Hiring An Operations Manager

The Office Employees
1

So I’m hoping to get some solid advice from all the guys that have grown large enough to hire an Operations Manager to run their business.

We are at 4 full-time Technicians besides myself. I also am out in the field working almost every day. My wife works in the office, and we have a part-time Office Assistant as well. So we have a staff of 7, 5 full-time, and 2 -part-time.

We are slated to go over $400k in sales this year.

However, if I am ever to be able to take the business to the next level, and have more time for other things, I need to exit the hands on field work. I need to replace myself.

Right now, I am wearing a bunch of hats. I’m working cleaning windows a minimum of 40 hours a week, as well as making sure that all the other crews have what they need, and answer all their questions, and solve their work-related problems, order supplies, hire new employees, train new employees, etc. What I need to do, I think, is hire an Operations Manager.

So, for all of you guys that have ever done this, please give me some tips. How do you find a person like this? Where do I post an ad? Did you promote someone from within? My Technicians are all 23 years old or younger. At this point, none of them is Manager material. I’m thinking I need someone more seasoned, mature, and responsible, perhaps a married individual with a family.

How much would I need to pay this person? Did you pay hourly or salary?

Anyways, that’s plenty to get started. I really appreciate any feedback.

2 Likes
2

Be very cautious of salary unless you find a very uniquely self motivated individual. I’d also advise that training this person and managing them will be the hardest thing you’ve done up to this point.

Promoting from within is always a good option. Maybe start by announcing you have this position available and see if any of your current guys show some genuine interest. Problem that may arise if you do promote from within is the guy who was everyone’s “buddy” is now the “manager” and that may cause some resentment. The benefit to this option is a current employee is already part of your culture and knows how things work.

Hope some of this helps. I went through the same thing.

2 Likes
3

Give the guy who is cruising around in your truck the promotion. Will be the best punishment.:wink:

But seriously, ideally you would’ve wanted to be grooming someone from day 1 to do this since they pretty much need to be attached to your hip for at least a year.

Instead of thinking none of them are manager material, evaluate who has the most potential in your eyes and give some extra small tasks of responsibility to all of them and see who responds. People will often surprise you. But do it without telling them why.

If one stands out and has been receiving more responsibility over time, then the transition will be more natural and even expected since the other guys will already view him as a leader.

3 Likes
4

Hiring from within is great if possible. Customers and employees as we already familiar with this person.

Then hire a replacement for the easier position.

Finding a place to post for the position if looking outside your company would be same as any other position you look to fill.

1 Like
5

I think incentive based salary would be good. Not quite sure how to structure it but maybe other contributors have good examples.
Congratulations on the growth of your business!

6

We promoted from within this year

health insurance
standard pay
% points based on 5 factors.

1 Like
7

Shouldn’t you be the operations manager? How are you going to take your business to the next level if you are still doing the window cleaning yourself?

1 Like
8

My point is that I would withdraw from the actual field work, and replace myself in the field. The Operations Manager I hire would do most of the things I do now. That would free me up much more to work on the business instead of in the business.

If there is none of my current employees that are Manager material, how would you go about finding one? Would you look for someone who has previous Manager experience, even though they do not have window cleaning experience?

9

iv never done it-but if i was ,i think id hire someone that comes at it from a different angle,probably a woman

you could still be out in the field somewhere [maybe working solo] at a tangent from the main core of work,doing your own thing, at your leisure - but stopping by to help the main group now n then -i dont think you would relax if you had no on the street connection anymore- just my thoughts

10

Yes, you would hire someone with experience managing a couple teams of people. This could be a warehouse supervisor, a service dispatcher, a general office manager, etc. They won’t be cleaning windows so it is a completely different skill set.

So you will have yourself, your wife, a part time assistant, and an operations manager to support 4 technicians? That seems like way too much. In business the general rule of thumb is one person should be able to support 6 workers.

1 Like
11

From what it posted a operations manager of a business with 4 techs the OM will be cleaning windows.
An OM should be knowledgeable in every aspect of window cleaning as duties would include organizing crews and gear dealing with building managers/ customers in field, training of new employees and those types of things.
An operations manager of a 4 tech crew is not a managing director as the last 2 posts lean towards, and needs extensive window cleaning experience as well as management skills.

12

That’s exactly right. This Operations Manager would be doing window cleaning and managing 4-5 other Techs. He would do less of the actual work, because of his managerial responsibilities. Maybe he would do about 75% of what the other Techs did in a day.

13

How did it turn out?