Timesheets

[humbleandpure]

Hello all!

Happy Holidays!

Quick question: how do you keep track of your employees cleaning time?

My concern: I presently work full time while I get my business off the ground. So I am hiring employees to service clients daily but how do I make sure they are being honest with me about there hours and not adding on hours here and there?

[Grizzly]

The options are too many to mention and all have a price tag and to be honest , most are open to "fudging" if the employee wants to. This is why we pay our staff a flat rate for all premises they do. We generally do a premises ourselves first before we put staff into it. We then have a very good idea on how long it takes. We'll pay a flat 3 hours to do a certain premises according to specs. One time it may take them more, another it may take them less but it will undoubtedly average out. Otherwise, you are faced with maybe 1. having them call in when get there and call in when they leave but are they calling from their living room? 2. There are for the lack of a better word blackberry or software solutions that allow them to log in to a lap top and put in their arrival times and see what problems there are but in my mind this is also open to misuse and is no guarantee. There are all kinds of variations and options to these themes.

Bill

[FreedomClean]

Bill, I'm guessing you don't get too many complaints from customers about the cleaners not doing a good enough job? For instance, the employee thinking.."I'm getting paid for 3 hours so I'm going to do it in 1.5"?

[rhapsodyvf]

cleaningmike said:

Bill, I'm guessing you don't get too many complaints from customers about the cleaners not doing a good enough job? For instance, the employee thinking.."I'm getting paid for 3 hours so I'm going to do it in 1.5"?

Or i'm only getting paid for 3 hours...why should i work 3.5 to do a great job if i'm not going to get paid for it?


These are just a couple of the things that keep me from not going to paying a flat rate. How do you get around them?

[Grizzly]

First , I explain to staff exactly why they're getting paid like this, they appreciate the honesty, second, there are quality control books at every location that I regularly check, along with the occassional spot check in the evening. If there is a period of too many complaints or I feel the work is not up to spec. they're gone. They understand that I don't mind if they leave a bit early, as long as a great job is done, as well, they buy into the fact that to get this priviledge, they do a good job and stay late if the job requires it. If they don't buy into this , they don't work for me. Seems to work, my compaints usually run about one every 2 or three months, and that is generally something that is not coverred under our specs and the contact person didn't bother to check the specs before compaining. For example, they have done some construction work and staff haven't dusted the drywall dust off the air diffusers. This is an addition not coverred under the regular specs with a line something like" Any unusual accumulations of dust , dirt or litter as a result of demolition, construction or renovation is an addition and to be quoted on in a per occassion basis."

Bill

[mii]

Hopefully you have atleast one person you fully trust or maybe the crew or team leader. My team leader calls in the hours at the end of the day for everybody that worked and I record them in a book itemized by employee and day.

[ECBS Clean Team]

We use the GotVMail system recommended by Kevin. We have them call in to that & it time stamps it for us with caller ID. Now I will admit if they call from a similar number to the building I would not notice. But overall I have caught a couple people call in from cell numbers & when I did I called them on it to find out that the client phone is legitimitly having issue so they used their phone.

So overall it works well, especially when we explain the system to the new employee & emphasize the caller ID feature