[Smudger]

Firstly your guys are not doing enough in a day a single man on his own needs to be knocking out a minimum of £250 a day your labour cost really needs to be at 30% max of your hourly rate ( including your PAYE contributions - holiday pay allowance etc.. )

How can you have people on paye when it's % only wage ?? I think you could offer a basic then extra bonuses for work completed ( no bonus if complaints are received )

We run flex hours over six days so if rained off in the week and they are still behind by end of play Friday they are required to work Saturday (unless booked as holiday) we don't pay for rained off days midweek)

Darran

[david mark]

Thanks for the replies I put my prices up on 2 off the 3 rounds in Feb 2016 by 50 p some a £1. 4 year's since the last increase I lost a few but  around 20% Refused to pay the increase so had to leave it at the original price or they would cancel and get someone else The reason that Round 3 did not get price increase was a previous employee started out on his own and took around 15% of my customers by under cutting my prices tought him the trade and thats the thanks you get cheers (Nick)

How do you get on with not paying them if they turn up for work and it starts raining say 11am do you pay them by the hour

[8weekly]

Thanks for the replies I put my prices up on 2 off the 3 rounds in Feb 2016 by 50 p some a £1. 4 year's since the last increase I lost a few but  around 20% Refused to pay the increase so had to leave it at the original price or they would cancel and get someone else The reason that Round 3 did not get price increase was a previous employee started out on his own and took around 15% of my customers by under cutting my prices tought him the trade and thats the thanks you get cheers (Nick)

How do you get on with not paying them if they turn up for work and it starts raining say 11am do you pay them by the hour

Mine work in the rain.

[david mark]

We battle through with the rain but customers that are in turn us away

[8weekly]

We battle through with the rain but customers that are in turn us away

So you've got customers that tell you how much they'll pay and when you can work? And they're underpriced!

In my opinion you need to look closely at your business. I think you just need to whack up the prices and accept the losses and get canvassing/leafleting as your business isn't sustainable.

[Susan Dean (1stclean)]

Susan question if I may

What do you pay? What do you expect, turnover or number properties
 or is there a balance you expect a staff to achieve in profit margin

As David pays well but turn over is low so profit is hard to achieve I imagine  that's location in country and prices that can be charged

I would aim at 85-100 a day per staff depantdant on age experience and time in employment which would included statuary  benefits and upcoming statuary pension scheme
But a turnover between 285-300 which down south can be moderate amount of houses, between 8-12  at a top end of 15 on compact estates
Hopefully not creating burnout in staff

Just interested

your bang on the money we say 15 jobs aday is about right . sometime 20 if there all close to each other 

this  can go down to 10 if theres a lot of travel to and from jobs but we charge more for these so it in turn earns the same as the stuff that's next door to each other

we like our guys to do 200/270 aday average  again this can go down to 120 if they get bogged down on a job or go up to 500 aday if there on one of our big one day jobs

they get paid from 80/100 aday depending on hours worked ect ect  but again were in the south east so its alittle easyer to make the daily number

[Tom-01]

How about paying minimum wage (not sure what that is a day now) and then make the rest up on 'bonus'? That way when you have to pay their holiday pay you only have to pay them the minimum wage.

Maybe you should look at another way of doing it because you're not making much profit at all on having 3 vans out. It can't be worth the aggro and expense surely?

[Tony dunmall]

Thanks Susan

It's Good to know that sometimes your heading in the right direction

[Smudger]

If rained off they get paid for hours worked - we only call off if rain is heavy and forecast for the day.

Our work ranges from flats with just 4 windows to very large estate houses, ( residential ) and shop fronts to hospitals (commercial) no matter what we are cleaning there is a set average hourly turnover to hit.

On your pricing of £8.50 a semi I'd expect to get done 4 p/h minimum X that by six hours = 24 cleans.

Darran

[KS Cleaning]

That's a good point I pay an average of £75.00 per day and they complete between £150 to £160 per day But some days in the week are harder than others or owners don't open locked gates so only charge for the front that can loose alot of money over a year.
 Had guys work for me in the past that would do £180 to £200  per day but not consistent would reach burn out point and  get more cancellations possibly for cleaning windows to quick leaving streaks ect . I feel what I pay now is a good wage for what they do each day but profits are way down but its still a profit.
Its trying to get that balance. Of paying a wage  to keep your guys happy and make a profit plus what the market we are all in are willing to pay.

On these figures your business simply isn't making enough turnover to support 3 employees and 3 vans. If you have work that an employee in a van can't achieve in excess of £30 per hour it's probably not worth the hassle of employing.

[sunshine windows]

When i employed one of my now franchisees, i was paying him 40% of turnover. I always guaranteed £1250 worth of work each week, so he did very well from it. When i first took someone on it was on a 60/40 split in their favour which was ridiculous.

I wouldn't pay anyone more than 30%, knowing what can be achieved in a day.

[Richard iSparkle]

you need to make some changes..

1. start working in the rain and whatever the weather. only stop working when it is dangerous to work. offer a rain guarantee to your customers.
2. start working your staff harder. my guys work 8 hour days and are expected to clean  32 x 3 bed semis(or the equivalent)  each in this time.
3. you'll probably need new staff to make these changes as getting them to work harder for the same amount of money will be extremely hard.

good luck!

[Tosh]

What about only stop working if it's not going to be conducive with their health or doesn't that count Richard?

[8weekly]

you need to make some changes..

1. start working in the rain and whatever the weather. only stop working when it is dangerous to work. offer a rain guarantee to your customers.
2. start working your staff harder. my guys work 8 hour days and are expected to clean  32 x 3 bed semis(or the equivalent)  each in this time.
3. you'll probably need new staff to make these changes as getting them to work harder for the same amount of money will be extremely hard.

good luck!

One person cleans 32? Wow! There's a guy on Facebook cleans that sort of number, but he's around a fiver a house.

[Shane sharples]

32 full houses a day Or 32 fronts? If it's the first option, I'd say you push your workers too hard

[Shane sharples]

I used to have a round in Blackpool aswell , people kicked off when I put the prices up from £4.50 to £5 for a semi , terrible prices . Very difficult to canvass aswell because there are so many con artists and gypsies

[SeanK]

you need to make some changes..

1. start working in the rain and whatever the weather. only stop working when it is dangerous to work. offer a rain guarantee to your customers.
2. start working your staff harder. my guys work 8 hour days and are expected to clean  32 x 3 bed semis(or the equivalent)  each in this time.
3. you'll probably need new staff to make these changes as getting them to work harder for the same amount of money will be extremely hard.

good luck!

One person cleans 32? Wow! There's a guy on Facebook cleans that sort of number, but he's around a fiver a house.

Exactly there's one in my area as well, when your going through that many properties a day your quality isn't going to
be worth much more.

[Leeds]

Has anyone thought of paying an hourly rate and just giving the employee X amount of £s work to do in the day.

I.e. In 6 hours I expect you to clean this amount of houses for £8 an hour. If you don't, (without good reason - as specified in contract) the difference will be minused from your wage.

I think that's fair.

[SeanK]

Has anyone thought of paying an hourly rate and just giving the employee X amount of £s work to do in the day.

I.e. In 6 hours I expect you to clean this amount of houses for £8 an hour. If you don't, (without good reason - as specified in contract) the difference will be minused from your wage.

I think that's fair.

For a start you cant pay them less than the minimum hourly wage no matter what they achieve, but what you have described
is just another bonus scheme and therefore will have all the problems that come with bonuses.
For example lets say the employee has a target of 20 properties but gets off to a bad start so wont reach the required amount,
not much incentive left other than to faff about for the rest of the day and get the minimum amount anyway, or worse forget
about quality and take shortcuts to pull the amount back hoping the customers wont notice or complain.

[Stoots]

I don't know much about employing but from the sound of your prices £150 a day would be good going on your own ans qouls leave me knackered. So I don't see how an employee is going to flog himself to death to hit targets. Sounds like you would be better off on your own, shove all your prices up by a fair wack and do it on your own or with 1 employee.

Or tell them all you're thinking of putting prices up those that say no.say ok and sell them all to another windy and keep the ones that will.