[Skyglide]

Hi All
Like your views please.
Which is best in your opinion?

Man and van setup plus another van and man setup.
(More fuel, wear and tear, greater flexibility)

Or put both operators together in one van.
(Get more work and roll the other van out with another employee)

Want max earnings for the employees and max returns for employer.

Have vans and insurances paid for. Work coming in every day.

All replies welcome
Chris

[Neil_A]

I would say 2 vans going out to do different work everyday would bring more money to the table... dont matter if u have 1 man to each van or 2men to each van... each team going separate ways would bring more money in i think

[Skyglide]

Neil that's what I feel. Also w/c are loners by nature and may not like to work 2 man all the time.
Looking at cost savings, but not at the expense of increased turnover.
Chris

[Neil_A]

iF I WORK ON MY OWN I WILL GET MY HEAD DOWN AND CRACK ON... iF YOUR WITH SOME1 YOU MIGHT TALK OR ONE MAY BE FASTER THAN THE OTHER AND YOU MAY DRAG EACHOTHER BEHIND..

Arrgg caps... bleh

[Paul Coleman]

I know this is a side issue but aren't there safety regulations about people working on their own if they are employees on PAYE?  I know it is allowed under some conditions but not others.  I have done office cleaning on the PAYE system and it was permitted but I wasn't allowed to do it when I worked in the printing trade (even though the work was not on machinery).  Does anyone know when it is allowed and when it isn't?  Sorry if I've hijacked the thread but it is connected.

[russ_clark]

I have worked 1 man and 2 man wfp vans.
The only way to go is 1 man vans.
 Only use 2 man to train them up
Just my opinion of course

[Neil Williams]

1 man per van is the most profitable way.
Trust me wrote the book on this subject

[russ_clark]

blimey someone agrees with me 

[NWH]

Listen to Russ,to train them take one with you till he knows what he`s doing and up to speed then send him out with a list of work,to do double what you do now as a pair would be hard graft long days and pushing it,but with 1 doing half on his own and 1 doing the other half it`s a lot easier and double money day in day out.To see the real benefit of employing i would say it`s the only way,sending someone out on there own everyday i would give an end of month bonus to keep up moral though,find the right one and you can earn serious money.Forget the start up costs and other expense if you find the right person you`ll get your money back in 6-10 months easy,and from then on your profit nearly all the way apart from general running costs.

[Moderator David@stives]

one man per van, BUT they will get bored and lonely , so you need 2 in a van in reality.

The good think about 2 in a van is you only need one van for 2 people to share.

one man per van means more vans.

Dave

[NWH]

1 van for 2 people,the thing is if your paying them a good amount per day your costs could amount to nearly £200 per day if like i say there on a insentive kind of wage,add to that fuel and other bits and bobs and your not making as much as you would with 1 on there own,like i said before the right person needs to be found and as said before on other threads this is the main objective.With 1 acomplished WC out on there own they should be earning enough for you to be able to give them almost half of the take and still make a lot of money per week-month out of them,2 blokes will talk about you as if your Hitler,Himler,belseybub you name it before you know it they`ll be out on there own.1 person on there own knowing there on a good wage won`t go far.

[Rob.Hall]

Most of my work is domestic with a few small businesses.

Have seen a crew working business.

One washes the other rinses........I can tell you that those boys were fast.

If I wanted your set up I would have 2 to a van.

[Ravensford]

I know this is a side issue but aren't there safety regulations about people working on their own if they are employees on PAYE?  I know it is allowed under some conditions but not others.  I have done office cleaning on the PAYE system and it was permitted but I wasn't allowed to do it when I worked in the printing trade (even though the work was not on machinery).  Does anyone know when it is allowed and when it isn't?  Sorry if I've hijacked the thread but it is connected.

Lot of misconceptions with lone working. Can't comment on specific trades as the union rule book may not permit it in the print trade. Generally though, lone working is ok but as an employer you have a duty of care to your employee. The accepted way of working is to risk assess their work as being acceptable for lone working, know where they are &, importantly, have a system of checking up on them (for welfare purposes - not snooping) for example half hourly or hourly calls. A bit onerous but acceptable.

On the main thread I would think it depends on type of work being carried out. My experience of residential is 1 van per person is better. Commercial work might be more efficient to be set up as 1 van per team of two. I don't think there is a definitive answer.

[NWH]

Isn`t that what we pay insurance for.

[Ravensford]

Don't know what happened with last post but quote is from Shiner

[mick hay]

Most of my work is domestic with a few small businesses.

Have seen a crew working business.

One washes the other rinses........I can tell you that those boys were fast.

If I wanted your set up I would have 2 to a van.

That sounds like an excellent way of working, bet its well fast too!!!

[Rob.Hall]

Yep. Those boys earnt aprox £650 for a mornings work.

[Neil_A]

one man per van, BUT they will get bored and lonely ,.

Give them a dog?

[bluez]

I have tried both options but generally now put out 1 man to 1 van unless we are working on large commercial. I find that when I do need to put two men  on 1 van that it is important to
have one in charge and one helper then they wont argue. Productivity varies from employee to employee but a lazy b******s will be twice as lazy if he has company and a good worker will be a good worker on his own but may be distracted when with another employee.

It probably also depends on your intentions, if you want to develppe the business more then the extra vans give you more exposure and mean that you can operate in more areas each day.

Suck it and see one way or the other you can allways change it afterwards.

[Skyglide]

Great replies as usual on this forum!
Russ is right on the mark - just as I first thought.
NWH we think alike, btw thanks for the Gaps and RO stuff.
Bluez - again thats what I thought - exposure in the area.
Big thanks to all.
Chris

[Ian_Giles]

Most of my work is domestic with a few small businesses.

Have seen a crew working business.

One washes the other rinses........I can tell you that those boys were fast.

If I wanted your set up I would have 2 to a van.

That sounds like an excellent way of working, bet its well fast too!!!

One washes, one rinses??
I for one never rinse as a separate operation, in fact I very rarely rinse at all, for me it is all done on the glass as part of the cleaning process.

As for the which is most profitable?

Where possible send your staff out by themselves, by and large it is way more efficient than having two work together.
Of course there will always be occasions when on certain jobs or days a 2 man operation may be better, you just have to be flexible.

Ian

[Moderator David@stives]

A lot of it depends on vehicle costs.

£3000 a year depreciation and interest costs
£500 tax and insurance
£3000 fuel
£1000 wfp costs per year ?
 Total £7500

thats £150 a week per vehicle per week.

[cvdewsbury]

keep the overhead factor down one van 2 man team....or 3man team if you can work it right

[AuRavelling79]

... 2 blokes will talk about you as if your Hitler,Himler,belseybub you name it before you know it they`ll be out on there own.

Top advice and brilliantly put! 

(But you forgot Pol Pot, Mugabe and Stalin!)

[Rob.Hall]

I think you are right Ian to be flexible.

This job contained a lot of pains to a window so one washing followed by the other rinsing
was a good combination.

I can see your point about doing the whole job in one If you had sheet windows etc .

Could not see domestic being viable with 2 unless you are working on big houses.

Just my point of view.

I would be interested to hear comments from anyone who does run 2 too a van.

[gary evans]

I run 2 to a van allmost all the time, most work fairly big + a lot of travellng.

Find this best most of the time, started sending lone worker on some run around small stuff, that works well also.

Gary