Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: richywilts on December 11, 2012, 05:20:12 pm
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what hours do you make them work yet again had a crap days return 12 jobs for measly 232quid
i phoned them and they were still at unit at 8.30am today meant to be in work at 7.45am to get worksheets etc and be out for 8.00am work was prob a 20 minute drive away in neston im getting fed up now 12 jobs is taking the p**s for a two man team
i wasnt in this morning as i had a doctors appoinment
they had roughly £310 due today 19 jobs
whats everyones thoughts im thinking begin making them be in for 7.30am to fill van up etc or make them leave van at unit and il come in a fill them up save them a job and save me money paying them while they stand around chatting starting to get me down now this
does everyone pay staff from moment they get to work or moment they leave unit to go to the house/commercial jobs
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I pay them from 8:30 till 16:30 or 8\4 9\5 etc
by the sounds of it one of them is a bad egg.
What happens if they dont get the work done thats set ? how much experence do they have?, whats taking them so long?
these are what I would want to be knowing.
you must know how much work should and can be done in a day, break it down into time.
my guys come in 15mins before starting work, this time is for them to mess about do whatever they do, ask me any questions about holiday etc in thier time not my own, they start working at 8:30 till finish. this does not mean they turn up at that time then messabout for 15 mins first.
seems to work
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its winter!! bloody freezing out there now people just work slower .. i do myself and its pretty dark by 3.40 so if you finish a job at about 3.15 you cant really start another depending on how big it is.
i dont really no the answer to your question.. did u ask them why only 12 houses where cleaned? do you not have a static system making water in the daytime and then fill the vans at the end of the day for tomorrow?
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MAKE THEM FILL VAN AND PUT ON CHARGE THE NIGHT BEFORE.
if the van isnt gone by 8am its your fault m8.
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Only one person to blame.
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fill van up the night before, give them a realistic work sheet
start at 8.30 and they can knock off when the work is done.
Pay a reasonable wage with a decent bonus if all the work is done each week.
If they are to slow then go out with them and show them how its done!?
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Richy how much do you pay them??. It doesnt sound a too bad a days takings for 12 jobs. I always give 25 jobs/£250 to be done as an average day sometimes more.
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Rich
They are taking the Pee big time.
I have seen it all before, to find out who it is, send them on there own, if they can't average over £200 a day each, more on good work, then you have seriously got something wrong.
Its your business and take control, make them work 8 hours if they finish early give them more work, there are plenty out there who give there all for £8.00 per hour.
If it were my boys, they would be getting an ultimatum in the morning
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its not a measly figure but i know for a fact one of the lads could prob do that on his own if given a van but he doesnt have a licence,
my issue is there just wasting time and taking there time where if they just began trying to speed up a gear and not stand around chatting etc if they came bk with 270-280 id be happy
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Id be happy with two men cleaning 12 £20 houses in these conditions! What is your wage bill for one day?
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Hmm, was -4 here at that time Richy, did you ask them why they weren't out? I'm stuck on cold atm, but at 9:30 the windows were still a block of ice when I tried to clean them. You sure it wasn't due to the cold they didn't leave earlier?
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It was obviously workable in Rich's area or he would of mentioned it in his original post
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its not a measly figure but i know for a fact one of the lads could prob do that on his own if given a van but he doesnt have a licence,
my issue is there just wasting time and taking there time where if they just began trying to speed up a gear and not stand around chatting etc if they came bk with 270-280 id be happy
I don't get it. Two blokes earn £280. Assuming 16 man hours at £8 an hour that's £160. Then NI, van, overheads. It's hardly worh it unless you have a fleet.
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Rich
you would be happy with £270, well say no more, what are you moaning about.
If your happy with that, then obviously they can see that, then they respond to it.
They were only £40 away, £20 each, so really what is your problem ?
If it was me i would sack them both
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its not a measly figure but i know for a fact one of the lads could prob do that on his own if given a van but he doesnt have a licence,
my issue is there just wasting time and taking there time where if they just began trying to speed up a gear and not stand around chatting etc if they came bk with 270-280 id be happy
I don't get it. Two blokes earn £280. Assuming 16 man hours at £8 an hour that's £160. Then NI, van, overheads. It's hardly worh it unless you have a fleet.
16 hours at £8 an hour is not £160 mate. Check the batteries on your calculator ;D
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Rich
you would be happy with £270, well say no more, what are you moaning about.
If your happy with that, then obviously they can see that, then they respond to it.
They were only £40 away, £20 each, so really what is your problem ?
If it was me i would sack them both
when i say id be happy with 270 thats sort of the lowest id accept two man team to do
they had a couple of inside cleans too do today this morning so shudnt really of been a problem working in the cold that early
i think its the time there wasting to before getting out on the road to clean the windows thats bothering me mainly dave 3 lads were late monday because the driver slept in who picks them all up and didnt leave unit til 8.30 so that 1.5 hrs wasted time of cleaning and 2 lads today not out cleaning till 8.30 so another 1 hour so id say its an easy 80-100quid lost revenue
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its not a measly figure but i know for a fact one of the lads could prob do that on his own if given a van but he doesnt have a licence,
my issue is there just wasting time and taking there time where if they just began trying to speed up a gear and not stand around chatting etc if they came bk with 270-280 id be happy
I don't get it. Two blokes earn £280. Assuming 16 man hours at £8 an hour that's £160. Then NI, van, overheads. It's hardly worh it unless you have a fleet.
think he meant 120 quid off for wages off 280 is 160quid
16 hours at £8 an hour is not £160 mate. Check the batteries on your calculator ;D
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You need to give them a weekly beating on a Monday Morning.
Mine set off latest at 06.30 EVERY day no matter what, if anyone is late other staff have been told to leave them. Late more than once without a good excuse - then we sack em!
We work them hard all day until 5pm at least - this way they are too tired to go to the pub.
The ones that work like this for us 7 days a week - end up being paid very well, the ones that don't are given the boot!
If you have a bad egg - you should sack ALL staff and start again as you mean to go on.
Hope this helps
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Richy,
They are clearly taking the p.
i had the same trouble myself 18 months ago. only way i fixed it was working the round myself to see what was realistic for 1 man then setting the rounds up around this.
after you've paid them both a days wage what proffit are you left with? if its £6o each that's £120 wages, you've got all your costs, fuel, rent on unit, etc etc... that's just not enough money to make it worthwhile running a business.
and forget any excuses about weather conditions. its a total blag. they should be hitting the same figures as usual. only if there's major snow should you except excuses... and even then it just means theyre working longer hours than normal. the work needs to be finsihed on the day set. no question. if they cant do it, they are not able to do the job and leave.
pay them for a days work and they can leave when theyre done, not before
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Rich
Its not leaving the yard late that loses you money, its the attitude when they are out.
my new starters, 1 man not 2 can do £230 in 8 hours on houses valued between £5.00 and £10.00, and yes they are spread out.
wake up and smell the coffee
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its not a measly figure but i know for a fact one of the lads could prob do that on his own if given a van but he doesnt have a licence,
my issue is there just wasting time and taking there time where if they just began trying to speed up a gear and not stand around chatting etc if they came bk with 270-280 id be happy
I don't get it. Two blokes earn £280. Assuming 16 man hours at £8 an hour that's £160. Then NI, van, overheads. It's hardly worh it unless you have a fleet.
16 hours at £8 an hour is not £160 mate. Check the batteries on your calculator ;D
Close enough. ;D
It's still rubbish. A bloke on his own should earn that in eight hours. Easily as long is the round is properly organised. What that is is a one man round and it has to pay three people.
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Richy what time was your doctors appt?
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as you can see that work is quite nicely priced but 12 jobs 230 quid nearly 20quid a job
anyway meeting being held at 7.30am coz im not standing for it no more
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Richy what time was your doctors appt?
10.00am mate but doesnt really excuse them not coming in on time or leaving to go out late
the works all rang night before and worksheets are printed off static tanks are full and takes ten mins to fill the system
i also asked them to buy some rock salt today after looking outside and seeing it all frosty etc before they went out to clean and they didnt
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His name is Richy wilts from window clean direct
You do make me laugh, you wasn't the baby from "Some mothers do have them" were you ?
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the workload needs to be cleared . surely the workers have a day list ,they know if they arent finishing it and you just need to ask them why its not being done?
to my mind its sounds as if your jobs are quite high priced ,are these "ordinary 3bedders, if thats so the daily list is prob not as long as some out there , easier to do
my own biz has lots of lower priced small works and so the list of daily jobs is longer, nontheless its got to be kept on top of otherwise it all backs up.
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why dont you get rid of your business unit? that you don't really need?
or sack em and clean all the properties yourself.. end of headache
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His name is Richy wilts from window clean direct
You do make me laugh, you wasn't the baby from "Some mothers do have them" were you ?
this run of work is quite well priced to be fair and i find usually working on slightly larger properties two man teams work better than say on smaller three bed teams as dont get under each other feet, il have a chat with them tmoz anyway see what the problems were 19 jobs shouldnt have been a difficult task for them
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are you ever going to be happy richy. ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ???
is employing for you ??? ??? ??? ??? ???
one bloke of yours was turning £300+ on his own,you was really happy until you find out about standard of work.
two blokes earning less doing the job right as no compliants and still not happy.
what do you want
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Have you ever thought of paying them a percentage of what van does.
EG £400 less "van charge" to cover fuel, insurance etc say £30 per day then £370 split between you and the lads on a percentage basis that you see as fair.
This is how I will be doing it next year.
Just a thought ?
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Id get rid of the unit if i was you.. which would reduce a lot of expenses surely?? then go out with them a couple of days each week instead of doing nothing.
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[quote author=richywilts
the works all rang night before and worksheets are printed off static tanks are full and takes ten mins to fill the system
i also asked them to buy some rock salt today after looking outside and seeing it all frosty etc before they went out to clean and they didnt
[/quote]
the rock salt fetching is your job to do m8
they get paid to clean windows ,not run errands whilst you spin round on your chair ;)
i did exactly this errand today fetched another 5 bags of white salt. found the van on its route and loaded a spare bag onto it. made sure the excess water was salted correctly on completed mornings work.
AND made sure they saw me do it too. THEN I SPUN ON MY CHAIR DOING LEAFLET DESIGN.. ;D
get them to fill van night before , or if you are able "YOU DO IT". ;D
just make sure they are gone for 8am.
i would be on that van tomorrow. directing them and seeing how they work.
get on there case m8
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Thanks for this thread.
If ever I needed confirmation that "sole trader" and not employing was right for me then you have all helped me confirm that decision.
"Those who are determined to be rich stab themselves over with many pains" comes to mind.
Thanks
:D
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A two man team has to be turning 370 min to make it a profitable business Richy. I would not be having a chat I would be putting it clearly this is what needs doing each day if you don't do it or can't be parsed to work leave now. And if they come back tomorrow night with bad results sack them. You could have there jobs filled by the end of the day.
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not taking expences in account here dave really i just more annoyed at what they are achieving daily some days who knows tomorrow we may have a great day which sometimes happens after a bad day.
its just the old saying time=money in this game and when staff are wasting my time they are costing me money
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A two man team has to be turning 370 min to make it a profitable business Richy. I would not be having a chat I would be putting it clearly this is what needs doing each day if you don't do it or can't be parsed to work leave now. And if they come back tomorrow night with bad results sack them. You could have there jobs filled by the end of the day.
But the thing is that you need £370 of work every day so you have to have enough customers. You also (imo) have to be one of the two men if you only have one van working otherwise you are just a non productive overhead unless you are canvassing full time.
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I agree but he does have the work so he needs to do something like canvassing or go out In a second van and do some work to help with cash flow on bad days
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[quote author=richywilts
the works all rang night before and worksheets are printed off static tanks are full and takes ten mins to fill the system
i also asked them to buy some rock salt today after looking outside and seeing it all frosty etc before they went out to clean and they didnt
the rock salt fetching is your job to do m8
they get paid to clean windows ,not run errands whilst you spin round on your chair ;)
carl ive got a screw fix and a builders yard on my doorstep at the unit it was hardly a huge errand to ask for and also an arco on the way to the work
i did exactly this errand today fetched another 5 bags of white salt. found the van on its route and loaded a spare bag onto it. made sure the excess water was salted correctly on completed mornings work.
AND made sure they saw me do it too. THEN I SPUN ON MY CHAIR DOING LEAFLET DESIGN.. ;D
get them to fill van night before , or if you are able "YOU DO IT". ;D
just make sure they are gone for 8am.
none of them have got cars!!! i know sad to believe so i let them take the vivaro home at minute so one of them can pick the others up for work and drop them off with the theory they should be in on time instead of having to get there own way in walking or riding or relying on others however the vivaro is the one that seems to lose water over night due to leaks, now the cold night are coming the van will be getting left at the unit so i will either fill it at night or in the morning so they dont have to carry out this huge task ;D ;D
i would be on that van tomorrow. directing them and seeing how they work.
get on there case m8
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im on there case tomorrow already planned to be in that van moaning at them, timing the jobs and seeing where there wasting time but we all know as soon as my backs turned theyll slip bk into there old ways
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Have you actually asked your guys why they are not achieving their targets or leaving on time? Ask them what the problem is and how they think they could solve it.
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I agree but he does have the work so he needs to do something like canvassing or go out In a second van and do some work to help with cash flow on bad days
ive got the work pal usually have the other van out too however that lad had a holiday today for kids nativity play
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Richy, it might be worth giving lee Pryor a ring as I spoke to him and he was very usefully and gave me lots of tips. I actually think your a great bloke and it takes balls to post things on the forum regarding how your struggling business. Hope you get it sorted Mate
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it only seems to be recently im getting poor figures since the nights drawn in, last year my two man teams would easily do 400-500 a day easily in the summer its just teething problems il work it out ;D ;D
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Richy what time was your doctors appt?
10.00am mate but doesnt really excuse them
My point was, couldn't you have gone to the unit first? I would do to make sure they got away on time. They're not paid to think are they?
Shows willingness on your behalf too. They'd appreciate that.
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yeah i understand what your saying i was up and awake and spoke to them by phone etc we all know each other so i put my trust in them to go out etc without needing me there to shadow every move plus it makes my day extremely long as i dont tend to leave till 7.30pm or if i start early i go home early.
one of the lads has cleaned for me off and on since i started really so he knows job inside out if something needs fixing or whatever
basically i think two of the lads are taking the brunt of the driver being late and il get to the bottom of it tmoz
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If it was me and i wasnt cleaning, id be there at 7am, get kettle on then fill vans, sort sheets and anything else that needs doing for the lads then as they arrive id be on the case about todays work, a sort of morning brief if you like.
Lay down your expectations for the day, anyone not pulling their weight should be warned and if need be got rid of after a warning.
We have employed at various point over the years with varying types of lads the people who dont put it in we always made sure we told them this, we know the work we know exactly how long each job takes so there is no messing.
They lads we've had that understood what we were trying to achieve we looked after more so than the people who just turned up and did an ok job.
Do you have any on the lads as a supervisor? Maybe getting one of the guys to do this and pay him a little more they can then crack the whip when youre not around, if the £1 per hour payrise or £40 per week, get an extra few jobs done per day it in effect the pay rise is free sort of as they arent doing the work anyway!
FYI the last guy we employed was turning over £200 per day trad, we would stack his day and then say ring us when youre done and we'd send him off or get him doing some of our jobs if he had time.
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So richy how did it go with the meeting, did you sack there arses lol
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I had a problem a few weeks ago similar to this. I did not think for one minute that my lads were taking the P but obviously something was wrong.
After talking to the lads it soon became obvious what the problem was so we sorted it, the numbers are back up and we are a day ahead of schedule instead of 3 days behind like the last couple of months.
Now, instead of setting a daily target my lads have a weekly one.
We all have bad days but when it affects the weekly target they now work harder the next day to make up.
Before if they missed the target on Monday it was forgotten on Tuesday and so on.
Stop looking at the short game and concentrate on the long one.
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I had a problem a few weeks ago similar to this. I did not think for one minute that my lads were taking the P but obviously something was wrong.
After talking to the lads it soon became obvious what the problem was so we sorted it, the numbers are back up and we are a day ahead of schedule instead of 3 days behind like the last couple of months.
Now, instead of setting a daily target my lads have a weekly one.
We all have bad days but when it affects the weekly target they now work harder the next day to make up.
Before if they missed the target on Monday it was forgotten on Tuesday and so on.
Stop looking at the short game and concentrate on the long one.
thats my thinking neil good days and bad days just frustrating, i think it doesnt help when they work close to unit base for weeks then move to an area 6-7miles away with only country lanes to get there, customers holding off due to xmas, couple of problems here and there, i have spoke to them and they also delivered leafelt around houses they were working which also would have slowed work down a bit
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I had a problem a few weeks ago similar to this. I did not think for one minute that my lads were taking the P but obviously something was wrong.
After talking to the lads it soon became obvious what the problem was so we sorted it, the numbers are back up and we are a day ahead of schedule instead of 3 days behind like the last couple of months.
Now, instead of setting a daily target my lads have a weekly one.
We all have bad days but when it affects the weekly target they now work harder the next day to make up.
Before if they missed the target on Monday it was forgotten on Tuesday and so on.
Stop looking at the short game and concentrate on the long one.
i work this way .. planning for the week ....it works good because if i have a bad day i can look at schedule and work out where i can catch up
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nip it in the bud . mate .... they need to know who's the boss and whats expected...