[stevekennedy]

What is the best way to find suitable staff?

Newspaper? Job centre?

What kind of person do you look for?

An experienced window cleaner or an inexperienced worker that you train up?
A young person or older?

What are the best questions to ask when interviewing?

Any advice greatly appreciated

[NWH]

Experienced if it was me from now on,all you then have to do is show them the round and get them to know the area.I`ve trained to many up for it all to be a waste of time,at least if you get someone that has experience if they do leave you havn`t had to put time and effort in to train them up,i would pay them a good wage with bonus with work completed in the time agreed.What i have found over the years is that you must give some sort of incentive otherwise the clocks ticking as to when there be off.

[Dean Aspects]

In my experience i would go for an older person with commitments (mortgage kids etc) they have the motivation of the bills need paid
Try training them up yourself to the way you want them to work its possibly the long way round but you can mould them to your working practices easier than someone with all the window cleaning experience that does things their own way
As for where to get them the job centre is full of lazy dolites who only go on job interviews so they can get the giro try the papers or even ask a few customers that you think may be interested or know of anyone
Obviously their are exeptions to the rule but this is generaly what i found and is only my personal experiences

Dean

[stevekennedy]

Thanks guys.

I recently took on a guy of 43. He is struggling to keep up and finds the poles heavy. We are using ergolites so, really, he does not know what a heavy pole is  : Also, he is not wanting to conform to our ways of working even though he has no experience at all. ALways thinking he knows a better way of using the pole etc. (E.g. he thinks it is a good idea to clean the bottom half of the window first then the top  :) I am wondering if he finds it hard to take instructions from someone younger than him? Maybe he is just not suited to the work? Or is it hard to teach an old dog new tricks?

I have talked with him today and we are going to give it another couple of weeks to see how he gets on.

NWH, do you look for guys that have WFP experience or trad?

[Wayne Thomas]

Steve, clearly explain to your employee exactly how you want him to clean the windows. I wouldn't let someone with no experience try telling me that their way is the right way when they have no experience in window cleaning. If he persists, give him a verbal warning otherwise you are just asking for trouble to rear it's ugly head.

[NWH]

From now on i want guy`s who can pole that`s the way things are going as you know,you don`t need to mould someone you need someone who can do the job will treat you with respect and do the work.I would work with them for 3-4 months and then make sure they know where there going and then put them out on there own,there`s far more money to be made by having him on his own and you on your own.With WFP you don`t need to work in pairs unless the jobs massive and you need the water,1 can earn as much as 2 off of ladders easy + put em in pairs and your name will soon become Robin Basteird.

[stevekennedy]

I agree with you NWH. I am thinking that if I advertise for a window cleaner, I will get trad experienced guys calling up. They will want top dollar and they might be no good at all with the pole. Or maybe these days we should expect all pro window cleaners to have pole experience? AM also concerned that good workers may be put off, not realising what the job actually is, ie pole cleaning.

I have one guy already that I have trained from scratch. 23 year old Polish guy who likes to work, listens to instructions, is good with the customers and works on his technique. He is now getting a good wage and I am using him as a supervisor for the other guy (the 43 year old). However, he is not too good with trad yet although he is learning. Not a big problem as I am doing all the trad stuff (about 10%) but means I need to be around quite a lot.

 

[NWH]

If you avertise waterfed pole window cleaner required you should sift out the trad WC`s as they know what your after and won`t bother calling,if you just say WC required every tom dick and harry who thinks there a WC will call and waste your time.

[stevekennedy]

This is what I am hoping to avoid.

So best advertise it as a pole cleaning job?

Any ideas on wording?

[NWH]

Experienced WC required must be familiar with waterfed pole methods and traditional window cleaning.