Dealing with problem staff that don't listen

[manco]

18 hours ago, Chrissy said:

This one comes up time and time again and im sure im not alone.

I had an irate customer complain today that my lads had dragged branches across the side of his rendered house leaving marks. He's within his rights to be upset about this and we will be going back tomorrow with a pressure washer to hopefully sort this out.

 

Thing is, the lads have been told time and time again to cut stuff smaller but insist on still doing the same thing, whether its just lazyness or they just don't give a toss I dont know. They are hard working lads and on the whole don't do an awful lot wrong. How would you tackle this? Im not sure legally I can make them pay for this sort of thing, nor would I want to be the boss to do that.

 

 

 

it happens, ive been on both sides

supervise and nag is the only way

show them the damage, chew their ears off till they get the message

 

[Will C]

7 hours ago, AHPP said:

I’ve been meaning to buy plastic boards for ages. What’s thick enough to run a micro skidder on and thin enough to bend round a house corner?

6mm

[oldwoodcutter]

Of course no one’s indispensable. 
At the same time if you have a good gang of lads that sweat their balls off for you day in day out, through boiling sun and lashing rain I certainly wouldn’t do a lot of balling and shouting about marks on walls ( which has happened on my sites in the past)

A few well chosen words of advice and encouragement work wonders usually.

A bucket and brush or sponge soon clean it off, which obviously they’d have to do before leaving, to the customers satisfaction.

Im not training lads up from not knowing how to stir their tea up to being first rate ground workers to see them slope off never to be heard of again over something like that 

 

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

On 06/01/2023 at 22:38, trigger_andy said:

In my humble line of work the initial years of an employee working for the company sees the employees training costs equal their yearly wage. 

Your line of work seems a bit specialised Andy so you’d expect training costs to be high in the early years. 
 

That said, I’m currently looking at a comparison between a fixed term 2 year direct employment and a contracted out option for a business opportunity I’m assessing. 
 

It has come as a bit of a shock to run the actual numbers  behind the assumption that an employee salary is multiplied by 1.5-1.75 to give the ‘cost’ of that body to the business. 
 

The higher the training, equipment and tools / machinery requirement, plus T&S for a mobile role, the higher still - obviously. 

 

Personally, I’ve run for years without direct employed - predominantly because I don’t do full time, but having just run the figures in detail, I see money / cost as just 1 of a whole raft of issues which makes direct employment so much more trouble than it’s worth for micro / SMEs. 
 

As it stands, it’s looking like a +/- 30% cost efficiency from contracted services over fixed term direct employment contract and it’s likely (as an ‘experience based’ assessment,) that contract staff will deliver output in about ½ the time of direct employed primarily because of job and knock motivation. 

Because I have had to get right down into the detail, rather than just rolling with a gut feeling, I am shocked by what I have found in terms of how hard it has been made for a micro / SME to work effectively. 
 

To get back on track, actual staff performance is just 1 headache of direct employment - there are way too many others!

[Stubby]

9 hours ago, kevinjohnsonmbe said:

Your line of work seems a bit specialised Andy

FFS Kev , don't make him feel special ! 😀

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

18 minutes ago, Stubby said:

FFS Kev , don't make him feel special ! 😀

But he IS special Stubs 😝😝

[Rich Rule]

Very Shpeshul!  😁

[Clutchy]

As an owner, I always try and blame myself first. 

Was there clearer instructions that I could of stated during the job briefing/notes?

Am I responsible for explaining the method of removal (yes) 

 

Am I responsible for supplying boarding on the walls to prevent this happening (yes) 

If, it is 100% their fault, and in general, they are good lads, I would have a tool box talk about it on the Friday, explain the consequences of the mistake, and how you now need to put it right, and the loss in money to the business. And that this is what we will be doing going forward to prevent this issue. 

I always think, replacing staff who are 90% good is just not worth it a lot of the time, I would rather spend my time trying to improve them closer to 100%. Especially if I've already invested 1000's in their training and hours in moulding them into what my company represents. 

It wouldn't cross my mind to consider charging them for their mistakes. 
 

[Mick Dempsey]

As an owner I always try to blame anyway else before accepting blame myself.

 

I’m already furious about loads of stuff before anyone even turns up for work.

 

The first few hours are usually spent in a state of constant agitation, muttering stuff like ####sake!’ ‘Come on!’ And ‘this job’s a ####ing disaster already!’

 

By lunchtime I’ve already fallen into a sort of resigned depression.

 

Otherwise it’s all sunshine and roses.

 

 

Edited January 9, 2023 by Mick Dempsey

[Treetom15]

I think it would be perfectly acceptable to get the lads involved to pop back with you and clean it up, although maybe done on a day in works time (if you get an early finish etc) 

 

As above, punishing people who are by-and -large pretty good doesn’t really get a good response, as it’ll just get their back up and will knock their motivation to graft for you. By the same token, if you explain to them the customer is upset/has complained etc, a decent employee would OFFER to come back and put the problem right.