[geefree]

Hi,

Firstly to the guys who employ a few staff,

your rounds must be quite large, so i presume you trust people to collect some of your money in.

so they have an idea of your earnings ??

If online payments mostly, who keeps check of all the transactions,?

because i know it takes some doing with one round , so god knows how you guys do it.

so you have a secretary who deals with it?

does she see all your bank details?

i agree some will say their wives do that side of it ,

but what about the rest who employ in a bigger way ?



Gary.

[LBWCS]

Good questions I often wonder the same

[ronnie paton]

you got to trust someone pal.

your staff will have to collect in some way or other so all you need to do is make sure all the monies are correct.

also a quick check over the business banking every week making sure all is ok.

not really that much of a big deal

[Richard iSparkle]

the problem is the poor effect it has on moral of somebody working for you for £6 ish per hour, and collecting £50 per hour.  it plays on their mind and is only a matter of time before they start to think that theyre doing all the work and your raking in money.  also the clients will get a relationship with your staff rather than yourself, os if the cleaners ever do set up on their own your customers will probably feel more loyalty to them than to you.  the best way is to keep your cleaners away from the money, and thats online payments or standing order payment.

[richywilts]

iv never had any problem with staff taking payments from customers, and customers never having a problem passing payment too staff, if you cant trust your staff to take payments can you trust them to do other things like do a job well.

my staff understand costs of running a business and that im not pocketing it all.

[Richard iSparkle]

in my experience staff always believe that if you run a business you must be loaded!  only one of my staff understands the cost of running my business and that's my manager who sees a lot of the costs as its her job to manage some of the accounts.  other than that it doesnt seem to matter what you say to staff, they always think you're raking money in...

i wonder what you are doing that is different to me richy if youve not encountered the same thing?

[richywilts]

iv always employed friends really so suppose that has helped now im getting bigger i think il keep accounts private but on our worksheets etc it shows price, and my staff price up jobs etc too so they know what would be coming in anyway, we give them a target to hit so how would they hit a target if they didnt know house prices

[Richard iSparkle]

interesting...

do they get a bonus if they hit target then?

[richywilts]

no haha not yet anyway  we are introducing a bonus if they get say ten new jobs on a month whilst working give them 50 quid

[Richard iSparkle]

i'm thinking of doing a similar thing for new clients.  only problem i;ve found is that by offering bonuses its really easy to encourage the wrong thing, and its really easy to upset people, like for instance with bonuses for new clients they may under price work, or they may argue as to who signed up the client, or the people in the office get upset that they don't get a bonus even if they ve done a lot of chasing etc etc etc...  as a boss you re just trying to encourage good working, but what actually happens can be quite a surprise. be interesting to see how well it works

[richywilts]

matty who works for me prob brings in 5-10 jobs a week from when hes working and other work like fascias etc n it aint fair got to show them that you value them for it,matty actually the opposite to the canvasser he understands why its important to price well and he gets jobs on for more than i would!!

[ronnie paton]

if your paying £6ish a hour it wont help...pay them a good wage and unless your business is all residential they dont need to know the prices for your commercial

[Richard iSparkle]

they re on different wages depending on their skills and what workload they can manage.  £6 ish is the junior wage.

however it doesnt really matter what wage you pay them as they only see the money coming into the business.  it s human nature anyhow to believe that if they're earning x then their boss must be earning xxx!

[ronnie paton]

richard so from what your saying were all doomed has we will never keep an employee happy has they will always feel they van earn more on there own?

[Richard iSparkle]

nope that's not what i say or think    i;ve got employees myself and have been employing for over 3 years now.  what i am saying is that there is a problem with having employees on an hourly rate who can see what money their employer is bringing in on an hourly basis.  they do not see what the profit is, but i would say that most people, or staff, who have not run a business them self are not at all aware of the many expenses that we face.  in their mind the WC will tend to see the money that they think we are earning per hour, and compare it with what we pay them.  they then start to feel disgruntled over time with the 'look how much i;m earning my boss a day, and look what he's paying me'.  over time this plays on their minds.  the problem is massively reduced if you can keep them from seeing the prices and handling the money.  this is my experience but i am delighted to hear that richy hasnt had this problem so far, and will be even happier if i can take steps to reduce the effect of it....  any suggestions?

[Helen]

nope that's not what i say or think    i;ve got employees myself and have been employing for over 3 years now.  what i am saying is that there is a problem with having employees on an hourly rate who can see what money their employer is bringing in on an hourly basis.  they do not see what the profit is, but i would say that most people, or staff, who have not run a business them self are not at all aware of the many expenses that we face.  in their mind the WC will tend to see the money that they think we are earning per hour, and compare it with what we pay them.  they then start to feel disgruntled over time with the 'look how much i;m earning my boss a day, and look what he's paying me'.  over time this plays on their minds.  the problem is massively reduced if you can keep them from seeing the prices and handling the money.  this is my experience but i am delighted to hear that richy hasnt had this problem so far, and will be even happier if i can take steps to reduce the effect of it....  any suggestions?

Would you not face this issue in any industry?
No matter if say an admin person didn't see exact figures coming in, they would still know that a lot more than their wage must be coming in. It wouldn't take much brainpower of any employee to work out that the more people that work there, the higher the overall income. In some cases it may be better that they have an idea of what is coming in, because if they start guessing it could be a worse situation
One tip when we employed window cleaners, was to have a good hourly rate, along with an attendance bonus (which was deducted if they didn't turn up) and then a bonus on top for hitting targets and no complaints. We still got grumbles, but that is part of employing (unfortunately )

[Richard iSparkle]

hi helen,

thanks for your ideas.

i dont think that WC is unique in this problem, but i do think that it is worse than some.  there's something about the fact that the employees are in their mind providing all the service (and think they're doing all the work) and then are collecting the money.  probably something about the fact that they work out of the office too so they arent very close to you for the day.

as for an attendence bonus if they turn up!!!  do you mean if they have days off for sick, and i guess arrive on time, or do you mean unauthorised leave, meaning not coming into work without an acceptable reason?  if its the latter i just cant accept it and have to sack em!  :

[ronnie paton]

i think many will take the attitude....i do all the work and he earns all the money.....they are also the wrong people has there already questioning in there head why your not doing the work ect.

i constant tell my employees god iv geot to pay 3k vat today or 4.5 insurance ect ect i aklso pay them well and try to look after them all though im no saint and im always learning, my attiude can stink and the older i get the more i try to think b4 i go off on one.

but employee can be a pain but i fyou want to grow its a must and along with growing come head aches and problems, youll never prevent but learn to deal with them better

[Window Washers]

A little tip is to get online payments and then the price does not have to be on the sheets 

[richywilts]

iv just checked and you dont actually have to show price on worksheet off cleanitup!!!!!! little tab you can click to remove price when inputting custies details