[TomCrowther]

Would the guys who employ staff care to share a few tips they have picked up over the years?
I mean characteristics/traits. What makes a good member of staff.
I employed three staff on the window cleaning side. I knew two of them before and both are decent, honest and reliable. The third guy, not so much.
One of my franchisees wants to retire and I want to employ again. Glutton for punishment.
Also, where would you advertise?
Cheers in advance.

[Phil J]

Hey Tom,
It's a minefield mate. I would personally hire somebody with no window cleaning experience at all. That way you can hopefully mould them into a decent member of staff.  I made the mistake of hiring a experienced guy who tbh was jaded and totally demotivated. Bad habits, which you can't iron out. Get somebody who's keen to learn and willing to work, once you've found 'em look after them and hopefully they'll look after you. Good luck pal!

[combat1]

Apparently Prince Harry is looking for a job to find financial independence😀

[NWH]

I would disagree about them having no window cleaning experience you may have to pay more but you will be able to crack straight on with them,I’ve had 3 in the past I trained up trad and that takes time more time than what it would do WFP.
I wouldn’t want someone who has no experience coming with me not having done the job before you would be making a lot more of an investment in time with no guarantee they will stick at it,if someone starts and they know what they are doing but it doesn’t work out you’ve lost nothing.

[NWH]

You know within the first hour if it will have any kind of chance in working out,I had 1 bloke for 2 hours he said to me in the way to the first job how hard can it be it’s only window cleaning,we cleaned the outside of a Natwest bank he did a ridiculously bad job of what he thought was ok and I dropped him back to his house.
With the travelling in picking him up and dropping him back he lasted an hour,on first meeting him he seemed keen to learn and a nice bloke as said it’s a minefield but you should know within no time if it’s got a chance of working out with them or at least I would now,if you’ve had a few with you the first day or so will give you an indication of what they are like as a person.

[NWH]

A lot of people that go for a job window cleaning think it’s easy loads of time off out in the sun they don’t have a clue,the vast majority don’t view it as a long term job that’s why I would be cautious about giving them your time  because 9 out of 10 don’t stick at it when they realise it’s proper work.

[Oliver James]

I've had 3, only one of them was any good, and I should have got rid of the others much sooner than I did.

At the moment I'm working 3 days and I've got subcontractors covering rest of the work. All the subcontractors are JW's, and they are mostly very good.

The first guy I hired was okay, and was with me for over a year,  but we had a lot of underpriced work back then, and with two of us working from one van it was a struggle. I went back to being a one man band, got rid of a lot of unprofitable work, and made some big changes to the pricing structure.

The second guy I hired had been in a bad road accident several years before and he worked in a van by himself. He was good with the customers, but he found it hard to do more than  £260 a day, which isn't enough . He was also really accident prone, and he was off for quite a few weeks in the winter and he claimed he couldn't do gutter vacuuming due to the accident.

The third guy I hired was brilliant. He was a former mechanic and he used to bang out £300 days, and be back by 1pm, but he was part time and I let him go when we started using sub contractors

To make it work you need to accept that most of them aren't going to be any good, and be financially prepared for the costs of going through several employees until you find a good one.

[TomCrowther]

I stuck an add on indeed about 6pm yesterday and have had 54 applications already! Hopefully I will find a good un amongst that lot. If I was younger I would keep on my own but I feel the need to share the load. Cheers for the advise so far.

[Smudger]

Did you ask for a CV AND covering letter ?

If you did I bet only 3 followed those  instructions

Therefore 51 have already ruled themselves out of a job

Darran

[SB Cleaning]

Best tip I can give is dont bother employing at all it's a headache, stay on your own and sell work off if you get too busy.

[TomCrowther]

Did you ask for a CV AND covering letter ?

If you did I bet only 3 followed those  instructions

Therefore 51 have already ruled themselves out of a job

Darran
One guy rang me six times this morning.

[david mark]

I had 21 employees work for me  over the last 12 years 6 left me and started up on there own

[deeege]

I had 21 employees work for me  over the last 12 years 6 left me and started up on there own

That’s life though isn’t it. Anyone with something about them is going to want to better themselves eventually. It’s where most of us started out, after all.

[NWH]

If you did this job and you know what you can earn and they all do know because they make it there business to know the prices,when you look around at other work that would be available to them they are not going to want to go back to earning 350 a week when they know it won’t take a lot to earn that cleaning windows.