is being paid. Remember, you will (I assume) be getting a benefit package from the employer when you go on direct. this precludes them giving you a cash salary the same as what they're paying the agency, then giving you a benefit package worth several thousand dollars on top of that! Why on earth would any employer want to bother hiring on direct if they had to do so under those terms? Plus, your temp agency is paying your payroll taxes right now; your employer will be paying those once you're hired direct. You take home $1,000/week--that is not your base pay. You don't negotiate salary based on your take-home pay. I don't mean to sound rude or anything, but it doesn't sound as if you have a solid grasp of temp vs. direct pay and benefits, and what to realistically expect when you make the switch. In my experience, and that of people I know, you would generally be offered a total compensation higher that your current base pay, to, of course, make it worthwhile for you to go on direct, but your base wage will be less than what the agency is "getting," so that it is also an attractive arrangement to the employer. Once you factor in the value of benefits, you should be at least made "whole" (that is, not making any less), and possibly come out a little ahead. But I would not, under any circumstances, count on getting double your current salary! Keep in mind that as a full-time employee, you' re probably going to be offered benefits you' re not receiving now. Ordinarily benefits can be equal to anywhere from 25% to 35% of your base salary so, what usually happens, is the base salary goes down, but the total compensation package will be worth more to you with the addition of benefits. There' s no way, not to be blunt, that this employer is going to pay you twice what you' re taking home now, especially with the addition of benefits and a full-time salary added together. The temp cost also includes saving the employer the additional paperwork associated with hiring someone full-time, so the temp agency probably isn' t getting half of the fee you think they' re collecting. If the total cost to the employer is $2,200 per week, that' s more than $114,000 per year in salary alone! No disrespect intended, but ain' t no way you' re going form $52K per year to $114K per year - that' s just not realistic. I think you can expect a total salary and benefit package that' s somewhere in the neighborhood of $52,000 per year, or even a little more, but it' s just unrealistic to expect a salary offer that' s twice your take-home now. I think you should wait and see what' s offered, not just in terms of base salary, but also in terms of the value of the benefits that will go with a full-time position. Hope this helps. Thank you so much for your reply. After reading my blog, I realized that I miscalculated. It was a total of $2,200 that was paid out to the Temp Agency weekly and out of this amount I received $1,000 & they got $1,200 of the pay check. I had a brainfart moment there. I didn' t put into account the benefit factor with the offer, but this does make a lot of sense to me now and know that if there is an offer that is under my expectation; I know exactly what range to ask for. I haven’t gotten the offer yet but expecting it soon since they’ve already booked my trip to D.C. for more training next week. It looks promising! Everyone' s correspondence and yours (of course) has clarified a lot to me. Thanks to everyone for your advice I hope you all have a blessed day! It might give you some retroactive peace of mind to think just a little differently about your weekly paycheck. Your temp agency doesn't take half of your check. Your salary is $1,000 per week. Your agency bills the client $2,200 per week.The thousand bucks is your salary. The excess is the agency's fee. (It sounds incredibly high, by the way.) It is not being skimmed off your paycheck. Your salary should have been clearly stated to you at the time you accepted the assignment. And I'm surprised you know what your agency bills. That's usually top secret info. You should contact your agency now that an offer is imminent. It is unlikely that you will be negotiating on your own; the agency will almost certainly get involved. That depends on the agency (read the fine print in your contract) but you should let them know about the offer. No, her salary is not $1,000/week--that is her take-home pay. Her salary is higher, and the agency is paying the federal, state, local, and Social Security taxes out of "their" additional $1,200 per week. Granted that the agency cut still sounds high, if indeed that figure is accurate, but some posters here seem to forget that the agency is not pocketing all of that extra. Social Security taxes alone are about 15%. I don' t understand why this doesn' t seem to be getting factored in by lots of folks. As much as we should be bad mouthing agencies, their take is usually around 20 to 30%. This I know, because clients and agencies have admitted this to me. What the benefits are, is what the usually agency take. What ever they offer, don't argue over a stupid thing. Take the benefits, but you have the right to always look elsewhere. Look at your original employment agreement between you, client and greedy agency. Nothing is standard, the terms very too much. If you don't have one make sure they are following the agency original written policy. They have to have one, because that is the only power that they have to win in court. Many temporaries are glad you are getting a permanent offer. Many now have worked years with not even having a permanent offer under this stupid economy. Go your temp agency and tell them that unless you get a part of their "finders fee" which they will get from your employer for finding them a good FT employee or will not accept the FT job offer and will leave. I went temp to perm and did not do this. I wish I had. | |
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