[texas girl]

Once again one of my workers has lied to me.

After the lie that is caught, all trust is destroyed. Then I wonder what else has he lied about; has he hurt my reputation with my customers, stolen money, etc.

I do quality control checks periodically but it is hard to check as much as I should. (Or do I get too comfortable and let it slide)?

Yesterday he said he had done these certain jobs so I decided to check as I had a complaint about quality a few days ago. He was planning to do them today(Thursday; but said he did them Wednesday). They are each 2 week accounts and were due on Tuesday.

The jobs were not even done! So I drove around to 75% of the customers he was servicing; crappy work. Did not wipe off frames, sloppy.

He knew better. We work together doing houses often. I am disappointed.  I have been very flexible and generous. I am finally fed up. He is history on Friday.

Everyone comes with baggage, reasons for things not being done as prompt as I would like some times. I have my own baggage. Life equals baggage.

But I hate being lied to. 

[Jeff Brimble]

Maybe he too has his "bagage" and issues, talk to him ?

[Ian Rochester]

Had similar problem last week, one of my lads did a guffy job for a builder behind my back, full builders clean on a sunday (8 hours work), charged him £80.00.

I found out about it last Friday night when I was out having a pint.

I went across to his house on Saturday morning and confronted him about it, he said it had been a last minute thing and he'd bought his own cleaning gear and not used any of mine (yeah right!!)  that's why the window cleaning gear was full of paint then!!

He also let me down a couple of months ago when it left an office cleaning job early on a friday night without telling me, I just happened to turn up for a spot check and the other lad had been left on his own.

Told him to go and ask the builder for a job cos he's finished with me now.  I have also deducted him £40.00 for the use of my gear from his final pay.

Because of the nature of the business, you have to empower your staff to make decisions and have full trust that the work is being done and the money is correct and that they are not creaming off some of it for themselves, once that trust is lost you are on a downward slope.

I wouldn't care but he was on a good wage, minimum of £6.50ph with a guaranteed 38 hours plus window cleaning work and other work if he wanted it.

Not my loss.

[russ_clark]

Get rid
Thats what I would do.
You have to have trust if its gone then its all over IMO.
If you pay peanuts then you get monkeys
Pay well and it will attract better staff.
I operate two card system first one yellow then its a straight red.
Obviously I accept minor things but anything causing mis-trust
they walk down the tunnel

[Alex Gardiner]

In an ideal world, lying would have no place, but........

lionheart

You pay peanuts- you get monkeys.

£6.50 per hour for 38hour week is not good money for window cleaning (£247 for a full weeks work of 7.6hours a day) , no wonder he tried to up it to £10 per hour on the side. (still poor rate for builders clean, I would have charged £200 for that)

I wouldn't get out of bed for that let alone slog my guts out building my bosses business for him. Window cleaners know how much they can earn on their own, let them have some of it in return.

I have always had the policy that if you pay good staff the best you can afford then you will be rewarded with a top quality job. Also I always pay those that work for me on a percentage rate, that way they have an incentive to do well and keep the customer. It also limits your downside as if it's bad weather they get less because of less work done.

All of the above is no excuse for lying though, if you agree to work for a rate, then the onus is on you, the worker, to be honest in all things and stick to it. But if you, the employer, are only attracting the type of person that is happy with low rates then you are increasing your chances of being lied to.

[russ_clark]

Alex
You are spot on -just worded better than me
I also pay a % of the takings
Works just fine for me

[Chris Cottrell]

I was under the impression that paying a percentage was illeagal ... or atleast it was when we payed our haulage drivers 5/6 yrs ago

Chris

[Roy Harding]

Hi Debbie

Just a thought can you have a customer satisfaction form, that they sign off when he's completed the work.

He then has to maintain a high standard of work and he has to hand the sign forms back to you each day.

I have used somthing like this in the past, as you spend a long time training them up to a standard then this tighten the loop holes.

Roy

[marc]

so what sort of percentage do you pay ??

[xxmattyxx]

When I first started shining the guys who worked for us earned 66% of the turnover, that equated in those days to approx £10.00/hr, that was 8 years ago; theres a comparison for you.

[texas girl]

Hey Jeff,

Oh yes, he has more baggage than anyone I have ever had. Custody of 3 small girls; 3 older girls that live with their mom.

Child care problems, illness problems, one daughter in trouble at school; kicked out of his apartment; homeless. Other daughter loses custody of her 2 kids because she sells drugs.

Utilities shut off because of lack of payment. Calling me all the time asking for advance pay because he wants to have a birthday party for one daughter or something else he can not afford.

Dipped into the till several times which he paid at the end of the week. I even give him extra money for gas which I do not do with anyone else. He gets paid well; he just wastes' his money.

Helped him get a car; because his was repossessed when he was arrested for being late on child support. Wrote a letter to the state supporting his character and helped him get out of jail.

This man is 38. I have 4 other workers that are doing great. 
He is paid on a percentage basis; he makes $18 to $25 per hour average with normal work speed.

I bought his daughters Christmas presents just because. I have been very patient and kind.

Even tho I have tolerated a lot with this guy I was determined to help him improve his life. But he just choses to cut corners, and barely get by. He is not interested in improving his life.

He has cost me a lot of money due to his lack of reliability. Then with the lie issue and cheating my customers I have finally had it.

I do not like this part of my job but if I hired a manager I would expect them to do a good job at personnel control.

And I am not dumb. Or a chump. And I am that manager.

Will let you know what happens.

Hugs,


Texas Girl   

[Alex Gardiner]

Hi Texas Girl,

Sounds like you paid him fairly and have been more than generous. Very difficult situation.

[texas girl]

Hey Roy;

Good to hear from you. How are you doing?

I do have a weekly contracts completed form that requires a signature from the customer. A sheet with  columns  that list:

Customers name, the date, a signature, money collected, or I invoice them, and the amount they receive from that contract.

In addition a slip is left with the customer that proves the windows were  cleaned. This is what they turn in each week.

Maybe I should have a column for customer satisfaction. That is something I will strongly consider.

I get 100 calls each time I advertise that I need help. I try to screen pretty thoroughly. This man was a personal referral.

Many times it works out with a personal referral, but some times it doesn't.

I take really great care of my workers and most stay with me for years.

My janitorial service has had the same few people for over 5 years. The window cleaning has 4 others that all work part time and have been with me over 2-4 years.

It is just this one particular window cleaning position that has frequent turnover.  :

I am glad I am a small business because I am comfortable with the stress level. I used to have double the staff and double the stress. But also had double the income.

I am comfortable with that now also, but I can always increase again if I chose.

Hugs,

Texas Girl   

[texas girl]

 Hey Alex,

Yes, to the point of being foolish if I keep this man around.

Some people are just satisfied with a certain life style of not having much. One bad decision after another.

I do not understand this thinking because opportunity is staring at you; it will not wait.

It used to bother me a LOT when I ended a worker relationship. Now I know as a business manager it is my job.

I do believe in 2nd and even third chances. Then it's over. 

Have a great day!

Hugs,

Texas Girl

[KJG]

Alex
You are spot on -just worded better than me
I also pay a % of the takings
Works just fine for me

Yep, agree. An hourly rate for window cleaning never works, especially £7 an hour! You can nearly get that standing around scratching your arse at Asda.

[Helen]

we pay %  terms and it is not illegal to do so. If you pay a good hourly rate (and remember this is window cleaning not IT say £10 per hour, you will get all the excuses under the sun why the days work has not been completed or it took 2 hours longer than it should have. % payment should be an incentive...... to do good work, to work quickly and correctly and earn a good living...in somes eyes yes, in some eyes no. Our % payment can sometimes be equivalent to £14 to £16 per hour, which for any manual job is a very good hourly rate....this still does not stop sloppy work and the such by some. Some people need watching over every minute of the day and some don't. Even the best worker can have off days, so we all have to take that into account, but at times you just wanna kick a**** for the idiots that think you will never find out!!!! Had one just last week, took home £300 plus , worked only 32 hours to earn that so approx £12 p/hr on average and then decided to jack it all in by leaving us a nice letter on Sunday afternoon while we were out. We knew what was coming then, all we had was complaints on Monday from last weeks customers. Yes we had slipped on the spot checking last week and yeas we have learnt a lesson too!
Anyone got the magic formula for getting it right with staff please?

[davey c]

full builders clean on a sunday (8 hours work), charged him £80.00

You dont own him, fair enough you say that he used your gear but surely what the lad does in his own time is his business. Would you sack him if he got a p/t job as well as working for yourself

[AuRavelling79]

The clean he did for himself on a Sunday would worry me far less than knocking off early without asking me.

I've been an employer in a different line of work and I would expect trust. But £6.50 an hour isn't good money and you get what you pay for. If I took some one on then he/she would have to be good enough to earn £10 per hour plus a bonus - otherwise why bother?

[JohnL]

Sounds as though you got what you paid for!

He is getting a pretty poor rate from you and with regards to the Sunday working thats his right to do what he wants. You have no jurisdiction over his private time unless of course he is nicking your customers.

[Ian Rochester]

Sorry, I think I have misled slightly.

Lets get this straight, this lad is not one of my window cleaners, he is primarily employed as an office cleaner and he gets £6.50 for cleaning offices.

My main window cleaners are all on £20k+ and they are paid a %age of turnover.

This lad can clean windows and he gets the same %age as the others when he's doing it, however he is not fast enough to be doing it full time, he also helps out on other cleans, end of tenancy etc when required, but his primary job is office cleaning.

Now tell me that £6.50 for office cleaning is peanuts!!

If he was working in a pub or doing anything else other than what he is normally paid to do in his time off I would not have a problem, however he was in effect taking work directly from me and using my gear in the process.