Higher Driver fees vs lower hourly rate

[Bubba]

What are some thoughts on lowering a driver’s hrly rate and increasing his delivery fee. I am tossing around the idea of dropping the hrly rate by $3 and increasing his del fee by the same.
I understand the min wage law and understand that he needs to make min wage in a week with all tips vs hrs. worked.
My thoughts were when I am busy he is making money. When I am slow he is not making as much and neither am I.
Just trying to tweak my labor % some.
bubba

 

[Kris]

I too have often thought about doing this. But I think the industry at a whole pays drivers regular min. wage plus tips and delivery. To pioneer changing that to drivers making “server” minimum wage plus tips and fee is probably not going to fly.

Even if they make the same or more it will be the perceived pay that will win out.

We have all our drivers cross trained… they have to do dishes and other duties as part of their job. If we are slow they come up front and help cook, answer phones etc. This keeps costs down. I can send a cook home and the driver is there to help if needed but you can’t really send a driver home and have the cook drive. Make sense?

The other thing our drivers do is make menu/coupon drops when we are slow. They door hang and when we start to get busy we call em and bring em back.

Keep them busy and they are worth the labor cost.

 

[KevinL]

Bubba:

What are some thoughts on lowering a driver’s hrly rate and increasing his delivery fee. I am tossing around the idea of dropping the hrly rate by $3 and increasing his del fee by the same.
I understand the min wage law and understand that he needs to make min wage in a week with all tips vs hrs. worked.
My thoughts were when I am busy he is making money. When I am slow he is not making as much and neither am I.
Just trying to tweak my labor % some.
bubba

How many deliveries per hour do your drivers take?

As a driver, I would certainly agree to this. I average 2+ deliveries per hour so I would be getting $3 less in wages but $6 more in mileage reimbursement.

Assuming your drivers take more than 1 delivery per hour, how are you going to pay this increased cost?

 

[bodegahwy]

Our drivers make $6 per hour plus tips. They drive my cars so reibursement is not an issue.

The $6 used to above the minimum wage. Now it is below so I have to have them declare tips. It is not a big deal.

One thing I do run into is that the drivers do not want to do a lot of side work for $6 an hour. Somehow they are resistant to averaging the $20 an hour they make when we are busy and just accepting that slow time and side work is part of the deal. In the end they have to do it or they are gone but lowering the rate from $6 would just make the problem worse.

 

[cowtown]

I pay $6.50 per hour plus $1.00 per delivery plus tips. We don’t do a tremendous % in delivery so my guys make about $10/hr. during the day, $12-15 during weeknights, and about $17-20 on weekend nights.

They’re the highest paid people in the store and the quickest to claim they’re not being paid to do cleaning or whatever.

 

[td_VP192]

Ever since minimum wage went up($6.65 for us until next year) I’ve been thinking of trying to ‘tweak’ labor myself.
I thought of $3 an hour, .80 per delivery plus 10% commision. But like Kris said the industry has set the bar for driver pay.

Unfortunately I’ve had to do what everyone else is doing around here and that’s cut driver hours and take deliveries myself. The other day I was out delivering and ended up next to the owner of a Hungry Howies that’s right down the road from me. We both looked at each other and shared an empathetic laugh. Two owners out delievering pizza themselves, it’s sad.

 

[Daddio]

td_VP192:

Two owners out delievering pizza themselves, it’s sad.

I rather enjoy being out delivering. It gives me a chance to talk with my customers that never come in to the store. It is a good time check how well your drivers are doing.

Here is another thing to look at. If you reduce the hourly will it reduce your payroll taxes as well?

 

[Bubba]

I currently pay my driver’s $6.67/hr + $1.25 per trip. They avg $11-14/hr. Everyone knows that “everyone does everything”. They understand and work accordingly.
I am trying to get some feedback to play the devil’s advocate and help ask or answer questions. My ultimate goal is to possibly lower labor when slow and when I am busy I can afford to pay the driver’s more. I am wondering if the extra del chg would give them an incentive to be quicker on del and returns. I monitor the business and try to only schedule what I need so the driver’s can stay busy.
I will be evaluating last month’s no.s to see if it is feasible to pursue my thoughts.
Bubba

 

[RobT]

I’m out there too sometimes, TD.

I’m amazed by the tips the drivers get.
It offsets some payroll.

 

[bodegahwy]

The average tip around here is about $4. On a slow night a driver will take 12-15 deliveries and make $50 in tips Since they work about 5 hours on the dinner shift that is $10 an hour plus the $6 I pay them. On a busy night they will take up to 35 deliveries and make $140 in tips in 6 hours which means thier wage and tips combined are nearly $30 an hour.

My sympathies with them about doing dishes are limited. The cook’s sympathies with them are non-existant.

 

[GT1]

i feel the pain too… we have min wage at 7.15, so you know i’m out there deliverin too! the problem is with drivers, when they are calculating their pay, they use the figure that you pay them as their total. ( as if the tips were something that had nothing to do with working for you)

have you ever had an employee go down the road to work at McDonalds and say they are givin me 50 cents an hour more. and you say “how much are you gonna get there?” and they tell you they’re gonna get 7.65. and then you ask them how much they make here and they say " 7.15"
Then you tell them they aren’t gettin tips at McDs and here they make an extra 6-10 an hour in tips, and their reply is " ya but they’re givin me 7.65 an hour." duh! ???

that’s what you will be up against trying to hire people for less than min. they just don’t get it.

 

[wa_dave]

We have just decided to go the opposite way and pay our drivers $1 an hour more. This will take their hourly rate to $11 ( plus $2 an hour all shift for the one who does the final clean up on Friday, Sat & Sun ), plus delivery fee of $2, $2.50 or $3.50 depending on what delivery zone they do.
Tipping is not big in Australia so they would only get about $20 - $30 (rarely) on weekends and about $6 - $10 weekdays.
We decided to increase the hourly rate to retain what drivers we have and make it even more attractive for others to work for us rather than Domino’s or PH. Just got to find a way to ambush some of their drivers to come to us. :twisted:

Dave