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judithvirag's avatar
judithvirag
Contributor 5
5 days ago

Weekend Work

Hi Everyone, I have a question about how you handle weekend work? We are in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and we are a residential cleaning company.  After 8 hours of work per day we need to pay overtime and our team members and also on the weekends.  We do get request for jobs on the weekend.  How do you handle this?

Do you hire only for weekends or part time staff for this? 
Do you raise your price for the weekend to compensate for over time?  
Do you have on call and rotate your team members?

Any wisdom or ideas are welcome. :) 

cleaning
finding employees

3 Replies

  • RichardM's avatar
    RichardM
    Contributor 3
    4 days ago

    It all really depends on the account.

    Are most of the weekend requests one-off jobs (move in/out, Airbnb, emergency)? If so, then I would definitely charge a weekend rate. Make sure it covers your increased payroll expenses. I would also ask your current staff if they are interested in putting in the extra time. More money on staff paycheques is great, but you don't want to risk burning out your team.

    Or, are these jobs reoccurring? If so, then a weekend crew might be necessary. Maybe offset a crew to work Wed-Sun. I always find it is better to have full-time employees who have full-time expenses (rent/mortgage, bills, kids) with a few part-time backups. If you only staff your weekends with part-time staff, you'll run into them calling off regularly. 

    Having staff work on the weekends also opens the door to staff needing office support. Will someone be in the office to assist with questions/concerns/pricing/etc?

  • judithvirag's avatar
    judithvirag
    Contributor 5
    3 days ago

    RichardM​ yes I like these questions and I am just wondering what other cleaning companies are doing.  One answer I got from outside here is an Averaging Agreement which fits into my model.  We don not get a lot of requests and I just want to be prepared if I will open for the weekend work possibility.  Of course there would be coverage if they have questions. 

  • BrandenSewell's avatar
    BrandenSewell
    Jobber Ambassador
    2 days ago

    Hey Judith,

    I have always told customers that our typical hours are Monday to Friday. If we have to do their job on the weekend I am going to have to pay overtime so I give them a price to do it during our normal hours, then I give them a price to do it over the weekend, or sometimes night work. There are also some instances where I throw in weekend work for some guys who had to miss a day during the week and they can make up their hours on the weekend.

    Hope that helps!