Route Shares Pay System

Where This Model Comes From — The Lay System

Route Shares was not invented from scratch. It is the land adaptation of the oldest continuously operating share-pay model in the world: the maritime lay system, running from 17th-century Nantucket whaling ships through today's Alaska fishing fleets.

On a whaling ship, nobody earned a wage. Every crew member signed a contract before the voyage for a fixed fraction of the catch — a "lay." The fraction was sized by rank: a captain might sign for 1/15 of the voyage's proceeds, an experienced seaman 1/150, and a first-timer — a "greenhand" — down around 1/200. A smaller denominator meant better pay, called a short lay, and it was earned over proven voyages. Melville himself shipped out on a 1/175th lay.

Modern fishing crews are paid the same way today. The boat sells the catch, trip expenses come off the top, and the rest splits by crew shares set in a written contract signed before the boat leaves the dock. Newcomers — "greenhorns" — commonly work a half share until they prove out; experienced deckhands earn a full share; the skipper's cut reflects the responsibility of running the boat. At trip's end, everyone gets a settlement sheet showing exactly how the money split.

Route Shares is that system, brought ashore. Every load-bearing piece maps one-to-one:

The Lay System → Route Shares

Policy Status, Amendments & Legal Disclaimers

This policy is not a contract. Nothing on this page creates a contract of employment, a guarantee of continued employment, or a guarantee of any particular rate or amount of compensation. Employment remains at-will, exactly as stated in [Employment Policies](/employment-policies).

Right to amend. The company reserves the right to amend, suspend, or withdraw this system at any time. Because tier multipliers, allowances, per-mile rates, and piece-rates are pay rates, any change takes effect prospectively only and will be communicated in writing before it applies — Minnesota law (Minn. Stat. § 181.032(d)) requires written notice to each affected employee before a change to a pay rate takes effect. No change will ever retroactively reduce pay for work already assigned or performed.

Law controls. If anything in this policy conflicts with federal, Minnesota, or local law, the law controls and the rest of the policy stays in force.

Effective date. This system is not in effect. It becomes effective only when the owner announces a go-live date in writing, together with the published rate tables.

Core Concept — Three Pay Pools

Under this system, your pay comes from three pools of money, all of which are wages (not reimbursements):

1. Route Labor Allowance. Each route carries a fixed dollar amount for the labor of completing it. The owner sets this amount per route. Crews see only the dollar amount — never the client billing behind it.

2. Drive Allowance. Each route also carries a dollar amount for drive time, computed automatically from the route's mileage times a per-mile rate set by the owner. If the route changes, the drive allowance recalculates.

3. Shop Task Piece-Rates. Shop work — sharpening and balancing blades, deck scraping and washing, oil and grease points, inspections, repairs — pays a flat rate per completed, signed task.

Every payout is computed by formula with zero manual judgment: the math is set in advance, and the same inputs always produce the same pay. Every payout line is recorded with the formula inputs that produced it (shares present, miles, rates), so any paycheck can be audited back to its math.

Tiers & Share Weights

Your share of each route pool is set by your tier — a pay multiplier that is earned through consistent performance and can be lost through documented problems. Tier multipliers are owner-tunable; the starting values are below.

When you are assigned to a route, your tier at the time of assignment is snapshotted onto that assignment — a later promotion or demotion never rewrites pay for work already assigned. Every tier change is logged with a timestamp, a reason, and the rule that triggered it.

Pay Tiers & Share Weights (owner-tunable)

How a Route Split Works — Worked Example

Route labor split: add up the share weights of everyone on the route to get total shares. Each person's pay = labor allowance ÷ total shares × their own weight.

Worked example. A route has a $300 labor allowance and a $133.65 drive allowance calculated under the fixed Drive Time & Mileage formula. The crew is one Crew Lead (1.25), one Crew Member (1.0), and one Prospect (0.75). Total route-labor shares = 1.25 + 1.0 + 0.75 = 3.0.

*Labor pool ($300 ÷ 3.0 = $100 per share):* - Crew Lead: $100 × 1.25 = $125.00 - Crew Member: $100 × 1.0 = $100.00 - Prospect: $100 × 0.75 = $75.00

*Drive pool:* the designated driver receives 1.25× their normal tier weight for drive pay only. The Crew Lead driver's drive weight is 1.25 × 1.25 = 1.5625. Effective drive shares = 1.5625 + 1.0 + 0.75 = 3.3125: - Crew Lead (also the driver): $133.65 ÷ 3.3125 × 1.5625 = $63.04 - Crew Member: $133.65 ÷ 3.3125 × 1.0 = $40.35 - Prospect: $133.65 ÷ 3.3125 × 0.75 = $30.26

The driver multiplier applies only to drive pay; the driver's ordinary tier still applies to route labor. The designated driver does not have to be the Crew Lead, and only insurance-approved drivers may drive. Full details on the fixed drive pool and 1.25× driver weight are in the Drive Time & Mileage section below.

Example Split — $300 Labor + $133.65 Drive, Crew of Three

Drive Time & Mileage

Drive pay uses one fixed, published formula. There is no route-difficulty score, traffic adjustment, discretionary calibration, or owner judgment about whether a particular drive was harder than another.

Fixed drive-pool formula:

Drive allowance = (round-trip miles × $0.50) + (round-trip drive hours × $30)

The $0.50 per-mile amount and the $30 per-drive-hour amount are the starting published rates for this planned system. If either rate is changed before go-live, the new rates must be published prospectively in writing. Miles come from the mapped route and drive time comes from the route estimate or recorded route time. The formula uses both inputs exactly as they are recorded.

These are wage-pool rates, not the per-mile vehicle cost used in estimates. IRS-style mileage reimbursement, fuel, maintenance, depreciation, and other vehicle costs remain separate company overhead calculations on the estimate/billing side. They are not deducted from the drive allowance or from anyone's paycheck.

Driver share rule. The designated driver receives 1.25× their normal tier weight for the drive pool only. A Prospect driver is 0.9375 drive shares (1.25 × 0.75); a Crew Member driver is 1.25 drive shares (1.25 × 1.0); and a Crew Lead driver is 1.5625 drive shares (1.25 × 1.25). Everyone else keeps their ordinary tier weight. The driver's ordinary tier weight remains unchanged for route labor, shop tasks, vesting, and demotion. There is no separate percentage premium.

Worked example. A route runs 131.3 miles round trip with approximately 136 minutes (2.27 hours) of drive time. The crew is one Crew Lead (1.25 shares), one Crew Member (1.0 share), and one Prospect (0.75 shares), for 3.0 ordinary shares. The Crew Lead is the designated driver, so drive shares are 1.5625 + 1.0 + 0.75 = 3.3125 effective drive shares.

1. *Mileage component:* 131.3 miles × $0.50 = $65.65. 2. *Time component:* 136 minutes ÷ 60 × $30 = $68.00. 3. *Total drive allowance:* $65.65 + $68.00 = $133.65. 4. *Drive split:* $133.65 ÷ 3.3125 = $40.35 per effective drive share (rounded for display). 5. *Payments:* Crew Lead driver: 1.5625 × $40.35 = $63.04; Crew Member: 1.0 × $40.35 = $40.35; Prospect: 0.75 × $40.35 = $30.26. The system balances rounding to the exact $133.65 pool.

Why the pool is split by shares. Under the old hourly model, everyone in the truck earned their full hourly rate for the entire drive — the driver navigating a trailer through traffic and the passenger watching their phone in the back seat were paid identically. The fixed pool and 1.25× driver weight recognize the difference in contribution without creating a subjective difficulty adjustment:

- The fixed formula means an unnecessary detour or extra gas-station stop does not increase the drive pool. It reduces the crew's effective dollars-per-hour instead. - Applying 1.25× the driver's tier weight recognizes that operating the vehicle is additional responsibility; the driver does not have to be the Crew Lead. - Vehicle costs are never crew money. Fuel, maintenance, mileage overhead, and IRS-style reimbursement remain company overhead on the estimate/billing side.

One thing never changes: drive time is still clocked as hours worked for everyone in the truck, and it counts toward the pre-route wage-floor test and overtime (see Minnesota Compliance below).

Example — 131.3 mi / 136 min Route, Driver Gets 1.25× Tier Weight

Effective Hourly Floor — Pre-Route Approval Gate

Shares determine how a route pool is divided, but the route budget and crew composition must be set so every assigned employee is projected to earn at least $15 per paid hour. This is a pre-route design requirement — not an after-the-fact adjustment system, not a new tier, and not a reduction of anyone else's share.

How the floor gate works: before a route is posted or assigned, the system uses the mapped miles, scheduled drive time, route labor allowance, drive allowance, shop work, crew tiers, driver multiplier, and projected paid hours to calculate each person's effective hourly rate. The route may be assigned only if every person passes the $15/hour floor. If anyone fails, the owner must correct the route budget or crew composition first. No employee is assigned to a route that fails the gate.

The $15 floor is a company policy floor. Minnesota's applicable minimum wage and overtime rules still control; if the legal floor is higher than $15, the higher legal floor applies. All time that must be paid is included in the pre-route test, including drive time for everyone in the vehicle, route work, required waiting, shop time, and any expected redo time. The floor does not authorize off-the-clock work.

Two-hour example — three-person crew including a Prospect. Assume a two-hour drive, 50 round-trip miles, one Crew Lead driving, one Crew Member, and one Prospect, with no route-labor pool in this drive-only illustration. At the published starting rates, the formula produces 50 miles × $0.50 = $25.00, plus 2 hours × $30 = $60.00, for an $85.00 drive pool. Effective drive shares are 1.5625 (Lead driver at 1.25×), 1.0, and 0.75 — 3.3125 total. The Prospect would receive only $19.25, or $9.62/hour, so the route fails the gate and cannot be assigned as priced.

To pass without any after-the-fact adjustment, the planned drive pool must be at least $132.50. At a $132.50 drive pool, the split is: Crew Lead driver $62.50 ($31.25/hour), Crew Member $40.00 ($20.00/hour), and Prospect $30.00 ($15.00/hour). Under the existing $0.50/mile component, that $132.50 pool would require a $53.75/hour time component for a two-hour route ($25 mileage + $107.50 time), or the route could include a properly priced labor allowance that brings every person's combined route earnings above the floor.

The system performs the same test for every route before assignment. Shares remain the allocation method, while the pre-route gate ensures the planned allocation is large enough for every tier — including a Prospect — to meet the company's $15/hour floor.

Partial Completion, Callbacks & Redos

Partial completion (rain, breakdown, or other legitimate interruption): the crew is paid the labor slices of the sites actually completed — verified by the before/after photos already required on every job — plus the drive allowance prorated by the miles actually driven. Each site on a route carries a proportional slice of the labor allowance for exactly this purpose; those slices are internal accounting, not standalone "site pay."

Callbacks and redos are unpaid. If a site has to be redone because the work did not meet standard, the redo visit generates $0 payout lines and an accountability event against the original crew on the [Points & Accountability](/points-accountability) ledger.

One primary consequence per event. A first callback hits the discipline ledger modestly — the unpaid redo is already the main cost. Escalation is reserved for patterns of repeated callbacks, not a single bad day. This mirrors the existing accountability philosophy: strict standards, but discipline driven by pattern, never by one slip.

Legal guardrails on "unpaid" redos. "Unpaid" means the redo generates no piece-rate payout line — it never means working off the clock. Redo time is clocked like any other shift, counts as hours worked for the pre-route wage-floor test and overtime, and appears on your earnings statement. The route gate is designed to include expected redo time before assignment; if an unforeseen event creates a legal wage shortfall, the company must still pay all legally required wages. Wages already earned are never clawed back or deducted to cover faulty work: Minnesota law (Minn. Stat. § 181.79) prohibits deductions from earned wages for claimed damage or poor workmanship without the employee's voluntary written authorization given after the loss occurs. All consequences under this policy are forward-looking only.

Shop Task Piece-Rates & Equipment Traceback

Shop work pays a flat piece-rate per checklist item — blade sharpening and balancing, deck scrape/wash, oil and grease points, inspections, and repairs — each with its own owner-set rate.

Your signature is the pay trigger and the accountability record. Each completed task is signed by the person who did it, timestamped, linked to the specific equipment unit, and optionally photographed. Pay is issued only for signed, verified items.

Equipment-failure traceback: if a piece of equipment later fails, the chain of recent signed tasks on that unit is reviewed. If the failure traces to a signed task that was not done or not done right, that confirmed trace generates an accountability-ledger event against the signer. Sign only work you actually completed to standard — your signature means you stand behind it.

Tier Vesting & Demotion — Driven by the Ledger

Tiers connect directly to the accountability system on the [Points & Accountability](/points-accountability) page. Points never adjust a daily split — points move your multiplier, and the math moves the money.

Moving up (vesting): consistent clean performance — for example, a set number of consecutive clean route-weeks (owner-configurable) — vests you into the next tier. Your progress toward the next tier is tracked and visible to you.

Moving down (demotion): verified problems (like confirmed callbacks) cost points on the discipline ledger. If your points fall below the configured floor, you drop one tier for a minimum lockout period before you can begin earning your way back. Repeat offenses escalate.

Every tier change is rule-driven and reviewed. Changes fire automatically from published ledger thresholds — never from anyone's mood — and the owner ratifies or overrides each one with a logged reason. Your full tier history, with timestamps and reasons, is part of your record and visible to you.

What You See — Your Equity Statement

Every employee gets a personal Equity Statement showing everything that determines their own pay:

- Your current tier and share multiplier - Your vesting progress bar toward the next tier - Your points balance and recent ledger events — with the evidence behind each one (e.g., the complaint and photos) - Your pay history, broken out by route and by pool - Your effective dollars-per-hour for each pay period - Open routes currently available to claim

What stays confidential — from everyone at crew level:

- Client billing totals and client pricing - The business's full financials and P&L - Any other employee's pay, tier history, or ledger

This is a hard line, not a courtesy. Route allowances are always shown as plain dollar amounts, never as a client bill. The one deliberate exception: the company publishes the fixed pool-to-price percentage stated in the [Share Agreement](/share-agreement) and repeated on every settlement sheet — a single stable number that lets crews verify their slice of every route is constant, without exposing client bills, route revenue, or company financials. That published percentage is the entire window into billing; nothing else about pricing or P&L is crew-level information. The same confidentiality standard in the Code of Conduct applies: client pricing and company financials are not crew-level information.

Your right to discuss your own pay. Nothing in this policy — or anywhere in this handbook — prohibits you from disclosing or discussing your own wages or benefits. That right is protected by the Minnesota Wage Disclosure Protection law (Minn. Stat. § 181.172) and the National Labor Relations Act, and the company will not retaliate against anyone for exercising it. The confidentiality rules above restrict company records — client pricing, company financials, and other employees' records you might access through your role — not conversations about your own paycheck.

Your Settlement Sheet — How Each Pay Period Reads

Boat crews end every trip with a settlement sheet: the catch at the top, every deduction and share below it, each person's dollars at the bottom. Your Equity Statement works the same way each pay period — it is a settlement sheet for your routes.

The sheet's "gross" is the labor pool — never the client bill. The top line of your settlement is the total of the route pools you worked (labor allowances + drive allowances). Everything below it happens inside the crew's world:

1. Pool total — the combined dollar pools of your routes for the period (the "catch"). 2. Drive allowance — the formula-funded drive pool, shown as its own line, split by drive shares. 3. Driver premium — the designated driver's 1.25× drive weight, visible so everyone can see why the driver's drive line is larger. 4. Shares by tier — the pool ÷ total shares × your weight math, with the inputs (who was on the crew, at what weights) stored on every line. 5. Shop piece-rate lines — each signed, verified shop task at its published rate. 6. Wage-floor line — the pre-route approval gate is designed so every route pays above the legal floor before it is ever assigned; if an unforeseen event still left your period total ÷ hours below the applicable minimum wage, the legally required supplement appears as its own line. On a properly gated route it reads $0.00 — that is the gate working, not a missing benefit. 7. Overtime premium — the additional 0.5× blended-rate amount on any overtime hours.

One context line, and only one, connects the pool to the business: *"Route pools are set at 40% of route price."* That published percentage is the whole window into billing — the sheet never shows client bills, route revenue, or company P&L, exactly as the confidentiality rules above require. Like a boat crew that knows the boat share is a stable, published fraction, you know the crew's slice of every route without seeing the books.

Check your sheet immediately — boat rule. The standing advice on every fishing dock is to read the settlement sheet before the money is banked, because corrections get harder with time. Same here: every payout line stores the formula inputs that produced it, so any error is provable. Flag anything that looks wrong within 7 days of the settlement posting and it gets audited back to its math. (Legally required wage corrections are always made regardless of timing — the 7-day ask is about catching errors fast, not a deadline on your rights.)

Minnesota Compliance — Your Wage Floor Never Moves

Shares pay never overrides wage law. These protections are built into route approval and payroll:

Pre-route wage-floor gate (Minn. Stat. § 177.24). Before a route is posted or assigned, the planned pools, crew tiers, driver multiplier, and all projected paid hours are tested for every assigned employee. The route cannot be assigned unless each person is projected to earn at least the company's $15 per-hour floor and the applicable Minnesota minimum wage, whichever is higher. If the route fails, the owner corrects the budget or planned crew before work begins — the gate, not an after-the-fact adjustment, is the primary wage-floor mechanism. If an unforeseen event still leaves a pay period below the applicable minimum wage, the company pays the legally required difference as a backstop; on a properly gated route that backstop should never bind. All hours that must be paid count in the test, including drive time between sites, shop time, required waiting, and redo visits.

Overtime on a blended rate (Minn. Stat. § 177.25 / FLSA). Minnesota state law requires overtime past 48 hours in a workweek; the federal FLSA 40-hour threshold applies where the business or employee is FLSA-covered — whichever standard is more protective for you in a given week is the one applied. Because shares pay is piece-based, your blended regular rate is computed first — total earnings from all pools for the week divided by total hours worked — and an additional 0.5× that rate is paid on every overtime hour (straight-time for those hours is already inside the pools).

Itemized earnings statements (Minn. Stat. § 181.032). Every pay period you receive a statement itemizing hours worked, each pool's earnings, the blended rate, and any overtime premium — the same detail shown on your Equity Statement.

Final wages. On separation, earned wages — including completed, signed piece-rate work — are paid within the deadlines set by Minn. Stat. §§ 181.13–181.14.

The wage-floor gate and overtime review surface on the owner's route and pay-period review, not as discretionary judgment calls. For current overtime rules under today's hourly system, see the Overtime Policy on the [Payroll & Schedule](/payroll-schedule) page.

Route Claiming & the Rotation Floor

Crews form themselves. Open routes for the next cycle are posted, and employees claim the routes they want and the crewmates they want to work with. The owner approves the claims and fills any gaps.

The rotation floor keeps it fair. To stop the best-paying routes from being locked up by the same people forever, the owner can enforce rotation rules: a maximum number of consecutive cycles any one person can hold a premium route, and a minimum number of route-days per period for every roster member.

Selection patterns are a signal, not a score. Who claims routes with whom — and who is never selected — is tracked and visible to the owner as a soft signal about crew dynamics. It does not feed the discipline ledger or change anyone's pay by itself.

Routes with consistently low claim interest tell the owner something too: the route may be underpriced for the work it takes, and its allowance can be adjusted.

Industry Context — How Other Lawn & Snow Firms Pay

This system is not an experiment invented from scratch — it is a more structured, more legally careful version of pay models that are already established across the lawn and snow industry:

Percentage-of-gross pay. Many mowing companies pay crews a fixed percentage (commonly 25–40%) of a route's billed revenue, split among the crew. Same incentive as ours: finish efficiently, raise your own hourly rate. Our difference: those crews see client billing. Here, routes carry fixed dollar allowances instead, so the incentive works without exposing client pricing.

Piece-rate / per-yard pay. Flat pay per lawn is common in high-volume residential markets, and flat rates per shop task mirror piece-rate systems used across the trade. Our shop task piece-rates follow this proven model — with signatures and equipment traceback added on top.

Pay-for-performance software. Major industry platforms now build this in, computing both hourly and performance pay and always paying the higher amount — functionally similar to our pre-route wage-floor gate, with the floor set before assignment rather than corrected after work is performed.

Snow pay. Per-push and per-event pay for plow operators is industry standard, mirroring how snow contracts themselves are priced (per-push, per-inch, or seasonal).

Where we go further than typical practice: - Published tier ladder (0.75 / 1.0 / 1.25 shares) driven by the accountability ledger — most percentage shops split evenly or negotiate person-by-person behind closed doors. - A separate drive allowance pool with a 1.5× driver tier weight — many firms ignore drive time entirely, which is a common wage-law failure point. - Built-in compliance — the pre-route wage-floor gate and blended-rate overtime are designed in from day one, not bolted on after a complaint.