I own a cleaning business.... need some advice?

Question

I own a cleaning business & pay my employees $10 per hour + bonuses
I hired a lady last week & every house she has done so far, she has taken 2-4 hours longer than it shoul. I had my best employee work with her last week& we both think she is trying to drag it on to make more money
She is doing a good job but not great, especialy for the time its taking her! B/c she is so slow
I'm loosing money on some houses b/c I'm paying her more than I charged
I'm trying to implent a system to prevent my employees from doing this.
Anyone have any ideas?
I could pay by the job, but do I pay a % of how amount I charge customer? If I do, what is a fair %?? or should I, when doing the estimate, decide how long the house should take&add 1 hour to that time for the "unexpected"
& letting the employee know that if it takes longer than the time I set, they don't get paid for the time difference unless they call me, I look at house & agree that it will take longer.
Am I asking too much??

Answer 1

First, you need to establish expectations - with all of your employees. Figure out a way to estimate what each job should take in terms of time (and your cost). Not all will be the same, although the estimating should be based on predictable factors (size, type of cleaning, etc).

With this done, any job that comes along will be measured against these expectations and everyone will know if they're doing a satisfactory job or not. And, employees should know what they can expect from you when they're meeting these expectations and when they're not.

I agree with some of the other answers too, that incentives can work very well. Pay bonus $$ for jobs that customers rate "excellent" and for jobs that are done well and fast.

Answer 2

Offer some sort of incentive based pay such as, if you assess a job as taking only 2 hours then you pay 10 bucks an hour, but if someone takes less than the time you allot for that job to take-like at least half an hour less time- you'll pay em 11 bucks an hour or some other incentive.Employees like incentives and challenges, well, the good employees do anyway.

Answer 3

I'd just sit her down and explain the facts of life. Tell her straight out that her work quality is OK, but she's taking too long on each job. Give her a bit of time to improve. If she doesn't, just let her go.

Don't fall into the trap of "analysis paralysis". You'll just tear your hair out.

Piecework pay is one option of course, but that usually winds up telling your employees more about your company's finances than you probably want to reveal.

You have every right to establish performance standards -- and you're a fool if you don't. Any employee who cannot meet the minimum standards after being given a reasonable chance to improve should simply be let go.

Answer 4

I would get rid of her fast. She has only been with you a week so there should not be a problem there. Yes, you should work out some sort of average to decide a fair payment between job and time payments. You could also work out a percent bonus for the most houses worked per week. In that case you might be cleaning more houses, making more money for yourself and for them in the process. An Industrial Engineer could help you work it out to be a win/win situation.

Answer 5

What you need to do is stop paying her by the hour.

Each house earns you this much money. That's it. You have two hours to clean it. If you take longer, that's your own fault.

You're the boss. You can do whatever the hell you want.

Answer 6

You are over-analyzing this. Tell her she is slower than everyone else, and she either speeds up or gets $7 an hour. Period.