EET or EE Road Pay Rates

This is probably the best place for
getting an honest and accurate answer
for this one.
My company builds steel processing equipment which is sold worldwide. When
you are on the road basically your stuck
on a island with little or no support.
You have to know alot in many different
electrical/electronic/programming fields.
Our management line is they can get anybody off the street to do this kind of work and will not admit you need qualified people to make everybody's job easier.
What I would like is to get some kind of average salary or rate which is current for doing this kind of work. I would also like to hear what kind of per diem people are getting for domestic U.S. or international travel.
Lets say the subject would have an
EET or EE degree with at least 10 years
experience. Work would include PLC/HMI programming, AC-DC drive setup/programming,
instrumentation calibration, startup/troubleshooting customer machinery , writing of manuals , training of customer maintenance people, etc.
Any feedback would be appreciated.
Thanks

Functioning as a self-employed drive start-up tech in the Michigan-Indiana-Ohio-Illinois area, I get $72 per hour including travel time and I'm thinking about raising it.

When I work for distributors and contractors, I charge the same rate and they mark it up to sell to their customer. I don't always know what that rate is but, in one case, it's $96 per hour.

What about per diem rates? We are currently
getting $80.00 a day (domestic). This is for the hotel and food! Its hard to find a decent hotel for under $60.00 a day in some
locations. This does leave much for
meals. The rate never changes no matter
what area you are in.
Also when we travel internationally
we are getting basically the same
deal.
Flying coach all the time. This really
sucks especially to China , South Korea
, Taiwan etc.....18-23 hours...Oh
my aching legs....

If the fixed rate doesnt cover the actual expenses, then demand to travel by the bill. Get bills on everything (3 meals a day, hotel, phone, laundry etc.).
Maybe your employer will wrangle over the bills, but he can not expect you to accept a deficit from working for him.

They expect us to take everything out
of the $80.00. Phone , laundry , meals ,
hotel etc.
Alot of the guys are working with deficits.
Which is totally crazy.....
This is why, along with our pay scale,
they are having trouble finding and
keeping qualified people.
When I say something they say stop
complaining.

My company charges a $150 a day per diem. This is to pay for hotel, food and misc. Our rates for programming are $75 while we charge $55 for travel time.

I charge $1,500 per day, up to 12 hours on site. I don't normally charge for travel days or travel time, but for local installations I do charge $75.00 per hour travel. Expenses are billed at cost. Suppliers I deal with charge anywhere from $1,000 per day to $1,750 per day portal to portal.

Zombo:

I have seen billing rates for skilled EE / PLC / Drives people in the range of what Tom mentions. The lower end of that spectrum for "junior" engineers and the higher end of that spectrum for "senior" engineers. At 10 years experience, you would expect to pay closer to the "senior" end of the range. These rates are in addition to travel expenses.

That certainly does not mean that these rates are what the engineer actually gets, but are reasonable to expect if you contracted out the service. I certainly wouldn't hire just anyone off the street.


As far as other expenses (travel, hotel, meals, etc), I haven't seen a "per-diem" approach for a long time. Typically everything is reimbursed based on actual expenses. Receipts are typically required for anything over $25, and there are typically "reasonable" guidelines to "strive" for.

Examples of "reasonable" rates for some of those:

Hotels - $100 - $125 (though can vary dramatically depending on where you go)
Meals - $10 for breakfast, $15 for lunch, $35 for dinner

It sounds like your company is forcing you to live on about a half of what is reasonable for a travel expense (or you get to pick up the difference). I'd think really hard about whether an employer like that is worth working for.

A final thought: It always depends on where you are traveling to. When I traveled to Mexico, I could comfortably live with the per diem you describe. In much of Europe though, I'd be hard pressed to find a safe and clean hotel for less than double your daily allowance (forget the meals).

MSinclair- you live well on the road.

Granted, I don't travel to large cities often but here are my usual expenses.

$70-$100 hotel (closer to $70)
Breakfast- free continental.
Lunch $4-$9
Dinner $15-$30 (if I am splurging)


How do you guys get around?

Car Rental $40-$75/day (I am not sure about this exactly.)

We itemize all expenses- Plane tickets, etc. Plus a small handling cost and charge time by the hour.

I am thinking about Tom's flat per day fee. Right now when the trip is out of town, we have an 8 hour minimum per day.

Zombo,

I hate to say it, but you may have only one option, and that is to find another employer. The actual cost of keeping a person on the road varies widely depending on geographic area, but it sounds like your employer is determined to use the low end of the scale.

The road warrior lifestyle can get into your blood if you're not careful. Where else can you get the autonomy to do the job as you see fit so long as you produce results? Where else can get the same amount of respect? Bail a customer out of tight spot, and as far as they'te concerned, you can walk on water! Lots of opportunity for overtime pay too. It's easy to convince yourself that you'll have to suffer a major hit in compensation and prestige if you change jobs.

You should be asking yourself where you want to be a year, two years, five years from now. Can you see a path to that goal by remaining with your current employer?

It may be that startup and servicing capital machinery is truly your life's work. I know there are times when I've finished a particularly challenging assignment that I've thought, "God help me, but I love this." If that's the case with you, then you need to be thinking about how to get fairly compensated. Remember, nothing can adequately make up for the time you don't get to spend with your family. Each milestone in your kids' life only comes around once, and if you're not there, you've lost the opportunity forever.

Believe it or not, there are companies out there that recognize the value of retaining good field service people. You may have to relocate to find one. You should also consider the fact that in your present job you're learning a lot of the skills you'd need to run your own business. Not only that, but every successful assignment adds to your list of potential clients.

Rick,

I may not have fully explained the "guidelines" that I posted. Bottom line is they are a reality check, and if you exceed them, you need a reason. You are not expected to look for ways to increase your expenses to approach the "guideline" in lower cost areas - you get what is reasonable for the area that you are in. If that puts you well below the guideline - great! If that puts you well above the guideline - be ready to justify.

You are certainly expected to take advantage of benefits that are available (like a free continental breakfast, or lunch in the plant cafeteria) even if this means that you don't "hit your quota".

For example - when I traveled in Mexico with this type of guideline (a low cost area), I typically stayed in a $50/night hotel, had a $2 breakfast, food in the plant cafeteria for lunch, and a $15 dinner (well within Zombo's per diem rate). In contrast, in London the hotel alone will easily exceed $150/night.


My personal opinions are:

* Absolute rules on expenses are a mistake, reasonable expenses ought to be covered whatever they are.
* A traveler should be able to stay in comfortable, clean and safe hotel.
* A traveler should not have to eat at McDonald's every day to meet a per-diem limit.
* A traveler should be able to make business calls without repurcussion, and a limited amount of personal calls as well (the traveler is inconvenienced to be away from family . . . )
* A traveler should never abuse an expense account - it should be used responsibly.

msinclair,

I agree with all your bullet points.

My comment was supposed to be more good natured than anything else.

I think we can all agree that Zombo's expense limits are approaching the rediculous.

One thing that we have done with our service techs is to buy 100 min prepaid phone cards for 6-7 bucks. There used to be a $10 phone limit per day for personal calls. Charge that to the room and you didn't get very much time.

Zombo

As Steve say look for another employer.
You canot get decent hotel and the other expense even here in Israel for $80, maybe in China.
People who do all programming HMI startup ect.deserve to good condition. Only people who do it know how big the responsibility
on your head.You far from your home from your shop from your family. You have to improvise if you stuck with serious problem.
And You have to represent company which dont respect you .
So if your employer think its OK, let him find people who willing to do it for cheap then he/they will get cheap.So he/they will have to deal with the result.
I know how customers feel when the people who came to install machine confuse, dont exactly know what he doing.Shortly not professional.

I just can dream to cahrge like Tom.
In one of my latest projects in US. Another guy like me made the infeed of the line and I made the bake section of the line.
He charged them $14000 fer week that include all.He came from somewhere neer chicago IL.
It was in nowhere in TN so the hotel and other expenses were cheap.
He told me that this normal charge.
I never fly for more then 3-4 hour in couch my contract include
business class (From Israel to Phoenix AR it 20 Hours, that was my last job in US).decent hotel(in chicago it was 175+tax fer night other wise they have to pay more in trvel time).
Up to $50 fer meals and up to $70 for car.
I shame to say how much I charge fer hour.with 25 years of experience in automation field.

Happy Thanksgiving

Arik

Thank You for all your answers. It seems
there is only one answer to the attitude
of my company. I am not a quitter because
I have been here > 15 years waiting for
the "good" times to come around. But
that is never going to happen. If fact
every year we get busier and things
only get worse. We have people knocking
down our doors to buy machinery but
management can not put it together.
Right now we have 4-5 multi-million
dollar machine orders but have no money
to buy parts to put the machines together.
No raise in three years, no pension plan,
no money being put in the profit sharing,
vacations froze, Christmas club money & child support not being deposited into account, etc. I could go on and on but why waste my time. Time to move on. Thanks again....

johnskii,

you are being taken for granted by your company.
I have been in the same spot as you, and only feeling more and more miserable.
I found a new job with a better salary, more respect towards me and a better everyday communication between me and my bosses.

Before you leave, take the time to explain to your present company that they are plain unprofessional and not serving their own needs by underpaying key persons.