[richywilts]

like i said that was the plan for them to work them hours for now until i can maybe afford to bring in someone to collect, dont get me wrong i do allow them to finish early if had a good productive day or work is completed thats why i was asking what others do

[richywilts]

i would imagine they will be working these long hours for much longer one is a newbie cleaner so still getting up to speed and the other has experience, but we have been doing loads and loads of new cleans and were also catching up with work so hence long hours i think when things settle in a month or two and we have enough work and its all maintenance cleans lads will be bk at 5ish at latest and i think i will be getting them to collect tues n thurs

[Johnny B]

8 till 7 is OK hours if you are the boss and are prepared to put in the time and don't have a life outside of work. If you were an employee and were expected to 10 hour plus days with 30 minutes break, you would soon get fed up and jump ship.
 
I believe you have to have a balance. For example, why not make the hours 8 till 4 with an hour's lunch, paid if they meet targets as a bonus, and unpaid if they don't.

Your wage bill would be reduced to 304 quid a week with the lunch paid bonus, your workers wouldn't be knackered from working excess hours, and so would be fresher. And they could have the evenings off.

John  

[g.brookes]

no one wants to work more than 40 hours per week.  working 8 till 7 means theyre out of the house for over 12 hours a day.  they have no time to do anything else.  window cleaning is boring enough doing it 8 hours a day.  this may sound rude but it seems from your posts that you make mistakes when it comes to about every decision in your business, im baffled

[William McCafferty]

Richy why don't you just employ staff on a part time basis of 24 hours a week, this way they can get maximum tax credits, they don't pay income tax, but they do pay a few quid in national insurance, you save money as well because you don't pay any national insurance and only a little amount in employers tax.

You can then get them to do 2 days a week at 12 hours a day, you will benefit from having available staff if any are sick or go on holiday.

[king marko]

Before I went on my own Richy, I worked for a local bloke full time self employed.
The rate was 50/50 - I used his van, water etc..
Basically, the more I did the more I earned - his problem tho was most of his work is underpriced.
He only took on blokes who were over 25 (for the insurance he claimed)
And tbh they all worked fairly hard most of the time because we all had financial commitments so needed to earn 

If you were getting 50% you should have stayed self employed with him! 

you cant usually keep them self employed and be acting within the law, unless there on low hours and have another job (and various other factors).  but a 50-50 split is crazy.  should be more like 20-80 to the owner

You're joking right?
I was doing about £200 a day so earning about £100 for myself - you reckon it should be 80/20 split? So you would of expected me to earn £40 a day??? And I had to pay my own fuel and insurance 
Now I do a similar amount a day and don't have to give half away

[Richard iSparkle]

Before I went on my own Richy, I worked for a local bloke full time self employed.
The rate was 50/50 - I used his van, water etc..
Basically, the more I did the more I earned - his problem tho was most of his work is underpriced.
He only took on blokes who were over 25 (for the insurance he claimed)
And tbh they all worked fairly hard most of the time because we all had financial commitments so needed to earn 

If you were getting 50% you should have stayed self employed with him! 

you cant usually keep them self employed and be acting within the law, unless there on low hours and have another job (and various other factors).  but a 50-50 split is crazy.  should be more like 20-80 to the owner

You're joking right?
I was doing about £200 a day so earning about £100 for myself - you reckon it should be 80/20 split? So you would of expected me to earn £40 a day??? And I had to pay my own fuel and insurance 
Now I do a similar amount a day and don't have to give half away

no i'm not joking.  i dont reckon any emplyed WC deserves to earn £100 a day.  That's a wage of over £24 000 for an unskilled light manual job.  that's throwing money away.

[Dave Willis]

Are they going to work by torchlight then in the winter 

[paul13]

I would just like to thank you richy for providing another great post,
you are with out dought the most entertaining member, keep
up the good work

[KS Cleaning]

basically i offered hours of 8am-7pm 5 days a week half hour unpaid dinner

window cleaning till work done then collecting till 7pm to increase cash flow

i offered the lad £400 a week which prob works out £7.60 ish

then they began moaning saying they dont wana be out every night till that time

so i though ok finish at 5.30- 6pm and collect on tues n thursday

this hasnt materialised either really

One sentence it is the lad,the next it is they? ? ?.I didn't think you had enough work to provide him/them these sort of hours?

[king marko]

Before I went on my own Richy, I worked for a local bloke full time self employed.
The rate was 50/50 - I used his van, water etc..
Basically, the more I did the more I earned - his problem tho was most of his work is underpriced.
He only took on blokes who were over 25 (for the insurance he claimed)
And tbh they all worked fairly hard most of the time because we all had financial commitments so needed to earn 

If you were getting 50% you should have stayed self employed with him! 

you cant usually keep them self employed and be acting within the law, unless there on low hours and have another job (and various other factors).  but a 50-50 split is crazy.  should be more like 20-80 to the owner

You're joking right?
I was doing about £200 a day so earning about £100 for myself - you reckon it should be 80/20 split? So you would of expected me to earn £40 a day??? And I had to pay my own fuel and insurance 
Now I do a similar amount a day and don't have to give half away

no i'm not joking.  i dont reckon any emplyed WC deserves to earn £100 a day.  That's a wage of over £24 000 for an unskilled light manual job.  that's throwing money away.

Well that's the point then - I was SELF employed
Who on earth is ever going to find a decent hard working, trustworthy employee in this game who will work for peanuts?
Good luck
Why can't people on this forum just take a genuine reply to a question with the honesty it's intended with??
I don't care if you pay peanuts or if you feel a good worker doesn't derserve a decent wage - what goes around comes around

I genuinely hope you never come on here complaining about only ever getting a stream of poor workers 

[keyser soze]

Before I went on my own Richy, I worked for a local bloke full time self employed.
The rate was 50/50 - I used his van, water etc..
Basically, the more I did the more I earned - his problem tho was most of his work is underpriced.
He only took on blokes who were over 25 (for the insurance he claimed)
And tbh they all worked fairly hard most of the time because we all had financial commitments so needed to earn 

If you were getting 50% you should have stayed self employed with him! 

you cant usually keep them self employed and be acting within the law, unless there on low hours and have another job (and various other factors).  but a 50-50 split is crazy.  should be more like 20-80 to the owner

so a ten pound job you would get 2....are you nuts

[Richard iSparkle]

Before I went on my own Richy, I worked for a local bloke full time self employed.
The rate was 50/50 - I used his van, water etc..
Basically, the more I did the more I earned - his problem tho was most of his work is underpriced.
He only took on blokes who were over 25 (for the insurance he claimed)
And tbh they all worked fairly hard most of the time because we all had financial commitments so needed to earn 

If you were getting 50% you should have stayed self employed with him! 

you cant usually keep them self employed and be acting within the law, unless there on low hours and have another job (and various other factors).  but a 50-50 split is crazy.  should be more like 20-80 to the owner

You're joking right?
I was doing about £200 a day so earning about £100 for myself - you reckon it should be 80/20 split? So you would of expected me to earn £40 a day??? And I had to pay my own fuel and insurance 
Now I do a similar amount a day and don't have to give half away

no i'm not joking.  i dont reckon any emplyed WC deserves to earn £100 a day.  That's a wage of over £24 000 for an unskilled light manual job.  that's throwing money away.

Well that's the point then - I was SELF employed
Who on earth is ever going to find a decent hard working, trustworthy employee in this game who will work for peanuts?
Good luck
Why can't people on this forum just take a genuine reply to a question with the honesty it's intended with??
I don't care if you pay peanuts or if you feel a good worker doesn't derserve a decent wage - what goes around comes around

I genuinely hope you never come on here complaining about only ever getting a stream of poor workers 

when i said employed i meant working for another WC rather than working for himself.  whilst you may have been legally self employed, you were in fact working for an employer.

the question richy asked was about how much to pay employees , and a forum is a place where people have discussions.

out of interest, i have had plenty of problems with employees, some of them WCs, and I have actually had more problems with the WC that i paid the most.

i believe that problems that we have are more down to mistakes made in recruitment and management not simply how much you pay people.  as a result i have learned a lot about recruitment and selection and taken a lot of specialist advise on it.  i have also changed my payment structures which are low basic with bonuses based on advice and information from WCs on this forum and others.

[Richard iSparkle]

Before I went on my own Richy, I worked for a local bloke full time self employed.
The rate was 50/50 - I used his van, water etc..
Basically, the more I did the more I earned - his problem tho was most of his work is underpriced.
He only took on blokes who were over 25 (for the insurance he claimed)
And tbh they all worked fairly hard most of the time because we all had financial commitments so needed to earn 

If you were getting 50% you should have stayed self employed with him! 

you cant usually keep them self employed and be acting within the law, unless there on low hours and have another job (and various other factors).  but a 50-50 split is crazy.  should be more like 20-80 to the owner

so a ten pound job you would get 2....are you nuts

if they do 5 or 6 ten pound jobs an hour, then that's £12 an hour.  that's a phenomenal wage for an unskilled worker.

i've just employed a degree graduate with 10 years experience in customer service and admin on £6.50 an hour.

[trevor perry]

Before I went on my own Richy, I worked for a local bloke full time self employed.
The rate was 50/50 - I used his van, water etc..
Basically, the more I did the more I earned - his problem tho was most of his work is underpriced.
He only took on blokes who were over 25 (for the insurance he claimed)
And tbh they all worked fairly hard most of the time because we all had financial commitments so needed to earn 

If you were getting 50% you should have stayed self employed with him! 

you cant usually keep them self employed and be acting within the law, unless there on low hours and have another job (and various other factors).  but a 50-50 split is crazy.  should be more like 20-80 to the owner

so a ten pound job you would get 2....are you nuts

if they do 5 or 6 ten pound jobs an hour, then that's £12 an hour.  that's a phenomenal wage for an unskilled worker.

i've just employed a degree graduate with 10 years experience in customer service and admin on £6.50 an hour.

 richard £12 an hiour is a good wage for a unskilled worker but i dont think you will find many that can cover 6 x £10 jobs an hour day in and day out. also this means you would be making £48 an hour from each staff member, in my own personal view this would be immoral but i do know companies that pay peanuts to their staff and treat them like crap, you say you are paying a graduate with ten years experience the sum of £6.50 an hour well all i can say is shame on you, i hope one day you recieve a bit of what your dishing out.

[keyser soze]

im forever changing my mind what i want to pay staff always coming up with new ideas how we can all benefit and keep them motivated and put in the hours without crippling myself in meantime

so anyone who has fair size business not just a cash in hand worker how do u pay staff to keep them motivated enough to do a good job, not skint thru the month where it affects there work etc im not a skin flint but also wont pay huge

i thought about this richy as im thinking of putting another van on the road. what about on a self employed basis and you pay a basic wage but when the worker hits a certain figure of say 180 for the day then anything over that amount would be split between you and him on a 50/50 basis . so if he hits 270 there would be 45 each bonus  giving him an incentive to work hard . of course you need to make sure he cleans them to your standards..

[robertphil]

had a real bad experience with a driving employee whose wrecked a van ,then gone on to target my customers.  i wont ever employ a driver again. im going to just employ parttimers ,ones with no licence and have thought it through .iv 3 p/t workers right now

[Richard iSparkle]

Before I went on my own Richy, I worked for a local bloke full time self employed.
The rate was 50/50 - I used his van, water etc..
Basically, the more I did the more I earned - his problem tho was most of his work is underpriced.
He only took on blokes who were over 25 (for the insurance he claimed)
And tbh they all worked fairly hard most of the time because we all had financial commitments so needed to earn 

If you were getting 50% you should have stayed self employed with him! 

you cant usually keep them self employed and be acting within the law, unless there on low hours and have another job (and various other factors).  but a 50-50 split is crazy.  should be more like 20-80 to the owner

so a ten pound job you would get 2....are you nuts

if they do 5 or 6 ten pound jobs an hour, then that's £12 an hour.  that's a phenomenal wage for an unskilled worker.

i've just employed a degree graduate with 10 years experience in customer service and admin on £6.50 an hour.

 richard £12 an hiour is a good wage for a unskilled worker but i dont think you will find many that can cover 6 x £10 jobs an hour day in and day out. also this means you would be making £48 an hour from each staff member, in my own personal view this would be immoral but i do know companies that pay peanuts to their staff and treat them like crap, you say you are paying a graduate with ten years experience the sum of £6.50 an hour well all i can say is shame on you, i hope one day you recieve a bit of what your dishing out.

Even if i'm turning over £60 an hour, it doesnt mean that I'm making £48 profit.  There's plenty of expenses in my business that reduce my profit.  For a start as soon as I;m vat registered, my profit will be reduced by £12 an hour so that's some like £38 an hour I'm making before my other overheads are taken into account.  I dont know what size your business is, but when you scale up your business your overheads increase and your profit is effected.

And by the way my graduate with 10 yrs experience is delighted to work for me for £6.50 an hour.  I'm not sure if you have reasons for being so emotional about what other people earn, but if my staff are happy with the deal they get from working in my business, and I am happy, then it's not really for you to judge is it? 

[trevor perry]

Before I went on my own Richy, I worked for a local bloke full time self employed.
The rate was 50/50 - I used his van, water etc..
Basically, the more I did the more I earned - his problem tho was most of his work is underpriced.
He only took on blokes who were over 25 (for the insurance he claimed)
And tbh they all worked fairly hard most of the time because we all had financial commitments so needed to earn 

If you were getting 50% you should have stayed self employed with him! 

you cant usually keep them self employed and be acting within the law, unless there on low hours and have another job (and various other factors).  but a 50-50 split is crazy.  should be more like 20-80 to the owner

so a ten pound job you would get 2....are you nuts

if they do 5 or 6 ten pound jobs an hour, then that's £12 an hour.  that's a phenomenal wage for an unskilled worker.

i've just employed a degree graduate with 10 years experience in customer service and admin on £6.50 an hour.

 richard £12 an hiour is a good wage for a unskilled worker but i dont think you will find many that can cover 6 x £10 jobs an hour day in and day out. also this means you would be making £48 an hour from each staff member, in my own personal view this would be immoral but i do know companies that pay peanuts to their staff and treat them like crap, you say you are paying a graduate with ten years experience the sum of £6.50 an hour well all i can say is shame on you, i hope one day you recieve a bit of what your dishing out.

Even if i'm turning over £60 an hour, it doesnt mean that I'm making £48 profit.  There's plenty of expenses in my business that reduce my profit.  For a start as soon as I;m vat registered, my profit will be reduced by £12 an hour so that's some like £38 an hour I'm making before my other overheads are taken into account.  I dont know what size your business is, but when you scale up your business your overheads increase and your profit is effected.

And by the way my graduate with 10 yrs experience is delighted to work for me for £6.50 an hour.  I'm not sure if you have reasons for being so emotional about what other people earn, but if my staff are happy with the deal they get from working in my business, and I am happy, then it's not really for you to judge is it? 

 i think i know enough about business to understand vat and profit. upto february this year i employed over 25 staff but lost a big contract not through bad work but through being undercut,so am now down to just 3 staff, fortunately due to TUPE rules the firm that took contract had to pay same wages to staff transferred but the staff are not happy and a few have rang asking if i get any other work to please ring them, beleive me the hourly rate charged was no where near the amount discussed above and i still paid the staff between £8 and £15 an hour depending on their position and was still able to make a profit, you are right that as a business gets bigger extra costs are incurred but these costs are spread over a larger workforce so they should not effect your profit, look at some really large cleaning firms they go in dirt cheap often under £9 an hour and from this pay staff and overheds but still manage to make a profit often only having a profit margin of about 2%, i know for a fact i could not compete if only making 2% profit but their turnover is so large they do ok from that, personally i am not willing to pay peanuts to compete for these jobs as i have always valued my employees, you are right it is not for me to judge how you run your business but i bet you would not work for £6.50 an hour

[richywilts]

basically i offered hours of 8am-7pm 5 days a week half hour unpaid dinner

window cleaning till work done then collecting till 7pm to increase cash flow

i offered the lad £400 a week which prob works out £7.60 ish

then they began moaning saying they dont wana be out every night till that time

so i though ok finish at 5.30- 6pm and collect on tues n thursday

this hasnt materialised either really

One sentence it is the lad,the next it is they? ? ?.I didn't think you had enough work to provide him/them these sort of hours?

sorry it reads wrong its meant to say ive offered the lads.......my business has grown loads again through lots of leafletting and canvassing prob doubled in size again over last couple of months