Been cleaning for around 4 months now and I was thinking when the right time for recruitment would be.
What would be the best reasons besides being really busy. Does staff help with motivation? I go out and do just enough but i’v got plenty of work to keep me going.
I’d possibly like to move to the next level. Which means spending more time working. An extra worker could help take the weight off my shoulders and let me focus on finding more work.
Just wondering what some of you done or would consoder the right time
From personal experience employees are more of a headache than theyre worth. You’ll go through a lot of them untill you find one that’s decent enough to keep. Idk what it is about the world today but work ethic is a rare thing of the past. Employees will take your money and run, they don’t care about your business like you do. It’s a big step to hire somone, and most employers break they’re ankle doing so. You invest time and money to train them and deal with there crap of excuses, the ROI for employees is almost none existent if you ask me. Just my personal experience and I’m almost positive the feeling is mutual.
There is no hard and fast rule to when is a good time. You just have to make that decision and stay with it. Employees do suck at times but you will never EVER have a greater feeling of accomplishment and reward as when you have employees who do a great job, help your business grow, and enjoy what they are doing.
Once you have employees you will realize that your full-time job is keeping the employees happy and motivated; because if you do that then your customers will be taken care of and will be happy.
One important thing is to be honest with anyone you hire. If you sit down and look at your business and determine you only need someone for 21 hours per week… don’t tell them they will have 40 hours per week worth of work.
Would your current price structure allow you to pay the extra expenses of having an employee?
And yes it is very true employees are headaches because they will not perform the work that you do to your standards or work at your pace. You may get the occasional one that will achieve higher standards but hard to find.
On the flip side of that you make money off of these guys. Solo oporator is producing 75 to $100 an hour, the employee is NOT producing that but his hourly wage is in the range of $15-25. So there is room there especially if your able to schecule and coordinate their time well.
Having employees allows me to obtain larger jobs, since my goal is to have large commercial properties it can’t happen solo. If I only did residential work there is no way I would do employees way too much down time between jobs, scheduling and selling. For two guys you have to have 10 - 15 jobs a week every week. Here the residential season is about 7-8 months if you find somebody good very hard to keep them around if you’re seasonal and you can’t provide them year-round work.
Also factor in employee costs, payroll, paying 12% of their taxes, work comp insurance and unemployment if seasonal.
Lots of responsibilities, running a solo business is one thing but adding employees adds more challenges.
Sounds like you are at a tipping point.
It helps to think of the employee expenses, both time and money, as an investment. If they can assist with some of the simpler tasks then you will have more time to invest in getting additional clients and work on other management tasks.
