Keeping employees happy

[sara_dippity]

Other than the stupidity of how they spend their breaks, it seems other factors affect how much employees like working for you. My husband (the big cheater) uses the sim modder baby to raise the mood of all his employees and never gives them breaks, because they shouldn't need one. He also overpays them, since money is no object with motherlode, and he still had employees quit. However, I suspect there may be social relationship issues, since he has a tendancy to love seeing sims irritate and reject flirts. He also likes his sims to be caught cheating. I don't know if he did any of that, need to ask him later.
My sims call in a lot, I use a couple of snapdragons (not too many, not to green them up just give the occasional boost), and I give breaks and pay more than fairly, but not overpaid (money is an object for me). No one has quit yet, though I suspect one will soon, but they have called in.
Has anyone had an employee love their job? Does the pic behind them on the employee panel turn green? Mine stays yellow.

[miramis]

As far as I know that panel stays yellow.  I spent ages in the beginning trying to get it green, thinking it was their mood.  So it's an indicator of how much they like thier job is it? 

[sara_dippity]

I think it is.... Not sure. Like a long term average of their mood and wage and relationship with you? Theory only of course. I think it's like the job preformance meter on normal careers, only harder to raise because of no platinum boosts and no real motive control.

[J. M. Pescado]

I pay my employees sweatshop wages and work them like slaves. Only the townies actually quit on me.

There are three factors governing whether or not a sim quits: Mood, relationship, and pay.

Paying your sims well, obviously, cost an outlandish sum of money, because they have unreasonable salary demands and want to be paid like CEOs for working a frikken cash register, just because they have skills which are completely irrelevant to any aspect of doing their jobs. 6 out of 7 skills are completely useless to any job function in OFB. So naturally, I pay them minimum wage, as is proper.

The second factor is relationship. 100/100 is the only way to go, of course. This provides a strong anchor against them quitting.

The third and final factor is mood. Hiring only platinum-aspiration sims is a very important factor, because keeping your sims in platinum mood gives them a +300 mood boost, all but guaranteeing the impossibility of them quitting outside of the broken mood bug. Any other sim will shortly quit no matter what you do, because all other sims are incredibly surly in comparison. For optimal reliability, hire only platinum mood townies (townies never decay because they are never played), or your perma-plat playables (which also should not decay).

[Motoki]

Actually, there's 2 skills that are useful for employees but only if you run a restaurant. Cooking for the chef and body for the waiter or waitress. If they have low body they will drop food on customers which generally is not good for business.

[J. M. Pescado]

Yeah, apparently we don't need bouncers to eject unruly customers.

[Motoki]

I actually wouldn't mind having a bouncer for some of my stores. I could hire one of the nannies to do it.

[aussieone]

I like the idea of bouncers 

They'd come in handy for those 'customers' who are broke but still insist on hanging around your shop all bloody day, doing crap all but getiing in the way of paying customers!! 

[nectere]

I was hoping the sentry bot would take care of unruly customers but sadly, it does not.

[Dark Trepie]

Something else I noticed about running a straight up resturaunt is that the only talent badge that's really used is sales for the Host (the one at the podium) and it seemed to increase everytime he picked up the phone and talked to whoever's on the other end..  I've had customers get burned food because the cook had low cooking skill, but I've yet to have food dropping due to low body.

I wonder if bar tenders and djs require some kind of skill as well.  I imagine the djs need creativity.  Will customers lose loyalty if they scratch the record?

[Kitiara]

For some reason (I know I read this somewhere, but forget where) I was under the impression that certain skills speeded up the process of earning badges. This was unconfirmed, and untested, so I didn't bother to write down the skill/badge relationship. Does anyone know if this is true?

What bugs me is when potential hires with middling skills, but no badges expect outrageous wages based on skills that might help them in a career, but mean nothing to me and my shop. If I want to hire a cashier, why the hell should I care if they have at least 3 skill points in each category and maxed creativity and cooking? Why do they think this entitles them to over 50 Simoleons an hour? A cashier doesn't need to cook, or paint, or play an instrument. 

[Lelani]

For some reason (I know I read this somewhere, but forget where) I was under the impression that certain skills speeded up the process of earning badges. This was unconfirmed, and untested, so I didn't bother to write down the skill/badge relationship. Does anyone know if this is true?

What bugs me is when potential hires with middling skills, but no badges expect outrageous wages based on skills that might help them in a career, but mean nothing to me and my shop. If I want to hire a cashier, why the hell should I care if they have at least 3 skill points in each category and maxed creativity and cooking? Why do they think this entitles them to over 50 Simoleons an hour? A cashier doesn't need to cook, or paint, or play an instrument. 

The wages are over the top. Sims can go broke trying to pay those salaries. My sim can now afford two employees-- I always hire the cheapest labor and let them work their way up.

As for their moods. I don't really bother to try anymore. Doesn't seem to matter if they get a break or a pay raise. I experimented by giving an employee a regular break, a raise, and even developed a friendly relationship between them and my sim. Didn't help. Their mood dropped down to red by the end of the day. The next day I had the employee work straight through and their mood stayed bright green until closing time. On the other hand, I've had an overpaid employee complain after two hours of work and quit after three days. That same employee quit twice on me. It's like she's programmed to do so.

[Ancient Sim]

Well I cheated and put a Please Yourself Plant (I think they're Inge's) on my lots, assigned either to everyone (including customers) or just to employees, depending.  The employees will work 24 hours or more and not complain an iota.  Then again, even without it I didn't have any complain or leave, although one or two didn't go back to work automatically and one walked off the lot when she was told to return to work.  On the other hand, I had a townie who was making flowers (Silver badge) who autonomously returned to work after his break even though he was still yellow.  Took my Sim 3 attempts to get him to stop and go home, he seemed more than happy to continue working.

[Assmitten]

For optimal reliability, hire only platinum mood townies (townies never decay because they are never played), or your perma-plat playables (which also should not decay).

So what's an easy way to tell if a townie is platinum before hiring them?

[J. M. Pescado]

So what's an easy way to tell if a townie is platinum before hiring them?

Tell? Not really any good way. Force the issue? Date him.

[Ancient Sim]

All my townies are neutral, they never increase or fall in aspiration unless I make them selectable, no matter how many wants or fears they fulfil.  Not sure how anyone is getting platinum townies unless they are doing that.

[radiophonic]

Something else I noticed about running a straight up resturaunt is that the only talent badge that's really used is sales for the Host (the one at the podium) and it seemed to increase everytime he picked up the phone and talked to whoever's on the other end..  I've had customers get burned food because the cook had low cooking skill, but I've yet to have food dropping due to low body.

I wonder if bar tenders and djs require some kind of skill as well.  I imagine the djs need creativity.  Will customers lose loyalty if they scratch the record?

It seems strange that the sales skill goes up when the host/hostess doesn't even sell anything. You need a "greeter" to do the selling and they didn't give us the option to assign one and thus, your playables have to do the greeting and selling while your host gets a gold sales badge for talking on the phone.

I had a bar on a pay-per-hour lot and nobody used it. My worker stood there for 10 hours getting paid for doing nothing at all.

[radiophonic]

So what's an easy way to tell if a townie is platinum before hiring them?

Platinum townies? As far as I can tell, they don't gain aspiration and are perma-green. I could be wrong.

[angelyne]

I suspect JM might be messing with our heads again 

The wages are over the top. Sims can go broke trying to pay those salaries. My sim can now afford two employees-- I always hire the cheapest labor and let them work their way up.

Look at it this way.  Your employees could also be your other playing character.  Let's saw you decide to play them all in rotation, how would you feel  getting slave labor wages.  The shoe would be on the other foot

And having different wages for townies and player character, that smacks of discrimination!

[Sleepycat]

I usually use InSIM to max everyones aspiration (or put them in the red  )

[Ruann]

If you Date a Townie (any Sim, actually) you can see their wants and fears.  It's childs play at that point to put them into Plat status.  You can see them gaining points and everything.

[Assmitten]

Hmm, that's true (the dating thing). I am not a townie snob...my Sims will date them sometimes. Lately I just want to exploit them, labor-wise, so I was hoping there was a way of telling if they were platinum (if there is such a thing as a platinum townie) without dating them or making them selectable and then platinuming them up.

Does anyone know if you make them selectable and then make them platinum, if they will hang on to that status? It seems like they don't because they get pissed off and go home if they're hungry or bored. Thanks.

[radiophonic]

Does anyone know if you make them selectable and then make them platinum, if they will hang on to that status? It seems like they don't because they get pissed off and go home if they're hungry or bored. Thanks.

It has very little to do with their state of aspiration, it has to do with their needs. If they get hungry or tired, they will leave. They don't want to starve, die or pee themselves on your lot. They also don't want to be bored to death.

It's important for you to help your visitors maintain their needs by being a good host. A platinum aspiration will not help you.

[sara_dippity]

Something else I noticed about running a straight up resturaunt is that the only talent badge that's really used is sales for the Host (the one at the podium) and it seemed to increase everytime he picked up the phone and talked to whoever's on the other end..  I've had customers get burned food because the cook had low cooking skill, but I've yet to have food dropping due to low body.

I wonder if bar tenders and djs require some kind of skill as well.  I imagine the djs need creativity.  Will customers lose loyalty if they scratch the record?

Hah! The host gets credit for booking reservations! That's kind of cool.

[Motoki]

LOL my teen hostess just stands there and yaps on the phone all day but her sales keeps going up. I guess she's, uh, selling on those phonecalls to her friends. Yeah, that's it.