what is required for night duty? ie are they asleep unless something extraordinary happens? if they are expected to be awake - this is something else entirely..
They just have to be there in case of an emergency..ie: someone gets locked out of their room, or the pilot light wont start. etc... For the most part it is very uneventful. especially during the off season.
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beachmotel said:
They just have to be there in case of an emergency..ie: someone gets locked out of their room, or the pilot light wont start. etc... For the most part it is very uneventful. especially during the off season.
Two parts/issues to this comment in the order they presented themselves - but "B" is the more interesting and potentially concerning for you, IMHO:
A. In response to your initial question about overall compensation for what they are doing, it seems to me, obviously without knowing any details (i.e. your local wages, etc.) that a starting point is to add up all the hours the work you described would require per month, multiply times some appropriate hourly rate, and compare to the local fair market rental value of their lodging, utilities, cable, laundry plus the $600 you mentioned. Then adjust up or down as appropriate for the intangibles or whatever makes sense? The closest analogy to this might be resident managers in apartment buildings - see if you can find out what they are compensated in your local area and use as another point of departure? An inquiry call to an apartment house real estate management company might get you a one minute briefing on what they pay apartment house resident managers and go from there. It might be so many $ per month per unit in a buidling, in rental value and/or $. And/or call a few local hotels and see what they pay night desk clerks or check want ads for hotel staff?
So, for example, 4 nights a week night duty at, say, 8 hours per shift (?), times the average 4.33 weeks per month, at, say, $15 an hour, is $2,078 (check my math). Add the hours x hourly rate for the gardening and cleaning you mentioned. How does that compare to the rental value, etc. per above plus $600?
B. Per comment #1:
"what is required for night duty? ie are they asleep unless something extraordinary happens? if they are expected to be awake - this is something else entirely.", followed by your response @ #2...
This seems a dicey situation. There are labor laws - Federal and State, about having to compensate "on-call" workers, awake or not, and this sounds like your situation. Especially when they are living on your - the employer's - premises, as you described. Maybe you already know all this and plan to compensate accordingly, or build into the compensation package with an assigned hourly rate for those night hours, maybe at a lower rate, but still at least the legal minimum wage? I'm not a lawyer, but you might want to check with one, or check local large law firms' websites for on-line employment law newletters that allow you to search this topic for an article based on your state labor laws, or maybe your state B&B or lodging association can help? If you violate a law like this one, and the employee someday finds out they're owed for uncompensated time, you could face a ruinous claim for back wages, maybe treble damages (in Washington state), legal fees, etc. And I don't think any insurance policy will cover such a claim. All they need do is be talking to a lawyer relative, call a lawyer radio show, hear a news article about some class action lawsuit and get the idea they've been wronged. Or read these posts?
Google: "employment law for on call hours" and you'll get a bunch of legal resources and Q&A postings at legal sites on this very issue. You can ask your question at such legal websites as
www.avvo.com,
www.lawyers.com, etc.
Here's one example:
http://labor-employment-law.lawyers.com/wage-and-hour-law/Pay-for-On-Call-Time.html
"It's pretty clear-cut that when you report to work and begin your duties, you're entitled to receive pay for your time. Gray areas occur when your employer wants you to stand by for duty when you're not technically on the clock. This is "on-call" time and it's required of employees frequently enough that the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has released guidelines to identify under what circumstances you should receive pay for these hours.
[h2]Location Matters[/h2]
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act or FLSA, if you're physically at the location of your employer's business, you should receive pay for these hours even if you're not technically working."