Just started last month, selling and quoting vigorously.
Worried about hiring already. I have a real job, with gaps of time that I am using to sell and run my biz. Some questions on hiring, please
How long should it take to train a window washer technician?
Any resources for training them besides YouTube?
How long till they should be able to clean confidently on their own?
What does a basic training program look like?
Thanks
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This forum.
Seriously though, it sounds like you are a new cleaner yourself, is that right?
Train yourself well, then you’ll train others well. This forum has a goldmine of topics. Just make sure to search well before asking, there’s a good chance it’s been covered here in the past.
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thanks MJ
Good for you!
I’d agree to become, not just knowledgeable, but proficient and professional about almost every aspect of the industry before hiring a profitable employee/technician. I’ve seen a very many solopreneurs/companies scale up too fast and implode.
Remember too, there is an extremely low financial bar of entry into window cleaning. By the time a technician is trained to work on their own they’ll likely be working on the side making 4+ times more with their own contracts.
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here’s my strategy to prevent that.
- pay them well start at $15/hour and every 200 hours get $1.00 raise plus cash bonus - up to $25/hr
- non-compete, non-solicit and non-disclosure
- any other ideas??
and thanks
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1 Month
3 Months
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$15-$25 in around a year
some thoughts:
will those hours be on the job hours or payroll hours?
will hours be the only basis for a raise?
will hours per job type and the unique skills they each require play a role? residential, mid rise, storefront
will difficulty level play a role within each job type? 2,000 hours of storefront is way different skill level than dealing with affluent customers and working inside large luxury homes or wpoling a 3 story office building with difficult architectural features to work around
what about time off, calling in sick, if it feels excessive would they still get the 200 hour raise?
what if they lose a lot of tools? what if they are rough on your vehicles?
teams and interpersonal working relationships add another dynamic which can usually be summed up as one person usually feels they are doing/know how to do/are willing to do/working at a pace more than the other, if hours is the only factor determining raises this could bring in complications as well
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Eh… that’s a can of worms in several ways, in my limited experience.
You have some nice ambitious ideas regarding fast growth, but don’t put the cart before the horse.
As mentioned a few times earlier, get experienced at cleaning windows yourself first, learn what works, train and hire after you have a fair amount of time in front of glass in numerous situations.
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This!
Re-read it, then re-read it again until it sinks in.
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good stuff everyone and thank you,
and roger that on learning and knowing it all well, before hiring.
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I believe non compete forms are not enforceable but I could be wrong
$15 per hr don’t expect much. Understandably it’s minimum wage today. But back in 06 that’s what i was starting my employees at and honestly was not worth it. For ever 1 good, you’ll get 2 bad. So don’t jump on that raise bandwagon too fast. Let them earn it, really. I dropped my starting wages to minimum and employee performance was the same. Raise when it’s earned.
A noncompete is not enforceable in some states. Even more so with a young worker. Logic is you can’t train someone to earn a living in a field and then pull that earning potential from them. You can use a “covenant” agreement. Similar as noncompete but has been around our legal system since the country started and they are still enforceable.
As far as training. Have them shadow you on all jobs. If doing res work, when you feel they got it let them into other areas of the house alone. Check their work. Correct where needed. For me it took 1 year to get someone able to go on their own. It’s not so much the task, it’s the decision making you have to worry about. As a boss you don’t want a call every hour from them, to solve a simple problem. When you find one that can use logic to maintain a client give them a raise then. If there’s a problematic window they can’t clean let them know it’s ok to let the customer know they will not be charged for that window. Simple things like this cause you headaches as a boss.
Hire hard and manage easy.
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So true. Let it sink in. I have wonderful and experienced guys. But there are times when I, with the same or significantly less years of experience, show them how to do a piece of glass that is not normal. As the boss I have always tried to take a shot at everything and learn from my guys so if I cant do it, it probably should not be done.
I have not trained folks to be my employees. I have, however, trained folks to run their own window cleaning business.
The cost of entry into window cleaning is low. And the first learning curve is gradual. I experienced a second learning curve that was quite steep and difficult. Hard to explain, but I got exposed to a far wider types of cleaning than I had in the beginning. Maybe because at that time I kind of chose what I was going to do. At a certain point work that you might do chooses you regardless of your expertise or equipment. Unless you have encountered that second curve yourself I am not sure how sustainable of a prospect having employees would be.
But the main reason for not taking on people is that I was 46 when I started wc’ing. So, my appetite for managing employees was and still is non-existent. As time went on and I became proficient - and efficient - I ran into a few folks that wanted a job. I proposed to them having their own gig and get out of being in the hourly grind. I provided the initial equipment for a couple of folks. The other two had funds to buy their own stuff. In all cases they got tools that worked because I knew they worked. As for non compete clauses? Bunch of crap, really. There are enough windows. And, if we’re good we will always have work. Cheap window cleaners won’t target work that requires thought and experience. And there is ample work that does. So, getting others out in the field with the same incentives I have pays more dividends than having employees.
As an owner, my incentives will never match an employee’s. This is a fact I have never been able to reconcile. If I am paid an hourly wage, I just won’t see the world the same way as the owner does. Think about having to go back to a job for redo’s. Not a big deal for an employee - point them in a direction and go. But that is a blistering pain in the ass for the owner. If the new person is training to be an owner, then they see the light and know that going back to a job is a wrinkle that they don’t want to afford. There is a whole constellation of insights that are implied in that example.
Your first job, though, is to get good at window cleaning. All aspects of the business you want. Be it commercial, post construction cleaning, residential or what not. An employee won’t see what you cannot. And unless you really know optimal work flows you won’t know how to use another person wisely. And if they do possess keen sight and understanding, your ability to logically assimilate improvements in your efficiency will be biased by your own lack of experience. In other words, having an employee might cost you more money than you would make by having another person on the job.
I think it would be hard to grade an employee’s productivity and where they are relative their wage unless you have a clear understanding of your own. I know I have a floor of about $125.00/hr for any type of work I encounter. I don’t do store fronts nor do I do residential where the windows are crumbling. Other than that I will do most anything. If I have an employee that is approaching my floor, then I have a wide array of compensation schemes I can offer. If they are persistently below $60.00/hr then the possibilities narrow. With narrow possibilities the more tenuous a proposition having employees becomes.
The last thing I will say is that once a window cleaner is skilled enough to be on their own, they can make - or be on the way of making - your money. Not take your money, but make what you make. Think about that. If they have the ability to acquire their own customers, are decent enough with people and know how to show up and get the job done why wouldn’t they go out on their own? If they lack any of these attributes that person might end up being a drag in some way or another.
My bias toward being a solo operator is showing. Get good at your work. Think about what you do and how you do it. Many folks have great employees that stay with them for years.
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Here’s what I did. I pay my employee $15 an hour as base pay, but then I pay him a commission to bring him up to total of 20% of the gross revenue for the day if we worked together, or 40% of the day if he was working alone. That drove him to become more efficient and effective, because the better he worked the more he gets payed and the more I make. Obviously I make sure he’s doing the job well, and if I have to personally go fix a job he did I only give him 20% of that job instead of 40%. That’s just how I do it, it works for me, may not work for everyone, but I had a good year, payed him well, worked less, and made as much as I did last year working hard hours by myself.
As an example. He does a $900 day. I pay him for 8 hrs ($120). 40% of 900 is $360, so I give him $240 (360-120), for a total wage of $360 that day. I make around $200 take home from that without having to wash myself, and if I’m also working I make more.
I’m curious if anyone else has tried anything similar. It worked very well for me this year!
Wouldn’t he make 120 + 360 = 480 ?
Not the way I do it, otherwise he’d be making over 50% of gross income.
Essentially, I want his total pay to be 20% if we’re working together, or 40% if he’s working alone, and book keeping/payroll wise it makes the most sense to basically pay him for 8 hours a day 5 days a week and then pay him commission that adds up to the 20-40%, not 20-40% in addition to an hourly wage.
Basically I’m just paying straight commission but with extra steps.
So you pay 40% for labor before you pay payroll taxes and work comp?
I do for this employee when he’s able to get everything ready in the morning handle the days work by himself. I know, people will say I’m crazy, but after 7 years of washing windows solo, I know what it takes to get me out to wash windows. There is no way I would ever keep washing windows full time if I was making $15 an hour. My employee works hard and does everything asked and does it well because the more work he gets done in a day without mistakes the more money he makes.
I made more money this year than last year working half as much, and I took 2 months off when my son was born. I’m not saying everyone should do what I do, and I probably could have made more for myself and my employee would still be happy, but you know what, life is more than squeezing every dollar out of the people in your life.
I also am hoping to hand the company over to him when the time comes for me to move on, I never intended to wash windows full time, it just kind of happened. 
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