Over the last 20 years I have employed what feels like countless amounts of staff. Though never more than 6 at one time.
At the moment I have given up on it.
But I always made sure they were on a self employed basis.
They got paid 50% of whatever they turned over.
If any of them had a vehicle I would equip them with all they needed and pay their petrol money.
Incentive is a big thing, if you pay them by the hour or the day they may not necessarily get all the work done, percentage works well as the more they turn over the more they earn.
Quality control was never a problem as I would make frequent checks on their work, any customer not happy with the work carried out would always get the job done to their satisfaction before payment made. If they had paid and later realised a poor job had been done, provided they let me know within 48 hours it would always be put right, no questions asked.
The lads never had to tout for work, the mre experienced ones would give prices when someone asked for one, or I would be told at the end of the day and price it myself.
I never let them go by themselves until I felt they were suficiently well trained and competent.
Having people on the books brings awhole lot of other problems to deal with, employers liability (expensive) and all the tax and so on to sort out.
Self employed allowed me to stay below the VAT threshold as they collected their money at source, therefore their wages did not go through my books as I never received it in the first place. All quite legitimate.
But in the end I got fed up with them starting up and trying to compete with me, not all of them of course, but eventually those that stay with you for a number of years realise that they will be better off with their own business.
Then you get the ones that are unreliable, those that simply can't get the hang of it, those that thought window cleaning was an easy crack,.....until they try it! Then only last a day or two.
Over twenty years I must have had at least 100 people start and finish at one time or another.
Oh, and for those that had no transport of their own, and did not drive, I designed and made sidecars to fit onto mountain bikes, the sidecars were obviously for the ladders and kit to fit onto.
I would then drop them in an area where they would have a full days work, they would then cycle home.
For a number of years it worked incredibly well too.
I also never left them to work in pairs, not if I could avoid it.
2 people working together will not do the same amount of work as to people working completely separately.
On big jobs of course it could be unavoidable.
Time I got back to work and earned some money!
Ian
