Staff costs and absences

Your staff earn a wage every hour and are paid on payday from the salary account. Unhappy staff call in sick more often.

An hourly wage depends on the points a person brings to their job, the price of what the place makes, and their salary demand (75% to 125%). For a factory that price is the market price of its product, for a shop the average of its goods, and for an office a tenth of its price per hour. On a construction site the price is fixed at £25, and in a vehicle at £25. Staff at head office or in training get a flat £2 an hour, and nobody earns less than £1 an hour.

So the same person costs more where the goods are dear, and two people with the same points differ only by their demand. Calculation of salary on a profile shows what someone would earn in every kind of work at today's prices. Absent staff are paid as if they were working.

Wages build up every hour and are paid from the salary account, not from savings. Part of your registration fee starts it off (£2,500). Add more with Deposit to salary account on the Salary page: it arrives at the next update and can't be taken back out.

Social fees come on top: 2% for every employee you have, on the whole payroll.

The first payday is 6 days after you found your company, then every 7 days, at half past the hour. You can move it up to 3 days and choose the hour, as long as staff are paid at least every 10 days. Your secretary reminds you the day before, and everyone is paid what they are owed shortly before the round ends. VIP members can also pay salaries straight away.

If the salary account can't cover payday, the rest comes out of your savings with a fine of 25% of the missing money, and your staff become dissatisfied. The front page warns you when payday is near and the account is short.

Dissatisfaction is one figure for all your staff, shown on the staff pages. It changes at midnight: up 1% every night, plus

• 20% after a day your warehouse was over capacity;
• 20% after a payday the salary account couldn't cover;
• 50% when your company value had to cover negative savings.

It can't go above 100%.

Every 12 hours after joining you, each employee at work may call in sick. The more dissatisfied your staff and the less reliable the person, the likelier it is. An absence lasts 5 to 120 hours. Nobody goes absent in their first 72 hours, on a construction site or in training. The Absence reports page shows who is away and every absence of the last 7 days.

Absent staff keep their place. To keep a building going, move them to head office from their profile and put someone else in.

The Absence prevention page lists measures that cut dissatisfaction at once. Each costs a sum for every employee and can be used once every 7 days, though you can use several on the same day. Dissatisfaction can't go below 1%: what a measure can't take off below that comes off the penalties due at midnight. The nightly rise always applies.

Better still, avoid the penalties: pay staff on time, keep the warehouse within capacity and keep your savings above zero (see Company Value and bankruptcy). Firing costs are on Hiring staff.