Costs of an employee: What are they?

A company without employees is a mere abstraction. Even if there are costs and they are high, they must be seen as necessary for the growth and continuity of the company.

In this article, we will explain how this calculation is done and why this knowledge is important. Follow!

Costs of an employee: What should the manager know?

The costs of an employee must be taken into account in the company’s budget planning.

Only with the knowledge of the real cost of an employee can the manager plan his strategic actions taking into account the hiring of a team that will help him lead the company to success.

In addition, by knowing the cost of an employee, the manager will be able to offer conditions to attract and retain the best talent , without worrying about the risk of labor lawsuits.

Now let’s move on to calculating the costs of one employee. Follow along.

Employee monthly expenses

What goes into the calculation of a collaborator’s monthly expenses? We list below. Check out!

fixed expenses

• Monthly salary ;
• Annual expenses with mandatory salary adjustments, according to the category’s union.
• Transportation allowance or other types of expenses (parking allowance or fuel allowance)
• 13th salary ;
• Vacation (constitutional 1/3);
• Overtime ;
• Additional (night shifts, dangerous or unhealthy)
• FGTS and INSS

Other expenses to be taken into account

• Transportation allowance or other types of expenses (parking allowance or fuel allowance)
• Meal allowance or food allowance
• Health or dental plan (individual or group);
• Life insurance;

The costs of an employee can reach three times the value of the salary. This occurs because of the taxes and fees that each company must pay, according to its tax option.

For example, a company that opts for Simples Nacional spends 39.37% of its capital with an employee. Your costs are:

• Holidays: 11.11%;
• 13th salary: 8.33%;
• FGTS: 8%;
• FGTS/Provision for fine for termination: 4%;
• INSS on 13th/Holidays/DSR: 7.93%.

Companies that are in the Presumed or Real Profit schemes spend 68.18% monthly with employees. See below:

• Holidays: 11.11%;
• FGTS : 8%;
• 13th salary: 8.33%;
• Social Security on 13th/Vacation/DSR: 7.93%;
• INSS: 20%;
• Occupational accident insurance (SAT): 3%;
• Education salary: 2.5%;
• FGTS/Provision for fine for rescission: 4%.

To illustrate the calculation, consider the following example:

Let’s assume that the employee is hired with a salary of R$1000. Expenses will be as follows:

• Base Salary: R$1000;
• 8% FGTS: R$80;
• INSS: 80;
• Meal allowance: R$330.00 (R$15 per day, 22 working days per month);
• Transportation allowance: R$8.60 per day = R$269.20 (22 working days. The employee pays 6% of his salary and the company covers the rest).

Monthly Total: 1759.20.

Other employee costs

What we show above are only monthly expenses guaranteed by law. The manager must also consider other expenses. See below:

• Expenditure on selection processes;
• Expenses with training;
• Expenses with workshops and training ;
• Spending on benefits to attract and retain talent;
• Between others.

In order for the company to maintain its financial health, the manager needs to know all these expenses and make predictions in the annual planning. Accounting, tax, and HR need to work together to support the manager and his decisions.

Furthermore, many of these costs must be seen as an investment – ​​as is the case with training and qualifications – since they allow the company to generate new market differentials. These are necessary demands for the growth of the business itself.

How to reduce operating costs?

As seen above, there are several costs demanded by the maintenance of an employee to the company. However, there are some ways to limit them and thus allow the company to maximize its profits.

Below are some ways to reduce an employee’s operating costs.

1. Overtime control and development of an internal working hours policy

One way to lower an employee’s costs is through the institution of an internal policy regarding working hours. In this way, the employee has prior knowledge of when it is necessary, or not, to perform overtime work.

This, in turn, is one of the main reasons for the increase in corporate spending on employee maintenance.

In addition to the wide dissemination of the internal policy, on the other hand, it is also possible to control compliance with the rules by analyzing working hours.

2. Workday Compensation

Does the nature of the activities provided by your company mean that at certain times or even days of the month there is more or less demand? If the answer is yes, a good way to limit an employee’s costs is to establish a time bank or workday compensation system.

These, however, depend on the non-existence, in the Collective Agreement (CCT) of the category in which the company is classified, of forecasts referring to the impossibility of using this type of compensatory system.

However, if there is no prohibition, it is possible to institute this form which, incidentally, can lead to a decrease in the company’s expenses with the costs of an employee and, therefore, an increase in profit.

This is because overtime is no longer remunerated with an additional 50% and, on the other hand, is converted into rest time for the worker.

Thus, instead of receiving the value of overtime work, the hours worked beyond the contractual day are transformed into hours off on days that would normally be worked.

In the case of compensation, it is necessary to use the hours within the same month in which they were provided in an extraordinary manner and, furthermore, it is necessary that the employee has prior knowledge of how much compensation can be made.

On the other hand, in the bank of hours compensation can be carried out within a longer time, generally corresponding to 6 months.

3. Home Office

Finally, another way to reduce an employee’s costs is through the institution of remote work, that is, home office .

This is due to the fact that working remotely does not require the payment of a transport voucher, which is required only on days when the employee needs to report to the company’s headquarters.

On the other hand, there is no need to control the employee’s time in the home office, so that overtime also ceases to exist. However, attention is needed. If the remote work is temporary and the employee was submitted, until then, to the control, it is indicated the maintenance of this and the payment of overtime.

For employees hired directly to provide a home office, however, it is possible to dispense with this control right away, thus avoiding not only overtime, but also benefits such as transportation vouchers.

Point control and economy

Cleaning up the company’s accounts will make it more capable of dealing with other expenses, such as employee expenses. And one way to reduce costs – legal, operational and technological – is to adopt a 100% online attendance control system, which makes it possible to avoid errors, failures and fraud.

Digital time attendance systems, for example, offer many benefits over other types of marking, such as data and information integration, access allowed only to people involved in people management, real-time information, and much more.

Differentials

It is possible to control all types of clocking features via mobile devices and the computer, such as, for example, working hours management (weekly, shifts, flexible, etc.).

Anti-fraud electronic point in line with all legal provisions; vacation control (absences, allowance, etc.); system integrated with the REP; time stamping by computer or mobile devices.

And still on point control for external teams (with GPS tracking in real time); high-performance security devices (such as facial recognition, for example); and much more.

People management manages to meet incoming and outgoing demands, as well as working hours, overtime, managing the allocated team, etc. All this much more agile, without compromising worker productivity. Despite being mandatory, this demand does not have to be costly for your business.