1. Decide the structure before the person
Work out what a counter assistant, a godown hand and a driver are worth in your market before you interview anyone, so the number is a position rather than a negotiation. Decide whether the role is a flat monthly salary or salary plus an incentive, and be consistent between people doing the same job — inconsistency between two staff members doing the same work is the fastest way to lose both.
2. Incentive works where the person controls the outcome
Paying a counter assistant on shop turnover is meaningless, because they do not decide whether customers walk in. Paying a salesman on the accounts he brings, or a recovery person on collections, is meaningful because the outcome follows their effort. Where you do pay an incentive, base it on a figure the person can see — otherwise it becomes a monthly argument about a number only you can produce.
3. Advances are where it goes wrong
A staff member takes two thousand on the eighth and fifteen hundred on the twentieth, both from the drawer, both agreed verbally. At month end one remembers three and a half thousand and the other remembers two. Recording an advance when it is given takes seconds, and it is the single habit that removes most salary disputes in a small shop. Show both amounts with their dates on the slip.
4. Pay on a date, with the working shown
Salary on a predictable date matters more to staff than the amount does, because their own obligations run on dates. Handing over a slip that shows the monthly salary, days present and absent, advances with dates, deductions and the net amount converts a transaction into something checkable. People who can check what they were paid rarely dispute it.
5. Where statutory obligations begin
Beyond a certain number of employees, provident fund and other statutory obligations apply, and the thresholds and rules vary. This is a question for your CA rather than something to work out from a general article, and it is worth asking before you cross a threshold rather than after. Shops and Establishments registration brings its own conditions on hours, leave and holidays.
6. The final month
Almost every serious dispute happens when somebody leaves — usually because an advance from months earlier was never adjusted, or a notice period was assumed rather than agreed. Running the final salary from the same record, with the working shown, settles most cases on the spot. Keep the record after they have gone, because the question that arrives six months later is answered from it.