Episode 242 – How to Stop Running from Fire to Fire
Guide to placing systems within your business to reward attendance and handle call offs
Today, we are speaking with Heather Loveland. Heather is the owner of Home Sweet Home, a cleaning service which is providing excellent home cleaning services to those living in the Syracuse New York region. Home Sweet Home has been in business for nearly three years. www.cnyhomesweethome.com
Heather is a third generation house cleaner and has been in the cleaning business for nearly seventeen years! Just three years ago, Heather decided to open her own cleaning business. While the transition of going from working for someone else to owning her own business was a slow process for Heather, she started off taking on her own client’s part time as her full-time job would allow. Heather was patient and worked diligently until she felt as though she was financially secure enough to make the jump to running her very own house cleaning business. In the last three months, Home Sweet Home’s business has tripled in revenue as well as the number of employees working for them. Heather was able to triple her business by over hiring! She stopped being scared that she was not going to have enough work for the employees and by going all out and doing a mass hire she was able to hire great employees and obtain the work for them as it came!
RESOURCE ALERT: How to handle employee call offs https://oldsite.growmycleaningcompany.comcleaning-company-sales/
It is bound to happen that your employees are going to need to take a day or few off, whether it be for emergencies, illness, etc. it is something that every business must come up with a system on how to go about handling times when you may be short staffed. One secret to keep in mind that if you have more employees working fewer hours rather than having fewer employees working more hours this does not overload the employees. When you do this, you create a culture of employees who will constantly be wanting more hours rather than employees who are being overloaded with their current schedule. If and when you do need someone to cover a shift, employees will now be more eager to obtain those extra hours because they do not have an abundance of hours that they are scheduled for in that week. When you have an employee who is a no call no show that always counts as a ground for immediate dismissal. Lay out specific guidelines for you employees at the time of hire. Let all of your associates know that you have a system for call outs if an employee is to call in and give at least 48 hours advanced notice that may not count against them as long as it is not a consistent behavior. Anything less than 48 hours notice for a call out should be considered a big demerit on their record that can only be resolved by covering a shift for someone else that has called out.
Recognize that this is a problem that is going to arise and have a plan of action to take when these instances occur
Hold employees accountable for attendance.
When you do quarterly reviews ensure that not only your core values are still a match but also acknowledge attendance.
Hire a floater
Someone who is on call in cases where someone will be available any day or time if one of the regular employees were to call out
RESOURCE ALERT: How to reward employees for going above and beyond what their job asks of them
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imlJ9kYY5Kc
When you are deciding how you would like to reward your employees, it is important to decide whether you would like it to be a recurring monthly or quarterly event. If you choose to do reviews quarterly that should come with a pay raise. If you would rather have a review each month those should consist of incentives such as, gift cards, parking space rights, a special lunch, etc. for those who are doing well according to the guidelines below:
Things to consider in your review:
Core values match
Time and attendance
Complaints vs. Positive reviews
How quickly they are performing and how close to par they are