Keeping the Spiff

[chip anderson]

Most of this tale reminds me of an old joke.
A man had three sons who returned home for his 65th birthday, one was a surgeon, one an attorney, one a stock broker.
During the afternoon first the surgeon told his dad: "Dad, I'm sorry I didn't get you a present this time the surgery has been so backed up, I just forgot.
Then the attorney told his dad: "Dad I didn't remember to get you a present this year, as you know I was going to appear before the Supreme Court and all my time was spent in preparation."
Last the Broker said: "Dad with what the market doing what it's been doingthis year I was afraid to leave the floor and at last I forgot to get you a present."

Later in the evening as the cake was being cut, and glasses being raised the old gentlemn said: "Boys I have an announcement. With the heat of things at the time, I forgot to marry your mother!"

The boys replied: "Dad! Does this mean we are all *******s?"

The old gentleman replied: "Yeah, cheap *******s.":finger:

[OPTIDONN]

That was great Chip!!:cheers:

[Chris Ryser]

Business owners who act this way are just bad business people. It's stupid treat employees in such a manner!
Something smells here and it IS the boss!

How abnout letting your boss know how you feel ..................and what you think of him.

[cocoisland58]

and one more thing while I'm thinking about it. Business owners who act this way are just bad business people. It's stupid treat employees in such a manner! If you do not value your employee's and the work they do for you your heading down a slippery path. If these employee's wish they could hurt business severly! or they could leave, meaning now that the employer would have to re-hire a new optician. High turnover could also really hurt patient satisfaction and hurt the bottom line. An employer who acts and feels like everything is entitled to them is probably no good. I know something smells here and it IS the boss!:finger:

Actually no one will leave here for such a small issue. There is little turnover at this office and we have a waiting list of dispensors who would love to work here. Yes, the boss is a bit eccentric and this behavior with the spiff is a touchy subject with the dispensors (they are young and love drama)but they now understand that in reality it all belongs to the owner of the business who they agree is really very generous in many other ways. I appreciate everyone's input and know that the issue at hand will be a non-issue next week if it isn't already.

[OPTIDONN]

Well thats good. In the past I've worked for people like this and they have all been rather bad people. But if your boss is generous and it aint a bad place to work but he needs to realize that what he did was not cool. You never know maybe he'll make it up to you all.

[just eyes]

we have issue with spiffs. sell brand x progressive and get x dollars. when thepromotion ended, guess what, brand x progressive was not being sold. it made the docs feel that the patients were not getting the best product. i think it is better to reward the staff on a percentage of profits or comp sales,

[GOS_Queen]

i think it is better to reward the staff on a percentage of profits or comp sales,

I agree :cheers:

[braheem24]

I have my selling standards in place, If a wholesale lab tried to control MY employees' selling habits and MY bottom line I would be furious. If this same lab did it behind my back I would fire the employees and have a lawyer contact them reminding them of the numerous anti-kickback laws they could be violating.

Either way I will inform the lab they have no right to write checks to my employees and WILL write the 'spiff' to the company otherwise I will be dealing with another lab that actually caters to it's customers.

[Chris Ryser]

i think it is better to reward the staff on a percentage of profits or comp sales,

In this case you would be the perfect salesrep on commission. No salaray, but commission on tha sales you make.

[Audiyoda]

I agree, however this particular "spiff" was specifically designated to employees only according to the owner of the lab and it was not to be used to offset lab expenses by the owners. Being "up front" about it would have been the right thing to do. The staff never asks for anything extra and works very hard. Selling a specific item to offset our lab bill would have been acceptable to them where as this seems to be very underhanded. They would have preferred not to be signed up for this at all, and they were signed up under their personal names not the name of the company or owner which seems to them also a privacy issue.

Thought I recognized that spiff program. If this is the program I think it is from the lab I'm thinking of, the owner is in breach of the spiff rules as I understand them. As I recall, the lab even has the owner sign a statement acknowledging he/she understands his/her employees are participating and that the spiffs would not go to offset lab expenses. That being said, I think it's up to the lab ownership to deal with this although they should be made aware that the spiff is not being paid as it should.

My personal take is that as long as patients are being services properly - as reflected by office policy on what should/should not be sold - then I'm all for opticians getting spiffed by labs/manufacturers/reps/whatever. But if patients are being sold product for the sake of being sold product (ie...specific PAL being sold to a documented non-adapt or specific PALs being sold only during a spiff time frame) then spiffs should be removed from the office. Why shouldn't employees be rewarded for hard work? I personally loved whoever said that employees are contracted to make $X and that should be enough. Good employees are the life blood of a practice (or any other business) - why shouldn't they be rewarded above and beyond?

[cocoisland58]

Thought I recognized that spiff program. If this is the program I think it is from the lab I'm thinking of, the owner is in breach of the spiff rules as I understand them. As I recall, the lab even has the owner sign a statement acknowledging he/she understands his/her employees are participating and that the spiffs would not go to offset lab expenses. That being said, I think it's up to the lab ownership to deal with this although they should be made aware that the spiff is not being paid as it should.

My personal take is that as long as patients are being services properly - as reflected by office policy on what should/should not be sold - then I'm all for opticians getting spiffed by labs/manufacturers/reps/whatever. But if patients are being sold product for the sake of being sold product (ie...specific PAL being sold to a documented non-adapt or specific PALs being sold only during a spiff time frame) then spiffs should be removed
from the office. Why shouldn't employees be rewarded for hard work? I personally loved whoever said that employees are contracted to make $X and that should be enough. Good employees are the life blood of a practice (or any other business) - why shouldn't they be rewarded above and beyond?

You probably do recognize this program being from MI. The thing is we didn't know we were signed up in the first place so we were selling as usual which includes lots of AR and Transition so no bias there. Our employees are wonderful and deserve any extras they can get but they work hard regardless of if they have a spiff or not. I prefer not and I sure don't like this one and intend to take care of it this week.

[SRL]

We don't have spiffs or commission. We are paid a decent wage and provided with a decent place to work. The owner is there with us four days a week. Customer service is the only consideration we have-you explain the options and sell what they need or want, without the pressure. We are never chastised for not selling something to a patient they neither need nor want. If caught doing that, we'd be gone. If we have a particularly good day or week, we get paid extra accordingly. In the case of the lab spiffs, he splits them fairly with us and most generally, we never know they're going on. It's his ball and his backyard, he takes the risks and signs the checks. It's all his, as far as I can tell.
IMHO, owners that have their employess sell for commission, A)aren't training their people to sell intelligently B)are providing less than liveable wages so their opticians depend on commission to make up the difference.
This will undoubtably increase the sales in the store, but what about customer service and patient retention.

[Audiyoda]

You probably do recognize this program being from MI. The thing is we didn't know we were signed up in the first place so we were selling as usual which includes lots of AR and Transition so no bias there. Our employees are wonderful and deserve any extras they can get but they work hard regardless of if they have a spiff or not. I prefer not and I sure don't like this one and intend to take care of it this week.

Ya know my preference in a situation like this with a multi-employee office is to have all the spiffs pooled and then taken to reward the employees equally in some way. One office I'm aware of over on the lakeshore did this last year for their employees - they ended up with so much after 12 months that each employee (front office staff included - they are apart of the patient experience after all) received $1000 in gift cards to their choice of stores. And they had enough left for a nice end of year party for the office. That's were spiffs can be used in a positive way to positively impact everyone in the office.

[MarcE]

I think we got off track here. If I understand correctly:

The boss/owner signed up each individual employee without them knowing. That's bad.

Owner is cashing the checks. That's legal as long as he isn't forging signatures. His lab expenses, his income.

Lab has a kickback program designed to circumvent management. That is VERY VERY BAD! I would never let my lab do that to me.

If the checks have the employees name on them, you can bet that they will get a 1099 from the lab or lens company, whether they got the money or not. But getting a 1099 doesn't prove the $ should belong to the employee. It indicates that the lab or lens company sent the 1099 to the wrong person.

Profits and expenses (taxes indicated by a 1099) belong to the business/owner.

[Audiyoda]

I think we got off track here. If I understand correctly:

The boss/owner signed up each individual employee without them knowing. That's bad.

Owner is cashing the checks. That's legal as long as he isn't forging signatures. His lab expenses, his income.

Not so fast - lab has a policy that these spiffs are not to offset lab expenses - so that's also bad if the owner is taking these spiffs as a second discount from the lab.

Lab has a kickback program designed to circumvent management. That is VERY VERY BAD! I would never let my lab do that to me.

Again, not so fast. Management is/was aware of the kickback/spiff so it's not designed to circumvent management - it appears that the lab approached management with the offer of the spiff in the first place.

[cocoisland58]

Not so fast - lab has a policy that these spiffs are not to offset lab expenses - so that's also bad if the owner is taking these spiffs as a second discount from the lab.
Again, not so fast. Management is/was aware of the kickback/spiff so it's not designed to circumvent management - it appears that the lab approached management with the offer of the spiff in the first place.

You are correct Audi. Lab is not happy with this and apparently many other accounts have done likewise. Lab will handle it. All will be well as we have come to the decision to use the money for a new sound system in the office since our old one sucks. Pooling the proceeds to everyone's benefit.

[shellrob]

The only thing I want to know is, are the checks made out to the specific employees? If so, how are they getting cashed by the boss? Because I know my labs, even though they direct any programs to the employees, send all checks to the boss unless I were to be a thief and tell them to send them to me, which is wrong wrong. Although anyone has access to all the scratch off's out there. Those still are given to the boss.

[Ladyoptician]

I have not completely read thru this whole thread, and forgive me if this is a repeat of what someone else has said, but here is my take on the situation: Yes, the boss pays all the bills and is entitled to all income, but on the other side of that coin, effort is made by the employee to make the sales, which, in my book would deserve some reward as well. I have no problem with my boss keeping any spiffs, but on many occasions, he has split it with me or has used it to benefit the whole office by buying lunch. I think the fair thing to do is split it or distribute throughout the office, because that spiff was not earned by just the bill getting paid...

[HarryChiling]

By the mixed views on this thread it is very obvious that spiffs in general lead to resentment and animosity between employers and the employees. The lab is doing business with the store not any individual in the store so I don't see how they should be directly offering any remuneration to the employees ethically. Consider it this way the lab that a store does business with is chargeing higher prices to cover the cost of these spiffs in one way or another, why should the employer have to cover this cost? Shouldn't the employees be just as concerned with COGS as the employer? The boss did nothing crooked, and if the lab is sending those checks in the employees names then the lab is the crooked one. I worked in a store where I had to fix the mess an optician created because spiffs were going direct to his house, yes his house. The rep knew what wasgoing on and so did the employee, but he had no vested interst in the store so he didn't care what the bills looked like. Don't let a lab talk you into a spiff ask for a discount on the bill instead. Afetr all a gas card worth $20.00 is worth less than a $20.00 bill.

My boss just asked me what I was typing and when I explained her the situation she said, "I hope we are not doing business with this lab"

[Diane]

Good post Harry.

By the mixed views on this thread it is very obvious that spiffs in general lead to resentment and animosity between employers and the employees. The lab is doing business with the store not any individual in the store so I don't see how they should be directly offering any remuneration to the employees ethically. Consider it this way the lab that a store does business with is chargeing higher prices to cover the cost of these spiffs in one way or another, why should the employer have to cover this cost? Shouldn't the employees be just as concerned with COGS as the employer? The boss did nothing crooked, and if the lab is sending those checks in the employees names then the lab is the crooked one. I worked in a store where I had to fix the mess an optician created because spiffs were going direct to his house, yes his house. The rep knew what wasgoing on and so did the employee, but he had no vested interst in the store so he didn't care what the bills looked like. Don't let a lab talk you into a spiff ask for a discount on the bill instead. Afetr all a gas card worth $20.00 is worth less than a $20.00 bill.

My boss just asked me what I was typing and when I explained her the situation she said, "I hope we are not doing business with this lab"

I wouldn't do business with them as well.

Diane

[DragonLensmanWV]

We use one spiff program from an independent frame supplier. We have everyone's name in a box and when something comes, we draw for it.
Everyone seems happy about that, as they have the same chance as everyone else.

[cocoisland58]

Oh good grief. I didn't mean to open a big can of worms. Believe me it is not that big of a deal and as far as this particular lab, it's hard to find better workmanship than they put out consistantly. Let's put it to rest, I've had a long day and I have a foot rub and a glass of Merlot waiting for me.

[FVCCHRIS]

By the mixed views on this thread it is very obvious that spiffs in general lead to resentment and animosity between employers and the employees.

I have always been opposed to the different "spiffs" due to the very fact that they were always something directed towards the Opticians in a back alley sort of way. They know who sells the product in the office so that's who gets the offers, usually not the Doc's or owners directly. Every time one comes along you know the first thing we wonder is OK, who's gonna get this one? Also, spiffs or other incentive offers to me has always made me wonder why the product doesn't sell itself on it's merits, not "cuz you're getting an extra 5 bucks for selling brand X. But you can see the offers keep coming back around so they must definitely impact lens manufacturers or lab's sales figures.

It's sad that in this world whether in business or politics money talks and you know what walks!

I guess my final opinion is that all spiffs should go to the owner of the business directly for him to do as he/she sees fit. If you have a problem with that then you have a problem with that. Open your own business and do as "YOU" see fit. Chris.

PS---Merlot?? OMG!

[MarcE]

Harry is exactly right and that is also what I was getting at. Regardless of "lab policy" those spiffs belong to the person paying the lab bill. There is really no other way to look at it. The lab is upset about this, but they created this monster.
We don't get many spiffs/kickbacks because we try to negotiate the lowest price.

[Diane]

foot rub and a glass of Merlot waiting for.

Well, why didn't you say that before. I'm for it.

Diane