--f403045e7cfa09fc1605676558c6 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="f403045e7cfa09fc0a05676558c5" --f403045e7cfa09fc0a05676558c5 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Hi chaps. Business is good here at the moment thanks - February a bit tricky but we look back on track for March. Hope you guys are still rocking and rolling..= . At this stage it looks like the brains of the operation Cheryl will be in Chicago. Based on the amount of learning I brought back from Nashville, I suspect it makes more sense for her to be there!! We have all our caregivers at the same rate - those who were ahead of minimum at the time of the government mandated increase did not get raised and those that were below got a decent bump. We pay $1/hr more than minimum. We actually had most caregivers at the new minimum prior to the mandated increase so their increase took them out ahead of minimum rather than catch them up. Everyone gets $15 (live-in and live-out). With regards clients we increased most clients on Jan 1 and significantly so. Our average client increase was 11.3% with our maximum closer to 16.5%. Based on the fact that our caregiver costs had already risen through 2017 this increase is helping us to claw back margin that we had lost. We were very open that we raise every year as a matter of course but that this year was larger than normal on account of the mandated wage increase. The size of the increase in wages here was something like 19% but due to the fact that we were already ahead of the minimum we were able to raise the employees a smaller amount and then the clients by approx 11% and still appear to the clients as though we were cutting them a break based on what could have been due to the increases. No push back from any clients as we reminded them that everyone was going up. We have a two phase approach for our clients also. Any client acquired in Q4 of 2017 we are not raising until April 1 of this year. However typically they were already at higher rates that don't have margin impact to such an extent as our older clients who were benefitting from lower hourly rates. The basic premise was to be open, blame the government and remind clients that all the other agencies who aren't as good would be raising rates too. Hope this helps. I look forward to tales of Chicago excess from Cheryl. Cheers SD With regards cl On Wed, Mar 14, 2018 at 3:54 PM Tim Thomas wrote: > Hi Steve, > > Hope business is good. Will you be in Chicago for the regional meeting? > > We wanted to ask you how you handled the minimum wage increase with both > client and caregivers. Although its not as significant as Ontario, the > Quebec minimum wage is going from $11.25 to $12.00 on May 1st. This is a > much bigger increase than we=E2=80=99ve ever had before and we are debati= ng how > best to handle it. Do we increase prices across-the-board? If so, some > caregivers might not get an increase and will that come back to bite us?