[Justcleaning]

What do you think about charging £15 an hour for cleaning an office £7 for he cleaner, £2 for equipment, £1 for insurance, £2 for business savings, and £1 for me. There is going to be 4 hours day of cleaning over 5 days. Contract will run initially for 3 months.

[glenda hollis]

Is the cleaner being paid £7 an hour? Are they being paid less and the £7 includes all the costs (per hour) of hiring staff?

[Justcleaning]

Let me explain further. The office building is on 3 floors. On the ground floor a relatively large reception, 4 toilets, a large show room, board room, a resturant/kitchen. On the first and second floor a very large room with cubicle for staff, two toilets, store room and a small kitchen. The same thing things on the third floor. I am required to do all the windows as well.

I will be providing all the necessary equipment and product for cleaning.

So I reckon it will take 4 hours a day of cleaning over 5days. I would like to pay the cleaner £7 and the rest as I stated earlier. I don't want to under or overcharge.

By the way it's in London. What would you say the going rate is?

Many thanks.

[glenda hollis]

How do you allow for the cost of the staff, that is to say the money you put aside for sick and holiday pay, their insurances, etc, or does this come from the £2 you put into the business?

[Justcleaning]

Thanks for your response. What would you suggest? Should I increase the hourly rate? I need to give a quote in two days latest.

[glenda hollis]

Hi

I dont know, sorry, i dont know how much money you put aside for this and how much your staff 'cost' you. How do you usually work it out?

[Justcleaning]

It's my first quoting for office cleaning. The other cleaning i've done has been that the company told me the number of hours they require weekly.

[Justcleaning]

Don't give up now Glen!

[glenda hollis]

Hi,

No i was just curious to know what figure you work to when you put money aside for the things i mentioned, you know, the staff costs et al.

I have never employed staff directly, when i had my own cleaning company i did have some self-employed people who did jobs for me but they were never my staff. Previously I have managed staff who worked for a cleaning company, i amd trying hard to recall how much the proprioter put aside for the staff costs.

[Justcleaning]

With how I have describe the office. How would you cost the job?

[glenda hollis]

Hi

I don't have much i can add to the general question, sorry, i only ever priced for domestic cleaning as all commercial cleaning i've ever done was as an employee of a cleaning company. My interest in your question was to how much money needs to be put aside these days to pay for staff (or put it another way how much it costs to have staff).

[Justcleaning]

with the way things are I'm thinking of doing the job myself cos of the cost of having employee. thanks for your response

[Art]

£12 to £13 per hour tops. How long it will take is something that you'll have to work out for yourself.

Arthur

[bluez]

I am a great believer in going with your gut instinct. What you proposed in the first post sounds fine. If you get it great if not move on to the next one or renegotiate with the client or restructure the working hours to make a reasonable amount of money. A good question to ask yourself is " are you selling labour by the hour or a completed clean". If it is labour work it out based on the actual costs per hour including everything from insurance, travel, holiday etc with a margin added for profit. If you are selling a complete clean just give him a price based on how long you estimate it will take and then make it work by ensuring productivity is high, consumerables are low etc.

[Robert Parry]

Justcleaning,

Firstly 4 hours a night is too much for one person, pukka cleaning is hard graft!

You will also increase your costs, due to NI contributions, better 2 cleaners per night, after all most cleaning staff have a day job too, they will not knock themselves out in the evenings.

Also, you wont be in such a bind if one of them call in sick, or is on holiday.

How do you arrive at the true cost of employee's?

Try this:

1 x Cleaner paid at £7:00 per hour x 2 hours per day x 5 days per week = £70 per week wages.

1 x Cleaner is from next year entitled to 28 days holiday, so
28 x 2 hours at £7:00 per hour = £392:00 per annum divide this by 52 working weeks = £7.54 per week.

Add these two figures together which = £77.54 per week spread out over the working year, per employee.

You also have to add on the cost of the associated paperwork that goes with employing people, such as payroll costs, training, sickness cover, maternity/paternity leave(if applicable), employers liability insurance, Health & Safety, etc.etc.

Then there is the cost of chemicals, equipment, uniforms, advertising, administration, profit, etc.etc.


Hope this helps, regards,

Rob

[Art]

Rob, the 28 day entitlement doesn't start until 2009

Arthur