Your work Hours

[invincible569]

For you full time landscapers, do you guys perform a 40hr week? or do you ALWAYS work overtime? I have seen and learned this through my father which I feel he has failed on. To this day, he still works from morning until night. Weekends too. He is a extremely hard worker and makes EXCELLENT money, but he doesnt see the true business side of things. My goal as the president of a future company is to have my workers work 40 hrs max give or take weekly. I feel that the employee matters to me and I can get more out of them by not burning them out. Do you guys feel that I am correct or would you rather overwork someone?

[invincible569]

Any by the way..if there is more work to be done than a 40 hr week, then this would be the time to review the company and add extra crews.

[cjm2783]

lets see, i started at 7 and i just got in at 715. wow. most days or weeks are over 40 hours. 90% of the time.
that the life when you own the business, i love it and wouldnt have it any other way.

cjm

[RRS]

Invincible I think your way of running the company is the best route to take.

This is my 4th tax year in business and I'm working 60 hours a week. My guys average about 50 this time of the year. Personally I don't feel like that's too many hours, but as I get older I'd like to be able to work less.

Working less and having a good quality of life means everything to me.

[Scaper-S2k]

We shoot for 40 hours per week. Maybe a little more, like 3-4 hours. Maybe a little less.


9:00 - 5:45 with a 45 minute lunch break.

Paying over time kills profits. You are paying 50% extra for more tired employees. You are paying 50% for the same amount of work being done.

Once you start stretching well over 40 hours, it might be best to hire another employee. And it might actually be cheaper if you do the math on overtime for a couple of the employees that the new guy would be drawing from.






P.S. Invincible569, I hope this year goes real good for you. Keep us posted on your progress.

[invincible569]

RRS, you hit the nail right on the head. You work to live instead of live to work. Having a quality life is also very important to me. But when your running your own business, it may be hard to work undertime. But in this case, we are talking about the employee.

Scaper, we think alike. The only problem with having more employees is having more stress. BUt in this case, this is where there needs to be a crew leader or foreman. Thanks a bunch for the support!

Do you guys find it hard to hire someone? How about to keep someone? Is the turn over rate high? I know that at the bottom of the company chain, employees seem to leave for weeks during Xmas time and sometimes never come back. Then there are those who just want to get drunk the night before and you have to get them out of jail.

[PDP1]

for sure no more than 45 hr weeks for production employes, I work 5 10 hr days and 4 6 hr days in the winter It kind of balances out. Free time is very important when you first get into this biz people work 60-70 hrs a week then they get tired or smart and start cutting back. Our company is starting to look at 4 10-12hr days to decrease mobilization. HELLO 3 day weekends all summer long