Small and newly established companies frequently have problems with the correct assessment of their staff requirements. Here is some relevant information about these tasks, and examples that show how most companies determine their staff requirements.

This section is concerned with sales meetings, the maintenance of customer contacts, customer consulting and support for individual design developments. Staff in this section also advise customers via the website using a chat function and therefore play an important role in the customer’s purchasing decision. Good customer consulting on the website affects how customers perceive product quality and is an important factor in the marketing mix for your surfboards. The average salary in this area is €16,000 per six-month period. A customer consultant tends to have approximately 200 successful consulting appointments per six-month period. The smaller the number of customers to be advised by one customer consultant, the higher the consulting quality.

Staff productivity mainly depends on the type of product. It is difficult to provide a general statement. The Leisure Industry Association has recently produced a study that determined the productivity of staff in a representative investigation. It states that the productivity of a staff member in the production of, for example, a custom-made bicycle is approximately 130, which means one employee can produce 130 bicycles per six-month period. The productivity for many common leisure items such as surfboards is similar. Productivity can be further increased once the staff is familiar with the work, as the processes become routine and each task can be performed reliably. According to the study, the following factors can be used to calculate an increase in productivity:

Increased flexibility in production can also be achieved by overtime. In this case, you must pay the staff a higher wage for working longer than contractually stipulated. A surcharge of 25% is stipulated by law and worker protection laws stipulate it is not possible to demand an unlimited amount of overtime. You are allowed to let your staff work up to a maximum of 120%. Approximately €14,000 per six-month period should be budgeted for the salary of an industrial mechanic.

The quality of the product is of increasing importance in the leisure industry. Young companies producing snowboards usually employ 2 staff members in the research and development section. The technology leaders in the sector even employ 3-4 staff members in this field. The staff in this section primarily develop the material composition, driving feel and additional technical factors of the product. Experience has shown that staff in this area have the highest wages of all sections: approximately €17,000 per six-month period. A cautious employment policy depending on the strategic orientation is therefore recommended.

The situation on the labour market is tense. It is therefore difficult to find qualified staff. To do so, you need to place advertisements in newspapers and/or on online portals and conduct job interviews. However, placing advertisements incurs costs. As a result, we usually recommend a common but nevertheless cost-effective job portal called Production Recruits to our customers. The costs here are € 3,000 per employment contract.

The costs of dismissal should not be neglected when calculating staff costs. These include costs for dismissal procedures and holidays to be paid. The costs per dismissal come to €1,000 per employee. Another issue neglected by many young entrepreneurs are non-wage personnel costs. These include, for example, legally mandatory employer contributions to social insurance, continued payment of salaries and wages, other voluntary social contributions by employers and the costs of professional training and further education. Our experience indicates that non-wage personnel costs usually make up 20% of the salary or wage..