[Daria Taylor]

what i want to know if i can employ some one on the basis that they only work when i have jobs for them. At the moment i cannot guarantee anyone full time employment untill we get more contracts in, so i'm just wondering if i could get some one in on the basis that they work only as many hours as there are availiable and then once i get more work in i can increase their hours.

any help would be appreciated,
regards
dash t

[suffolkclean]

Dash you have mail

[dianegreenwood]

Hi Dash

Its very difficult to keep good people if you can't offer them enough hours as I found when I first started out.  In January last year I committed to the 3 staff I had then that they would get a minimum number of hours per week regardless of whether we had enough hours.  At the time I was short by about 10 hours per week.

Apart from two days spent flyering and stuffing envelopes for a mail shot, I never had to pay them for non cleaning time!  Its amazing what a vacuum can do to your sales!

I now have 11 staff so a year on I haven't looked back.

Hope that helps

Diane

www.freshlymaid.co.uk

[Daria Taylor]

Dash you have mail

Thanks for your e-mail Barbara; I will get back to you soon, as I have few more questions to ask. Sorry for late reply last few days have been very hectic for us.

regards
dash t

[Daria Taylor]

Hi Dash

Its very difficult to keep good people if you can't offer them enough hours as I found when I first started out.  In January last year I committed to the 3 staff I had then that they would get a minimum number of hours per week regardless of whether we had enough hours.  At the time I was short by about 10 hours per week.

Apart from two days spent flyering and stuffing envelopes for a mail shot, I never had to pay them for non cleaning time!  Its amazing what a vacuum can do to your sales!

I now have 11 staff so a year on I haven't looked back.

Hope that helps

Diane

www.freshlymaid.co.uk

Thanks Diane,

your advise is always helpful, so are your 11 staff are all on full time contracts? As i have mentioned to you before i am looking to take business to a different level and therefore widely advertise for regular cleaning, but i cannot guarantee anyone work in this area untill we actually get work so it's a never ending story, therefore i was thinking of taking some people on and perhaps give them as many hours as i possibly can to start with and then as it picks up, increase the hours.

To be honest it has been very quiet time for us, except that my husband got a very good contract in aberdeen, so i am having to manage without him for next 8 weeks.

Therefore i was going to concentrate all my efforts on getting more stable regular work in, so i can employ people to do the work as stay in office and manage the rest 

regards
dash t

[dianegreenwood]

Hi Dash

My team work varied hours because some don't work a full week and some want to fit in with schools, but our 7 "full timers" all get a guaranteed 4 hours per day = 20 hours per week but usually work 25+.  This number of hours really attracts a great level of person.

So their contract is for 20 hours over 5 days up to a maximum of 35 per week.  To be honest on the domestic side, its diifficult to do more than 6 hours in a day over several clients because of travel time and my opinion is that 5 is the optimum hours for health and fitness also unless you're just at one client for the day.

Hope that makes sense

Diane

www.freshlymaid.co.uk

[Daria Taylor]

Hi Dash

My team work varied hours because some don't work a full week and some want to fit in with schools, but our 7 "full timers" all get a guaranteed 4 hours per day = 20 hours per week but usually work 25+.  This number of hours really attracts a great level of person.

So their contract is for 20 hours over 5 days up to a maximum of 35 per week.  To be honest on the domestic side, its diifficult to do more than 6 hours in a day over several clients because of travel time and my opinion is that 5 is the optimum hours for health and fitness also unless you're just at one client for the day.

Hope that makes sense

Diane

www.freshlymaid.co.uk

Diane

Yes that’s what I was thinking, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to do more than that in one day, unless like you have said you may be doing a one off clean and you have to do it in one day. What about commercial side? I would imagine it would be the same.

Regarding paying staff, what would you say is a reasonable rate in between paying too much and paying peanuts, plus do you pay petrol allowance?

Thanks again for your help.

Dash t

[dianegreenwood]

Hi Dash

I've emailed you a copy of our weekly schedule to give you an idea of how the work is split up and a note of our wages structure.  Hope that helps.

Diane

www.freshlymaid.co.uk

[suffolkclean]

Hi Diane
So if they work 4 hours a day is this including travel time or just cleaning time, as you could spend 1hr+ on top of the 4 hours travelling around. If you didn't mind emailing me the same info as Dash i'd really appreciate it.
kesgravecleaningservices@yahoo.co.uk
Many Thanks

Barbara

[dianegreenwood]

Hi Barbara

I've sent you an email. 

To clarify, my staff only get paid for cleaning time and their hourly rate reflects that.  They use travel time as break time, to have a snack, eat lunch, etc.  Nobody likes to stop for a proper break because they'd rather get home earlier so this works really well.  You have to be very sure not to break minimum wage rules using this method but I did a comparison and my girls would get well above minimum wage even if they got paid travel time, so its very fair.  I even did a comparison over 3 weeks and everyone was better off with our system.  Two other advantages:

1) they don't have to clock in and out
2) if they were paid travel time, I would have to set an exact time in between jobs whereas now I allow half an hour in between each job unless they're next door to each other.  They can then make up some time during the day on travelling.

Hope that helps

Diane

www.freshlymaid.o.uk