Staffing an EE

[WashmanKC]

Hello, I am new to the forums and have really found some useful info on here.

I will start out with my first questions being how to staff an EE, and how to pay managers/employees.

We started up in December with a brand new wash and we also sell gas. This is a Peco system and we are reclaiming 80+% of our water.

I am an out of town owner and have a very educated and dependable Manager on-site for 45-50 hours a week on salary. He is running a crew of a half dozen or so employees and keeping up on almost all the maintenance, repairs, and money. I feel like I am paying him well, but he keeps on hinting about a raise. I am wondering what ballpark salary I should be in with him, and what hourly rates we should be paying his employees.

Thanks

 

[robert roman]

With all due respect, this is something that should have been well thought out before you opened for business.

The express exterior concept is an adaptation of the industrial service business model. This is a model that treats the service provision as an industrial process subject to optimization procedures. It orignated back in the 1970's at a time when various quality control techniques were being successfully implemented on production assembly lines. With this strategy, service encounters are systematized through planning, optimal processes, consistency and capital intensive investments (substituting capital equipment for human capital whenever possible). Industrialization of service became very popular with mass service providers in the 80's and 90's. In most cases, this business model back-fired because many employees found working under these conditions disempowering resulting in low morale, high staff turnover and reduced service quality.

If you are spending more than 10% on line labor and $45,000 for the manager, I would consider taking a couple of big steps backward to re-assess your financial goals and objectives.

Hope this helps.

Bob Roman
www.carwashplan.com

 

[Chiefs]

A lot depends on your wash volume and availability of labor. We run a little rich at 18%. However, we are strictly exterior only. This also includes a full time mainatenance man who also fucntions as a 3rd line worker if its busy, but no manager per se. We always have 2-3 people at the wash, and sometimes 4 on weekends if the weather cooperates.

Next, unless you are willing to be ther 45-50 hours a week, then I would say $45K is too low for the responsibilities you are asking him to perform. You should at least incentivize him with some type of bonus plan based on either wash volume or profitability. Otherwise you may just find you have a silent partner.

 

[rph9168]

I agree with Bill. As an absentee owner you need to provide some type of incentive based on profitability and/or wash perfomance factors like chemical usage, labor hours, sales average, ect. If you don't, you will either have a silent partner as Bill suggests or have a hard time keeping a good manager.