Technician Wages

[Golden michel]

Depends on where you work. Most operators don't care if you have your A&P and pilot's ratings, you have to choose one path. There are some jobs out there that require both, but they won't pay you a whole lot more just because you have all those ratings.

[AyJayAreDii]

Apparently, in Texas, $13 an hour is the going rate.

Converted from GBP to USD, This sounds about right for me...

[verderacer]

healthcare in Australia is free.

Oh believe me... Your paying for it as we will be very shortly also.

My wages are about to get a whole lot smaller because of health care reform. My wifes out of pocket is about to double for medical and triple for dental. They have already amended the dental for both our employers. In our case it is the same plan. We lost $900 in benefits and now it has to come out of our pockets. Not counting what else we have pay in our monthly.

News Release: Out here in the great west (AZ) all RICOH techs are about to come IKON techs. We were givin the news a couple of weeks ago about the big change. We have been told that our wages will be adjusted. What that means is totally up in the air. I eagerly await to see and hear what this really means along with my paycheck.

[Ikon Princess]

News Release: Out here in the great west (AZ) all RICOH techs are about to come IKON techs. We were givin the news a couple of weeks ago about the big change. We have been told that our wages will be adjusted. What that means is totally up in the air. I eagerly await to see and hear what this really means along with my paycheck.

Maybe good news for you because they have not said anything about wage adjustments to us.

[linuxxpwin]

I have read all comments and stuff and I have to generally agree that as tech we are very often overlooked for pay rise, I use to work with a an agent, where profits sore on the technical field, I mean the Technical was making its own monies to buy parts and stuff, because of my experience we had almost everyone calling us for service even Xerox and HP and yes it was good for them.

All I got in the at christmas is a $100.00 BONUS, which I did not take after making close to $600,000.00 for this firm, oh and I left the company there after and guess what the rest I will not into......


UNFAIR



Linuxxpwin

[verderacer]

Well we all got the news: The adjustment came in the form of, as my manager put it, a lateral move. The actualy adjustment came in the form of since were were making below the minimum for our position that we were given the increase, or a raise as my manager put it, to the new minimum set by IKON.

Oh golly geez... Thanks IKoN for giving the same wage as the truck delivery driver and warehouse man.

Now here is the interesting part and please any IKoN people chime in here and correct me. I have been told many times now that IKoN offer great opportunity to advance and get promoted. I have asked many a local IKoN tech about this and had a good conversation today with one of them that I met for the first time today.

He's been working for the company 7 + years and has told me his struggles on getting promoted. Mind you I have heard slightly differing versions of this from as many as 8 or 10 other local IKoN techs. "What they do is to stick in a service place (I am assuming a tech level) and if you ask to or try to improve your shut down immediately." Some of his examples where in huge struggles in just getting training on supporting 30ppm or less machines that he currently supports now. From what he explained he came to the company with 6 years of HP and Xerox experience, and like me, was told the story of opportunity. I have heard so many times now of the "You dont get promoted unless someone is fired, leaves or dies. Then its another fight to get that one opening amongst all your peers, not including the favoritism, internal politics, and Mgmt team infighting. My new friend has been trying to become what IKoN calls a "Master Tech" for 2 years. Not that he has not accomplished all the pre-requisites, which they kept changing and adding to.

So today I signed my offer letter and acted like a good sheep so I can keep my job. Bhaaaaaaa....

[Ikon Princess]

No you wont be making the same as the delivery guys(couldn't pay me enough to lug those heavy boxes around), what you would be getting is the minimum pay scale of a technician with your experience. After a while you will get a review where they have this formula to figure out your percentage of a merit increase. All of this should be explained to your manager soon and he/she should then be able to explain it to you. There is pleny of room for education to expand your experience and grow as a technician. My manager does not have any problems with educating us techs because he feels that well educated techs can handle a more diverse industry.

[teckat]

IKON dishes out the same crap that DANKA did back in 96/97 when they were buying up companies left and right. Canon has also cut off IKON (Canon) trained techs. IKON's promises of pay scale structure to experienced techs. & management never came about. Canon finally gave DANKA the boot , kicked them out, & eventually prevented their Canon trained techs access to online & phone support. Even now Konica Minolta/ which took over DANKA accounts has given their Canon techs the shaft when it come to pay scale raises for experience personal.

I will stick with small companies/ they are more loyal to their personal

[Klydon]

From what I have read with Ikon (and experienced myself), it is fairly highly regionalized. Some areas are better than others as far as management goes and other areas just plain seem to suck. Around here, you do what is asked and you generally get promoted. Realize that some promotions are not possible. You are not going to get promoted to color graphics if your territory is only 25% color.

Part of the issue not only for Ikon, but for just about anyone is getting "right sized" and staying that way against a moving target. As the machines get better, last longer between calls, and require less time, each tech can cover more. I have been in this biz for nearly 20 years and the machine/copy count that makes up a standard territory now is far different than when I got started. A lot of companies deal with this through attrition. Someone quits, they don't get replaced.

IF you have a manager worth a lick, they are going to take care of their techs as best as they can. Some of the things a tech can do is get as much training on their own as they can through courses, getting with other techs, etc. It may not pay off for a long time, but becoming a "go to person" will at least improve your job security if/when cuts come. In general, hard work does pay off in the long run, but it might take awhile to get there.

For pay increases these days, etc all I can say is it is the economy stupid. We are somewhat fortunate in that the industry weathers bad economic times better than most businesses do. You may not get that pay raise, but at least you still got a job. Unfortunately, the economy is not going to get better anytime soon between employers being forced to absorb more costs with the government health care coming and all the tax increases that will go in effect on Jan 1, 2011. The economy is going to go into shock and just nose dive.

For now, if you are in a not so hot situation, bide your time, increase your education through your own efforts and pester your manager for additional training. When things get better, you will be better positioned to either demand more money from your current job or there will be good opportunities elsewhere.

As far as former Ricoh techs getting merged into Ikon; In general, from what I know of Ricoh owned techs from before, you are going to be better off. Ricoh/Savin was not exactly on the ball with the service side in taking good care of their people either through compensation or just in general.

[teckat]

no matter what happens to the economy in the future/ as proven before with slowdowns on purchases/ or new businesses starting up and no matter how technology improves in copiers/printers, u will still need a person (human being) to repair them . Be it on out of production units/ used & or new units. a trained & honest field tech will always be in demand in this business, one consistent proven point is that "word of mouth is your best tool" .