Clean It Up
UK General Cleaning Forum => General Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Mrs Nicholls on October 27, 2007, 06:34:07 pm
-
Hi Everyone,
im just trying to figure out how or when and how long staff should have for rest breaks. I know the minimum is 20 mins in any continual 6 hour working period, but what happens when no-one works 6 hours all in one go?
Say, we have 3 jobs for a cleaner on one day, first one is for 1.5 hours, the next 3 hours and the final one 2 hours.
They will have 15 mins travel time to get to the inbetween jobs, unless the next job is a bit further away.
Are they still entitled to 20 mins breaks?
Also i have cleaners who make an effort to miss any breaks i may suggest just so they go home earlier, this shouldnt be allowed should it?
Thanks
Lisa
-
Hi Lisa,
I would say they need to have a rest break after the travelling time especially if they are doing the driving in between jobs?
-
If you pay by the hour etc and they are travelling on your time then i would imagine you have to count it as work, so must include it in the calculations. but if the employment stops at the end of one job and starts at the begining of the next, you may be ok.
one for the business link/small business adviser people to be sure.
-
Dont know the legality of it all - but i say to them take a 5 min break after every hour work (plus dinner break of course).
On domestic jobs I just sit on the stairs for 5min, swig bottle water, bag crisps (whatever), feel refreshed and off we go again - happy as can be!
-
this is a tough one.
I set the pitch out on day one.
Rest time is between jobs.
each job is set by time with enough time to travel and a little rest bite.
two in a van only one drives and the other sits in the other seat doing nothing.
half hr for lunch
Lisa , has somebody raised this with you or are you just worring about it..
Nick
-
You could always leave it to them to have a break when they feel they need one, they probably do anyway being unsupervised. At the end of the day, if the job is to your standard and within your allocated time, everyone is happy, especially the staff who now get a sense of trust from the boss.
You will soon know if they are taking the "P"
-
Hi
Thanks for the replies.
I just want to make sure i'm giving my staff the correct breaks. I have some staff that lengthen the day and thus messing up appointment times by having breaks to eat inbetween jobs, and i mean after 1 hour 2 or 3 hour cleans. And then the other extreme that some staff wont take breaks as it means they can they go home earlier.
Both are problematic.
say for example, tomorrow, i have one cleaner who will be leaving the office to got to first job, which is 25 mins or so drive, carry out 2.5 hours clean and then 25 mins or so drive back. She then doesnt have another job booked in for about 45 mins, so we can allocate her 30mins lunch (unpaid) and 15 mins to get to next job, and then works for 1.5 hours then goes home. total hours 0845-2.30 (half hour unpaid for break).
Does that sound fair? if she had it her way she would just skip the break and go home at 2.
I really need to decide on a policy for travel and breaks, i can never decide what is best. I pay for travel time rather than miles. Staff seem happy with that. even though they have a moan when they dont want to travel far and i have to say well you are getting paid to travel that far so get and do it! ;D
-
also, what about employees that done drive?
For example on tuesday. 1hr at first job, 1.5 hour at the next, 1hour at the next, 45 mins ant the next then 30 mins at the last?
There will be public transport between all the jobs.
how do i allocate breaks here? because they arent travelling in the sense that a car driver is???
I want to come up with our final policy today to start tomorrow so i need to get it straight.
Thanks
Lisa
-
I am not sure what the legal stance is and i think you should consult with those that do, once you have that info you can decide on your policy. But personally i would want to get it all ironed out rather than rush in a policy which will need to be changed because it was poorly devised.If you sort it out properly you will then have the confidence to enforce it.
-
It is a difficult one to have a policy for all eventualities.
Staff are entitled to breaks, but I don't think you can force them to take one. People routinely work through breaks in offices and factories to meet targets or to earn more money (not usually to go home early though) but the nature of our business is completely different. We are far more 'time' orientated in many ways.
I work with my staff a lot of the time and after an hours drive to a site, the first thing I do is get the flask out or the kettle on before starting work. So long as the work gets done - I don't see the problem with having 'unstructured' breaks all through the day.
The more breaks you have, the later you go home and vice-versa. My staff know this and have never abused it (and it doesn't need to be written down in stone)
You should only give your staff the amount of work and travelling time that they are comfortably able to fit in, with reasonable breaks included.
As for travelling on public transport being considered a break, that's a difficult one.
But I would bear in mind that a break constitutes time to eat and drink, as well as relaxation. You can't eat or drink on most public transport.
All in all, I prefer to gain respect from my staff, and respect them equally. Sometimes we can get bogged down in rules and regulations that don't inspire either them, or us, in the employer/employee relationship.
-
Well said that man. Couldn't agree more. What I have done in the past is told cleaners the amount of time they have for breaks and when they should take it. If they chose not to take the break (and leave earlier) I had to turn a blind eye to it. So long as i knew that we had a policy in place that said we were giving breaks i had to 'assume' the staff were taking them (even if i knew they weren't).
-
it is difficult, with they way we work, i know.
but i have had a go at structuring this weeks rotas's so that each member of staff gets enough time between jobs to travel and designated breaks where required. I think its a health and safety issue too, cos driving and cleaning for a total of 6 - 7 - 8 hours has got to be knackering, especially when a break is refused. standard of work goes down, morale does down and more accidents happen.
Most of the time i leave my staff to get on with things, we dont have a lot of rules n regs to go by, but there has to be a structure to a day.
-
more accidents happen.
Lisa, are you having accidents as a regular thing then? This statement implies that you have a level of accidents per week that increases when breaks arent taken. Unless thats just the way it reads and you are saying that, in general, accident rates are likely to increase.
I think as long as you have your structure in place then you have done all you can. By allowing your staff to work on their own (be that individually or in groups/pairs) you are already saying that you trust them to carry out the jobs and work as trained, even if in reality you dont trust them as much as you would like and only allow this to happen because the houses are physically not in one set place. What i mean is you have no choice but to leave them to their own devices.
The only problem i ever really to deal with was when i was managing 4 teams of cleaners who worked in pairs and the same thing happened there, one cleaner in one pair did not want to take her breaks and did as you said which was to miss them so as to leave earlier. In itself i did not have too much problem with this until i found out that she had told the other cleaner that she too should not take her breaks either and alienated her into doing the same. The cleaner who didnt take her breaks was a much older and wiser lady (and not a better person for it), the other cleaner was much younger and so gave-in as a matter of respect. It was made worse by the fact that the younger cleaner was the driver and the older lady was taking her refreshment en routet to the next job. I hit the roof when i found out what had gone on.
Set a procedue for breaks and hope they stick to it. Use your time to make sure they stick to the real urgent matters like following health and safety guidelines and doing a consistantly good cleaning job in every house.
-
i was just saying in general, as i know if i go for a few hours without a break i start getting clumsy. Im just concerned that they are going to wear themselves out and by doing that they are putting themselves at risk and the customer isnt getting the standard of service they should.
We leave staff to work alone but sometimes work in pairs aswell, i can always tell when standards have dropped, and i know certain things go on when our backs are turned.
some people try to fly through the day just doing the bare minimum hoping nobody notices so they can get home. Im not sure this is the right attitude to take in this work, especially domestics as this comes across to them that its all a rush job and we dont value them. Thats what i would think anyway. especially when i have been back to check things and certain areas have been missed or a customer has complained that something wasnt carried out thoroughly enough.
-
Well said that man. Couldn't agree more. What I have done in the past is told cleaners the amount of time they have for breaks and when they should take it. If they chose not to take the break (and leave earlier) I had to turn a blind eye to it. So long as i knew that we had a policy in place that said we were giving breaks i had to 'assume' the staff were taking them (even if i knew they weren't).
Lisa, I'd go with what Glenda posted.
Another thing is if you insist on them having breaks at certain times, then say they get held up in traffic between jobs. The driver can rightly say that it's lunch time as per your instructions.Then the jobs run late or worse still don't get completed.
As long as the works being done and the clients are happy, why over complicate things
Arthur
-
i agree above i dont see the harm in them finishing early as long as the jobs done and to the standard u would expect they go home u get paid company or person whoever is happy your all happy
-
The standard of the work done is always one that is subject to opinion. I've cleaned all types over the years, from pristine palaces to run-down shacks. The first is very difficult to clean as it is always the one thing that you didnt do that gets noticed. The latter can be a nightmare as the quality of the overall finish from cleaning is always over shadowed by the shabby surroundings. There is also a fine line as to how much effort you put into cleaning certain houses as you can spend all day cleaning just a few things (kitchens and bathrooms can be especially difficult to get looking 'clean' unless much initial cleaning time is allocated to it).
I have dealt with complaints from clients who said that the cleaning staff I managed were not doing a very good job but upon investigation found that all tasks were being done but it was a question as to how far a particular member of staff was prepared to go to get certain things 'clean'. I suppose what i am saying is that the real 'trick' is to know when to stop cleaning something and move onto the next task.
Although i work very qucikly and efficiently myself i have met people who would rival me ten-fold, people who could tear through a house in no time and do a 1st class job. These people are few and far between, but it does happen. I have a great interest in the cleaning industry and one thing i would like to see is the work being measured by the quality and not the time spent doing the job.
When i was managing the 4 teams i mentioned earlier i found i had two ladies who were consistantly late starting work. Eventually i paired them off together, and together they started late, and together they cleaned houses so fast and so thouroughly the results had to be seen to be appreciated. Neither of them stopped for breaks as such, they chose to plod on until the work was done. Well, one lady used to smoke so she had the odd ciggie throughout the day, which i never liked but i wil come to that below.
On a personal level i really disliked one of them as i thought she was brash and abrasive and i really had to be careful where i sent her (usually to an empty house where the clients were out working all day). However, she worked so very hard, neither lady lost much time through sickness, and i did let them get away with so much that i wasn't really happy about (like the lateness and the smoking) because they were such good and reliable members of staff. My hardest job was making sure that the other teams didnt know what i was turning a blind eye to (and all four teams got away with something) because i didnt want a mass walk-out. As long as they were not working stupidly or dangerously, breeching a clients confidence, stealing, or just plain taking the pee, i was quite willing to allow certain things to continue as long as the work was not compromised. The owner of the company was paying them a pittance for a wage and i felt i couldn't be too hard on them, especially the grafters.
I only took the role because the company owner was a friend of a friend and needed some help after her previous supervisor walked out. I did it for 18 months and not one member of staff left during that time, plus the quality of the work improved. Eventually i grew sick of the owner of the business and I resigned, as did several of her staff in the months that followed, i think probably due to the fact that when the owner realised how i'd been running things she wasn't very pleased and really 'cracked the whip'. I am afraid that i think her approach was very inappropriate; yes, i probably didnt help the overall situation by getting the staff on my side and to my way of thinking like i did, but then again each situation is different and she'd always had a terrible job keeping her staff before (and so i hear since) i worked for her.
-
Don know the exact legalities on not taking breaks BUT
I reckon if there was an accident - on the road driving or at the work place - then there would be some enquiry somewhere along the line andif it is determined someone had not had a rest break I think there would be a kick back - especially if the empolyer condoned taking no breaks or turned a blind eye.
Think of insurance for one, think of reputation another, think of bad publicity in local papers (at least local).
-
especially if the empolyer condoned taking no breaks or turned a blind eye.
Think of insurance for one, think of reputation another, think of bad publicity in local papers (at least local).
You would have to prove that the employer knew that the breaks were not being taken. When you send your staff out on the road with a list of instructions of things that they must and must not do you can only trust that they carry this out. If a procedue is written down and the employees told to stick to it, you would have to prove that the employer knew that the rules were not being followed.
-
At the end of the day the employees T&C's really only reflects their rights in employment law and the employers duties to that employee. (work requirements aside for now)
So ok, you have a duty to ensure sufficient rest periods, but I am certain you do not have a duty to enforce them. Take the best example of lorry drivers: By law, they must take structured rest periods and as their employer, your duty would be to provide the means for them to be able to do this. Ie: Allowing sufficeint time for deliveries with rest periods taken into account - or even supplying sleeper cabs for longer journeys. But apart from including a diciplinary clause for not complying with the local laws, there is no way you could be held responsible for an employee by reason of simply not enforcing it. You can lead a horse etc...