14.1 : Introduction
When you begin your own oven cleaning business, chances are you'll be flying solo. Doing all the grafting yourself to get the revenue flowing, but there will come a point in your business, when you find yourself considering bringing others aboard to lighten your workload. That isn't an easy feat or cheap by any standards.
You may have to source a work van and kit it out with a dip tank if you are planning on having your staff do additional oven cleaning jobs you don't have the time for yourself, or you could have them assist you on your jobs to speed the work up.
Weigh-up the costs of hiring staff
Hiring staff to cover additional jobs is going to have a high expense to pay, and on top of that, you
have to commit to the weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly payments. To do that, you must be on top of
your marketing to ensure you have sufficient work to cover your earnings, and the earnings of your
staff. A serious element of trust will be needed when you bring aboard your own staff. You do not want to kit them out, insure them, put them on your payroll, only to find them bunking off on the job, leaving you in the lurch, and your business reputation tarnished. Despite the drawbacks you will be thinking off when considering the topic of hiring, there are going to be situations where there are no other options. Or are there?
Take for example a commercial oven cleaning job. They're no easy task to complete and do take some serious arm power to scrub, and that alone can more than double your time on the job. Of course, a second pair of hands is going to be extremely beneficial to you on those jobs. Striking a partnership with someone to help you on the bigger jobs will let you get the job done faster, and lighten your workload too. You don't always need to hire an employee!
Hiring staff on a temporary or permanent basis brings with it the red tape of employee management, the health and safety aspect of the job, training staff etc. The other option you have is to hire a contractor and that is much different from an employee. With a contractor, they will be self-employed, or employed through a cleaning agency. If you need to hire someone for a one-off job that you know is going to push your schedule to the brink of missing deadlines, contractors could be your lifeline. You can bring them aboard for anything from six hours, to a full week or month, but you will have to pay the rates they have set.
Contractors are self-employed and as such, they will not be able to commit exclusively to your business requirements. Some who aren't as busy would love to do that to help you out and keep their work going, but by being an independent contractor, they are obliged legally to maintain their own level of risk in their business, and must not be able to be considered as an employee of any business. This is known as the IR35 (Intermediaries Legislation), which is in place to prevent tax fraud activity. In essence, it's when contractors disguise themselves as being self-employed when they are really working in an employee capacity.
If you choose to use independent contractors, this is one of the reasons they cannot allow their clients to dictate their working hours. Therefore, if you need staff for more than a one-off job, then this is not the route to go. Contractors can be flexible, but not so flexible that you can rely on them for every extra job that comes your way.
When your work load takes a temporary hike in demand that you do not foresee as being consistent, then you may want to consider hiring a contractor to see you through a upturn in your workload, and resume your solo cleaning when things quieten down to a manageable level for you. When you don't foresee your work taking a downturn, and you need to bring aboard others to sustain the level of work you have on an on-going basis, then that's the time when you should give
serious thought to hiring your own staff.
At that point, it would be beneficial to seek legal advice, and also to approach government schemes, such as the Job Centre Plus, as there may be employer schemes in place around your area to help support people back into the workplace, and those may also have financial incentives for you to hire people who have been out the work force for a certain length of time. You don't have to go that route, as you can just advertise your vacancy and hire the staff yourself. It is an option you may want to explore though.
14.2 : What an employee can do for your business
When you're flying solo, your business depends on your health. As with anything in life, there are no guarantees, but what you can count on is that there may come a time when you are too ill to drive your vehicle, due to medication side effects, or worse still, you're too ill to work. Your income will be down, but having an employee on hand, you can him or her insured to drive your work van, and they can go out on the jobs when you're unfit to do it.
The same holds true for when you're heading away on holiday. A time when you'd otherwise be making nothing, your staff can go out and get the work done, keeping the invoices being generated and income streaming through your business.
All that in addition the following advantages:
You can ultimately cover more hours. Some clients may want you at the evenings or over the weekends. Having someone else working for you allows you to manage this. Taking on more clients is no longer a headache. With extra hands, you can achieve more. There are opportunities to enhance your profits. While the person who works for you should get the lion's share for the physical effort they put in, you can certainly profit too.
Sounds too good to be true, but like most things, it balances itself out with the disadvantages. The downside:
Managing other people isn't always simple. As a small business owner, you will find yourself operating as a manager, HR personnel, and accountant. If a staff member falls sick, it is down to you to cover them. It is sometimes a little gut wrenching to hand over your profits to others, but this is something
you need to do to treat your staff fairly.
14.3 : Deciding How Much to Pay Those Who Work for You
How much you choose to pay those who work for you should depend on where you live and the level of work required of them. You can take two approaches here. You can either factor in the cost of materials and other overheads, then allocate your staff a percentage of the remainder. Alternatively, you can choose to pay them in accordance with the living wage for your area.
- You must pay the National Minimum Wage to all your employees. You can find the rates at www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage-rates
14.4 : Hiring Trustworthy Staff
When you hire someone else, you are asking them to work in your name. This means any insolence, laziness, and criminal activity will damage your reputation. In order to attract customer trust, you may want to consider performing a background check. You should, at the very least, request that potential employees let you see verifiable references. As an employer, you can have a background check conducted using the Disclosure and Barring service at www.gov.uk/government/organisations/disclosure-and-barring-service
Not every employer has access to the all the pertinent information you may require for the hiring process, and that if the case, because you're highly unlikely to be hiring more than 100 people per year, the DBS advises using an Umbrella Service. These are organisations who are registered for the Disclosure and Barring Service, and run more than 99 checks per year.
You will find the majority of recruitment agencies are registered, but if you are going to be using a recruitment agency to assist you with hiring, ask them if they can provide you with this service. Recruitment agencies are able to handle your recruitment process for you, using their in-house recruitment process, but the fees will be significantly higher than if you were to hire your own staff. Fees are usually a flat fee, or a percentage of the salary you'll be paying your staff.
14.5 : Training Staff to Your Standards
No doubt, your work will be done to high standards, and enhancing customer satisfaction. If it weren't up to the standards expected, you wouldn't have a bulk load of work requiring additional staff. When you reach the point of hiring staff to fulfil demand for your service, you can rest-assured it's because of the standards your oven cleaning service delivers to your customers. For that reason, whatever it is you're doing well, your staff must be able to meet the same high standards as you. The only way for them to do that is for you to train them the way you work and the chemicals you use. Training is essential to achieve consistency with your customer satisfaction.
14.6 : How to Train Your Staff
On the job training is the best approach. When you hire someone, you need to consider them an investment in your business. You cannot hire a new employee, hand them the keys to the van and an appointment diary with bookings they need to go do. That will have disastrous consequences.
Three jobs are ideal to bring your new start with you. The first job you do, their role will solely be observing you cleaning the oven. Tell them that at any point if they have questions, to ask you. Ideally you want them to be asking plenty of questions as that is a good way to ensure they are engaged with you and taking in what you are teaching them. The second job they go with you on, take a step back by handing over some responsibility and let them tackle the cleaning. If you are going to be doing the cleaning alongside your employee, consider handing over a supervisory role to them and have them tell you what to with the cleaning.
It's the reverse order of how many on the job training is done, which is usually by the employer, or supervisor taking a back seat and providing instructions. As an oven cleaner, they aren't always going to have you there to provide direction, so you need to make sure they can work on their own initiative. You will find out if they can do this by taking a step back and letting them take control of the cleaning and have you there as their assistant. If this goes well, and you're confident that they can work on their own initiative, achieving high quality standards, then you may want to let them loose on their own to go and meet clients. Hold off on that though.
Shadow your new employees
Before you let an employee loose, you are best to shadow them. Even if that means on their first solo job, you wait outside in the van while they get the work done. The employee won't be too chuffed that they are doing all the grafting while you read the newspaper, but the result will let you see their finished work. An alternative would be to let them fly solo, get the job done and then call around to the customers home, just as you as expect the job to be finishing up. A surprise call out. If the results are below the standards you expect, put them back on training, working beside you until their skills are brushed up to get the job done to high standards.
Ensure standards are met with spot checks
Spot checks should be part of your ongoing quality assurance and standards of service to ensure your staff are not going to damage your business reputation. You need to find a balance of them though, as too many will lower your staff morale and make them feel you don't trust them to do a great job.
Another way you can manage your staff is through your customer feedback. You only need to call
them up and ask how the job went. If any issues are raised, then you can address that with your
employee so they know where to improve themselves. A good employee will always strive to improve. Make sure you put any staff you hire through the British Oven Cleaning Certificate training programme. We offer discounts to employers looking to train more than 1 employee. Please contact us.
14.7 : Meeting Your Legal Responsibilities as an Employer
Once you hire your own staff, you will have employer responsibilities, much of which are legal requirements. Health and Safety will be your number one priority, so you must always ensure that risks to your staff are minimised.
Your employee must always have a safe environment to work in, which is what you will be providing by minimising risks. Make sure your staff are well aware of the dangers of oven cleaning, and that they follow the best safety practices that you adhere to yourself.
A written safety policy is not required until you reach a stage of hiring more than five employees. At
that point, you will be legally required to have a written health and safety policy, accessible to all your employees.
Guidance for writing a health and safety document is provided by the Health and Safety Executive as
well as sample templates.
These are available at: www.hse.gov.uk/toolbox/managing/writing.htm
Financial stability will be the main concern of your staff as you will be their employer. Your responsibility as their employer will be to ensure they receive all the employee benefits they are entitled to, such as:
Maternity pay
Paternity pay
Sick pay
Holiday entitlement
Another thing you will want to ensure you have in place is a way for your staff to make complaints about their working conditions. The sooner you can identify problems your staff are facing in their work, the sooner you can take steps to rectify the problems and ensure the time and money invested in training your staff, pays by keeping people working with you, instead of taking off to the next job opportunity that presents itself.
For any issues that you are uncertain about, it may be worth a visit to the Advisory, Conciliation, and
Arbitration Service.
This is useful for employers to turn to for advice on managing their own staff.
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