Does anyone out there have a job description they would be willing to share with me for an operations manager? I am wanting to add one this coming year and this would be my first go at hiring an employee of this type. Also, any thoughts on salary (hourly, minimums, commission). Any feedback would be appreciated.
Eddie Willis
20/20 Window Cleaning
With no responses here have you tried the search bar? Facebook groups?
Molding our own right now. In large part itâs a low base with incentives based on many factors (sales, call backs, etc).
Iâm sure there are others who have read, but not commentedâŚ
Guessing we are looking to âhand the keys toâ this person.
This is one of those thing were we need a little more infoâŚ
Meaning, you tell ME what youâd like the job description to be.
(what would like this position to entail. what do you need?)
And what are you willing to give up?
What kind of base do they have to work with/build upon??
From there we can get into âwhat is realistic.â
I read plenty of âHey Iâm gonna hire a salespersonâ threads.
Now Iâm looking at âMinimumâ and âHourlyâ to basically ârun shit.â
Whatâs the size of your company? In gross and in employees.
Will this person be a production worker, actually cleaning glass? What % of time, if so?
JfromtheD, got the ball rolling⌠
We have an operations manager involved in every part of the business, including sales, and is heavily involved in the safety program, as per the job description for his position. He is in the field with a crew most days, but keeps a laptop in his truck (which he drives home). On slow days, or bad weather, he has a long list of other projects, many of which he can do from home (all documents etc are in the cloud). He handles all scheduling and crew assignments.
He doesnât have hire/fire authority (yet), but he does interview new hires on his own, and can write up employees.
He has a say in all capital expenditures, and is present at all annual budget meetings with customers, making him the day to day face of the company to our customers, and giving him authority (which he has) in their eyes.
Besides his hourly rate, regular job bonuses, vacation, and benefits, he receives a percentage of net profit each quarter. This keeps him tied more to overall performance of the company, and more conscientious about every aspect, knowing they all impact the bottom line(& therefore his compensation). Being compensated more like an owner (without the risk, of course), makes him(or whoever has his position) behave more like an owner.
He only quotes jobs up to $1000 by himself, but he is involved in the estimating process on most of our work (we donât do route or residential, and our average ticket would be about $6000, this year).
If we did residential or route, I donât think any sales at all would be involved in this position, as it would require far too much of him. However, since we donât use EDDM, fliers, advertising, etc, all our sales work is direct, so he can be involved, off and on. We field very few phone calls, and donât handle a large number of customers. Weâd like to more clearly define this part of the position.
He doesnât not handle AR, credentialing, supplier relations, or HR, though he is authorized to deal with equipment rental companies and order sundry.
He, like everybody else in the company, is training his replacement.
Hope that helps.
All good questions and ones I am trying to get a grip on as we speak. I want someone who is really a lead window cleaner and does window cleaning, but also manages the crew. I had three guys working for me and the longest tenured person up and quit Sunday with no notice. He had been with me for three years. I paid him on commission and for the hours he worked (rarely a 40 hour week) he made excellent money. Averaged 24.00 an hour.
The other two guys are relatively new, but they do a good job. What I need is someone to manage them, maintain the vehicles (I have three if you count my truck that I also have for personal use). Keep track of supplies for field use, handle customer issues when they arise. Take some of the burden off of me so that I can handle sales, administration, marketing etc.
I am not yet ready to hand over keys. As far as what this persons pay would be, I would guess a base salary and then bonuses for goals made each quarter. This is new territory for me. My business has grown by 24% over last year and continues to do so. Part of that growth is that Iâve gotten out of the way more and more. Iâm not in the field as much so I have more time to devote to getting business.
The employee who quit on me made almost $30,000 for 2015. So, I have that much to work with in finding someone else. Hopefully that answered some of the questions.
Eddie
That;s why I asked the questions like I didâŚ
If I said flat out/randomly â$60kâ I would have had no use to you, and would have wasted your time.
I think you are looking for a âCrew Leader.â
(semantics, probably, but stillâŚ)
Eddie. You are paying your guys well. How much work is a two man crew getting done in a day?
i agree. and itâs not really semantics- thereâs a pretty clear line of demarcation between âcrew leaderâ and âoperations managerâ.
i would guess that YOU (Eddie) are the ops manager- you hire and fire, you schedule, follow up, handle a/r, make purchases etc. What you are describing is basically a field supervisor. and that guyâs pay should be tightly connected to actual production * in the field.*
i would probably just start interviewing candidates and ask them what they are looking to get paid to fulfill the job description. you might be surprised- it could cost you less than you think.
A two man crew averages anywhere from 600 to 900 per dayâŚjust depends on the jobs (first time cleans, established client, etc). Three man crews the average is around 1500. I think I was paying this other guy too much for what he did. If he went and did jobs by himself, I would pay 30%. If he was working with another guy, that came down to 20% of the job.
Eddie
I guess crew leader would be a more appropriate term. Yes, I still hold on to hiring, firing, scheduling, follow up etc. Not ready to let go of any of those things yet.
Eddie
Ouch. That seems kinda low. I can usually grind out about $700 a day by myself. If I knew you sooner Iâd pack up and move my ass to Florida. I would of loved being single in my 20âs making $50,000 a year only working 40 hrs/week. Damnit man. Lol
How much do your employees produce, on average?
I donât have employees. Before I started my own company, I was doing about $700 a day in window work. If a job consisted of windows, gutters, other add on services, I could crank out about $1000. But I definitely wouldnât recommend making it a habit. Those days were rough. But I had a wife and three kids to support so I did what I had to do. I was only making $21/hr. If I had another cleaner with me we could easily do $1200 a day. We had three 2 man crews going a day and were expected to do $1200/day per crew.
$30k per year at $24/hour works out to around 24 hours per week. Thatâs good for someone looking for part time work, but not necessarily for someone supporting a family or paying bills, the kind of person you want running a crew or company.
Iâd work it this way: Since youâre not confident that either of the other 2 employees are ready to run a crew on their own, Iâd look for a crew leader. Youâre not large enough yet to need an operations manager. Keep that crew busy full time. When you have more work than they can do, go into the field yourself and snag the best helper to go with you, as youâll be training him to be a crew leader himself as soon as possible.
This allows you to get all the work done, offer a real job with real compensation, which will help draw a quality employee, have needed time to grow your business, and facilitate training the next crew leader.
All good suggestions. The guy that quit, lived with his parents and the only expenses that he had was a motor cycle. However, he had discussed moving out on his own and it would be difficult to do that without making more money.
