[d.ward]

Hi dave

have you got one member of staff per van there or has each van got a two man team?

On them first pics why did you have 3 vans out on one job and how fast did you get that building done?

Just considering working methods when i take some lads on

cheers
darren

[Moderator David@stives]

darren

I try for one man per van, that particular job had 3 people on the outside and 3 on the inside most of the time.

It took us the best part of a day

At the moment I have too many staff for the one man/one van ratio, so for now I will just grin and bear it until i know weather to buy another van or 2, these decisions are massive and worrying at the best of times, one contract lost and suddenly you have a van sitting doing nothing. so you have to be absolutely sure.

On the other side when we get on jobs like those in the pics, the van ratio doesnt matter, just get all your rescources on the job to get it finished.

The last time we done it, it was just me and the wife, it took us about 3 days in and out, although the building doesnt look to big it is a beast when you have to pole all of it yourself

[trevor perry]

hi dave
 if you have the secret for solving staffing problems then send me a bottle as i could do with some, you will soon learn there is always one that can cause more problems for you than all workforce put together, i hope you are lucky enough to avoid one like this. and to all other forum members i would give this advice if taking on any work where the employees are transferred to your employment under TUPE regulations then be very carefull.

Hi Trevor,

What are TUPE regulations ?

hi ian
 it stands for transfer of undertakings protection of employment and basically it means that because i won a contract i had to take on the existing employees to do the job which in theory sounds ok but a lot of the reasons the firm lost the contract in the first place was due to the staff employed, other downsides are you cant sack the staff or give them a probation period as the length of employment carries on from last firm so you have to go through all the correct disciplinary procedures to dismiss anybody on top of that if you make redundancies you pay redundancy pay for the time they have been there so this can be a big expense also, we also became liable for holiday pay which previous firm hadnt paid this came to over £5k. Ten months into the job we are just about getting things in order but if TUPE is involved in any future work then i will be leaving well alone.

[telboy]

DAVE HOW IS IT YOU CAN GET YOUR PHOTO'S ON

BUT WHEN WE TRY THE BLOODY UPLOADERS FULL 

[clean]

DAVE HOW IS IT YOU CAN GET YOUR PHOTO'S ON

BUT WHEN WE TRY THE BLOODY UPLOADERS FULL 

I think if you use photobucket you can copy and paste them on the page when posting a reply 

[Moderator David@stives]

use photobucket and paste the img link it gives you

[stevef78]

Those poles don't look very long    <ducks and runs for cover>

haha no 84 ft ers there dave lol...cant see any complaints from this one as looks a spot on job,good call...)

[gary evans]

Hi Dave

Thanks for that offer & i will be in touch later in week, realy busy at minute, till friday.

Cheers

Gary

[d.ward]

Sorry dave another question....

1)How do you work your pricing out for work like that and still make a profit with so many workers.....

2)How did you go about employing the workers so fast. Have the got history in cleaning or have you trained them yourself?

[Wrekin C S]

They are trafics apart from the green one which is a transporter.

The only problems with the trafics is that they are magnets for dings and bangs, one of them has had 2 smashed lights, both back doors dinged, someone drove into the rear quarter and the other has a 9 in split in the front bumper, one smashed door mirror, and one of my lads kerbed the cill on a bollard.

alkl that in 4 months lol

So apart from your own employees doings would you say they are reliable???

[Moderator David@stives]

wrekin

they are only 4 months old so they should be, no problems yet

d ward, that building is massive you can see the far end the start of a curve it goes al the way around and loads of windows around the back.



workers, i advertised the job for 4 weeks and interviewed loads of people, really long interviews until i found people i liked, one had no experience, the other had a couple of months squeegie experience.

[d.ward]

Cheers dave.

Im thinking of having my own canvassers and then il have to employ workers and the hardest part is getting round to interviews. Where did you interview people?

Iv just done my first week or so after the freeze so im really getting ready for going

Regards
Daz