How about this idea?

[dwyman]

This won't pertain to myself now, but perhaps in the future. Ever wonder what your guys are doing in the field. Are they just sitting at the local slurpee shop on your dime. I only thought of this because I live in the city but am next to a gravel road with about four blocks of seclusion. It seems about 1 or 2x's a week I see this same lawn crew heading back in the woods.
Don't know if they are slacking or what.

Anyways, my point is putting a gps tracker on your trucks. I'm thinking something like the golf courses have on their carts. It would be where it would actually map the time and location of that truck every so many minutes. I don't even know if it would be feasible cost wise or not. Just a thought. That way you can verify their time sheets and if they say they were at Mrs. Jones for 2 hours you can pinpoint them at the Adult Emporium for 1 of those 2 hours. What do you think?

[rogerservesyou]

[QUOTE=dwyman It seems about 1 or 2x's a week I see this same lawn crew heading back in the woods.
Don't know if they are slacking or what.
[/QUOTE]

I would give good odds they are attending to their own grass.

[dwyman]

Kind of what I thought. That reminds me when I worked for an lco a while back. He put me on this 3 man crew as the 4th guy. Everyday we went out these 3 guys would stop at one of their houses to light up. The boss even knew because he told them to quit leaving resin cans in the truck. Good help must be hard to find I guess if you can tolerate that.

[hardboiled]

It might be cheaper to hire a friend to follow them for a day now and then. I was offered a job of doing that once, but it never came to fruition. The driver in question was caught by some other means, I believe it was by checking in with the customers on the route.

[invincible569]

Thats a great idea dwyman. Ive looked up some solutions, but not sure how promising they are.

Aligo - $15/mo. - Employee Tracking Database

http://www.aligo.com/products/workTrack/

Sapias - web-enabled solutions for managing enterprise fleets

http://sapias.com/

Portable Internet - Mobile Workforce Management suite

http://www.portableinternet.com/gpstracker.html

[Phil Nilsson]

If you have given them a days worth of work (you should know what that is) ... and they do a days work for a days pay ... this is what you want ... if they get the job done in less than a day and "goof off" what's the problem?

Don't "account" for "exceptions to rules ... account for results ...

If the numbers prove out each day ... what's the problem if they "screw off" a little in the process?

[invincible569]

if they get the job done in less than a day and "goof off" what's the problem?

Recently my father fired a crew leader because one of his trusted employees ratted on his crew leader. The crew leader was doing side jobs with my fathers equipment. Residential clients would stop and request a cut and they would do it on the spot with my father not knowing. Thats not goofing off... thats stealing!

[treedoc1]

How can you mean that?

If you have given them a days worth of work (you should know what that is) ... and they do a days work for a days pay ... this is what you want ... if they get the job done in less than a day and "goof off" what's the problem?

Don't "account" for "exceptions to rules ... account for results ...

If the numbers prove out each day ... what's the problem if they "screw off" a little in the process?

GOOF OFF ON YOUR OWN TIME!!!

If the work is done early, get off of my equipment, off the road in my trucks, away from my clients properties. There is a huge problem with that crew if they feel comfortable "goofing off" during the work day. Corner cutting comes next, accounts not being renewed comes after that. What the h*** kind of consulting advice is that?

Pro's pay attention to detail during the day, accomplish the task efficiently, and get back to be ready for the next day...loading the equipment, PM on the equipment, reporting on any problems or enhancement potential on the properties each day.

[invincible569]

another note to add to treedoc's point is that if one person starts goofing off, then it will cause a domino effect on the rest of the crew. In most cases, it may decrease productivity over time and loss of jobs for those who get sucked in.

[ECS]

Why not just give all your people a time sheet to fill out? You know how long it takes to do the lawn, or at least you should. Also have them keep track of the mileage each day on the sheet. It isn't being picky, it is just holding them accountable for what they are doing.

[Phil Nilsson]

another note to add to treedoc's point is that if one person starts goofing off, then it will cause a domino effect on the rest of the crew. In most cases, it may decrease productivity over time and loss of jobs for those who get sucked in.

I'm not talking major "goofing off" ... a few minutes here and there. The guys stop to pick up Cokes or take a 5 minute break. You don't need to track your employees that closely at all (if) both you are they know the goals for the day. How much work is achieveable?

What are the goals?

When I was in this Biz I knew within 5% to 10% what the jobs took ... every day and assigned work on that basis. If the guys goofed off they would not have time to finish ... but they always did! That's accurate to within 6 minutes per HOUR! Wow ... accurate right?

Anyway ... my Labor Time Data Info for the lawn & landscape biz is the best seller in the country ... and the most trusted source of time information ... I'm proud to say ...

[N.TX]

Well I agree if they are getting all of the work done that they are suppost to and its about a full days schedule they wont have much time to screw off ... it is hard labor as long as they arent wasting a bunch of gas or going and stealing your walk up customers then thats fine ... they can sit under the trees for an hr out of the day if theyve done 8hrs work in 7 hrs time ... if its unreasonable amount of wasted time though its wasting money out of your pocket and you should deal with it ... but as long as they are hardworking and somewhat honest ...give them a little slack... if your good to them then it will be that much more likely to see results from them

[Phil Nilsson]

On Fridays the guys would work extra fast to get done and out early ... so by 4pm they were done ... 8 hours work done in 7 ... but that was fast paced ... faster than "standard job times".

[ACutAbove 217]

I would give good odds they are attending to their own grass.

Something to consider and this is coming from my experience as an industrial safety/medical specialist... if one of your employees 1.gets hurt on the job and files workmans comp... 2. damages someones property... 3. damages one of your vehicles and has ANY traces of drugs or alcohol you can forget about your insurance covering the incident. I consider drug testing of employees a MUST considering the liability you take on if you don't.

I realize that many consider drug testing a violation of privacy and "what I do on my time is my business" but it will be your problem as a business owner if your employee has a property damage or injury incident.

Drug testing can get expensive but in my opinion is well worth the expense.

[invincible569]

acutabove, didnt realize that your insurance wouldnt cover it. need to look into that.