Full Employment Startups

Description

Farhood Manjoo:

"“Fundamentally what it boiled down to was that we had to create good jobs to make sure that our operators were vested in our company,” said Saman Rahmanian, a co-founder of Managed by Q, a start-up that provides commercial cleaning and supply services.

Of course, creating “good jobs” entails costs. Managed by Q’s workers get an “above market” wage, plus full medical benefits. “They are the same benefits that our programmers and engineers get,” Mr. Rahmanian said, because “we didn’t want to create a company that had a divide between people that worked in headquarters and the others.”

Munchery, a dinner delivery service, pays drivers a base wage that exceeds the minimum wage, plus their driving expenses, plus tips. Taken together, it comes out to about $23 an hour in San Francisco, far higher than most other delivery jobs. Those who work more than 30 hours a week also get health and retirement benefits.

Beepi’s auto mechanics and delivery people get an above-market salary, overtime pay and medical benefits. MoveLoot, a start-up that sells and delivers used furniture, also provides above-market wages and benefits to its workers.

And at Enjoy, which began operating in San Francisco and New York this spring, delivery experts are paid either a full-time or part-time salary, not a per-customer fee. Mr. Johnson declined to specify the salary, but he said that it was above what workers at high-end technology retailers might make — meaning around $40,000 to $50,000 a year. Enjoy’s employees are also given benefits like health coverage and retirement plans, and they even get stock in the company.

This week, Instacart, a grocery delivery company that is one of the largest and most successful on-demand companies, announced that beginning with its operations in Boston and Chicago, it will shift the independent contractors who now pick groceries in its stores to part-time employee status. (Workers who drive for the company will remain contractors.)

Instacart’s new employee plan is for part-time workers only, according to a company spokeswoman. Workers will not be able to schedule more than 30 hours a week, the threshold that would require them to receive health coverage." (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/25/technology/personaltech/start-ups-finding-the-best-employees-are-actually-employed.html)