Staff questions

Short answers to what players often ask about staff. For the whole story, see Hiring staff, Training staff and Staff costs and absences.

People of the building's own profession. Each factory, shop and office shows its Preferred employee type on its page; a construction site prefers a Builder. In their own trade a person brings their production points (ProdP): their attribute points (AttribP) plus their profession points (ProfP) as a per cent bonus on top. Anywhere else they bring only their AttribP. On the Staff page, a name in green works where their profession fits.

Depending on the round, the first tab under Staff is either Unemployed people or Post a job ad:

• Unemployed people: one list shared by every company. Choose a profession under Show, open a person and press Hire. A hire is an order: whoever ordered the person first gets them at the next update, and anyone else gets their fee back. Until then, Cancel hire on their profile takes it back.
• Post a job ad: choose a profession under Advertise for and press Post job ad, for £250. 3 or 4 Applicants (2 more for VIP members) wait for 5 minutes; open one and press Hire to take them on at once.

Each hire costs £100, and new staff start at head office.

New people come with professions picked at random from them all, so any one trade is only a small part of the list, and other companies snap up the best. New people arrive only when the list runs low, and those nobody hires leave after 24 hours; the page shows when people last arrived. On average, people who join later in the round bring more points. Look again later, use the hire link next to Preferred employee type on a building's page, or hire someone good and retrain them. In rounds with job ads, post another ad.

People who were fired or whose company went bankrupt. They can't be hired straight away: they rejoin the list 5 to 10 hours later, with the points they earned in their old job. The line above the list counts them under On the list + suspended.

In rounds with the shared list, you can hire only 15 people a day, orders included. The note under the list shows how many you have used today, and the count starts again at midnight; a hire that fails or that you cancel does not count. In rounds with job ads, each ad brings only 3 or 4 applicants, and each hire costs its own fee.

Open the person's profile, choose a building, construction site or vehicle under Place and press Move. Full buildings are not offered: a factory takes 3 people, a shop 2 and an office 2, and the Extra worker upgrade adds a place. Every move adds an hour's pay in both the old and the new place to their wages. Staff left at head office do no work but are still paid £2 an hour. VIP members can also move staff straight from the Staff list.

Move them to head office first: only staff there can be fired, and not while they are absent or in training. Fire on their profile shows the bill before you confirm: the salary they are owed, with social fees, from the salary account, and a termination fee from your savings. The termination fee is £500 when they are hired and shrinks by 5% every midnight, so letting someone go is cheaper the longer they have been with you. The profile shows it as Severance.

Between 75% and 125%. Each person has their own demand, which never changes, and their wage is multiplied by it: two people with the same points cost the same apart from their demand. You see it on their profile and, in rounds with job ads, in the Demand column of the applicants. VIP members also see it on the unemployed list.

A wage follows the points someone brings to their job and the price of what the place makes, times their demand. So it rises as your staff improve with work, and when the market price of a building's product goes up at midnight. Social fees grow too: 2% for every employee you have, on the whole payroll, so each person you add makes everyone a little dearer. Calculation of salary on a profile shows what that person would earn in every kind of work at today's prices.

Every 12 hours each employee may call in sick, and the more dissatisfied your staff and the less reliable the person, the likelier it is. An absence lasts 5 to 120 hours, and they are paid as if they were working. Nobody goes absent in their first 72 hours, on a construction site or in training. Keep dissatisfaction low and hire reliable people: a profile shows the person's chance of calling in sick. To keep a building going, move an absent person to head office and put someone else in.

Dissatisfaction is one figure for all your staff, and it rises at midnight: 1% every night, plus 20% after a day your warehouse was over capacity, 20% after a payday the salary account couldn't cover and 50% when your company value had to cover negative savings. The measures on Absence prevention measures cut it at once, each for a sum per employee and once every 7 days. It never goes below 1%.

Yes, by letting them work. Staff improve in a building, on a construction site or in a vehicle, but not at head office, while absent or in training. Every 40 to 110 updates at work they may gain 1 to 5 points, most often in one of their five attributes, which raises AttribP. About one gain in seven goes to their profession points instead, but only while they work in their own trade. No points go above 100.

It gives someone a new profession, for £2,000 and 24 hours. Move the person to head office, choose the profession under Train on their profile and press Train. While training they do no work and get the head office wage; afterwards their profession points count in the new trade, and they gain 1 Knowledge and 1 Motivation. Stop training ends it early, without the money back and without the new profession.

No, but they do those jobs best. Anyone can work on a construction site, bringing their AttribP, while a Builder brings their ProdP; anyone with a driving licence can drive, while a Driver brings their ProdP behind the wheel. They are two of many professions, so few are on the list at a time; the lists show "licence" next to the age of everyone who can drive. Whoever works on a site stays in the building when it is finished, so you can also build with the building's own trade from the start. See Vehicles and cargo for drivers.