When Employees are Employers: NOT

When Employees Are Employers, Not! Don’t Alarm the “Authorities?”

Imagine you are a grooming business owner with employees. While sorting the day’s mail you notice an officiallooking letter from a state agency related to your being an employer. You read it and before you know it, you are in trouble! Apparently you are not compliant with employer regulations. You are instructed to attend a meeting with this state agency to discuss why you consider an employee act as an employer, and just how wrong that is.

You are confused. In fact this is “crazy.” They have the wrong person, the wrong business, you pay all of your employees with paychecks with deductions. What the heck are they talking about? strategies for their upcoming meetings to resolve issues with the authorities.

Have you guessed what the problem is?

For many decades thousands of employers paying commission use a single commission system. They commonly pay 40% to 60% commissions to their employed groomers. When employers do not provide bather support along with the commission they deduct a bather reimbursement fee reducing the gross commission in dollars. For example, a groomer earns 50% commission on a $60 groomer, total $30 gross wage. The groomer doesn’t bathe and dry the pet. The bath is done by a company bather. The owner deducts a set amount from the $30 commission (perhaps $8 per for the use of a company bather). The groomer earns $22 for this groom.

Did you know this happens every year and has for many years in the pet grooming industry? We have seen the letters. Sometimes these employers call the offices of PetGroomer.com asking for help. Sometimes they call simply to thank us for giving them solutions and Warning. The employer should never include in the reimbursement fee for em-

ployer-related costs such as employer payroll taxes, workers compensation or benefits. This system has been around for decades. So why are the authorities involved? Why the alarming letters?

In most cases, there are disgruntled employees reporting their employers. When they talk with an attorneys, counselors or a state and local employment authorities they relate, “I pay the bather. ” Even if this is not the matter of the disputes at hand, the groomers are told, ‘Your employer cannot ask you to pay a bather or anyone else. You cannot be an employer!” True. WRONG! Even the employer is compounding the problem!

This silly confusion has lead employers to sit in the hot seats with authorities, and later to resolve it by explaining their deceptive words were simply describing the format of wage calculations.

It may take several visits and a look at the financial records showing that the employer paid employees appropriately and employer contributions. What has happened is a lot of wasted time and a bunch of fear at facing the authorities. There is no good reason for this loss of production and business income.

There is nothing wrong with employers expecting to pay less when groomers paid commission for full grooms do not do the entire grooms and get the assistance of bathers. Why not avoid asking groomers for bather reimbursements?

Alarm bells go off. The third party has no idea that the employer is not asking the groomer to be an employer. Few outside of grooming know how groomer commissions work. They are right to be alarmed when hearing employees say they are paying bathers. This is a matter of deceptive semantics.

The solution is incredibly simple and entirely removes groomers from saying The employer is saying to their groomer they “pay for bathers.” Use TWO comemployee, 50% commission requires mission rates, one for a full groom you to do a complete groom start-to(perhaps 50%) and another lower perfinish. If you don’t do the bath and dry centage for a groom without doing the you get paid a 50% commission with a bath? It’s entirely fair! Yes! Alarm bells deduction for using bather assistance. go silent.◄ Some employers make the same mis46 Copyright © 2013 Find A Groomer Inc. All rights reservedtake and say, “You pay for the bather.” Subscribe www.egroomer.com PetGroomer.com Magazine www.petgroomermagazine.com Subscribe Free © 2022 Find A Groomer Inc All rights reserved