Find out how improved janitorial time tracking can give your business a boost with almost no extra effort on your part
Janitorial time tracking isn’t new. In fact, time tracking has been part of running a business since as far back as anyone can remember. There are lots of good reasons for it, too. Your clients want to know what they’re paying for. You want to know what you’re paying your employees for. And your employees want to get paid for their work.
Time tracking helps with all of this. It helps you estimate how many jobs you can do on a given day, and how much you should charge. It helps you set a budget, and look into the future so you know if you may need to hire more people or if you can take on more jobs with the crew you have.
The success of all of that, though, is based on accurate janitorial time tracking. That means it’s time to get rid of penciling in hours and taking “rough guesses” at how late your crew worked last week or how long that extra floor care took to finish. The good news? Stepping up your hours tracking will save you money, and it’s easier than any of the old methods you may be using right now. That’s right: no more spreadsheets!
It’s time to take charge of your cleaning services with Janitorial Manager, where you can manage cleaning jobs, communicate with clients, and so much more. Schedule a free demo today to learn more!
Why janitorial time tracking is important – the details
First, why is janitorial time tracking so important? You already know, based on industry standards, about how long it will take to mop a floor, dust a classroom, clean windows, or any other number of duties. You could use the average times and go from there. Just charge a set fee for each job, pay your employees a set fee for doing that job, and never worry about how long your team is there or if you’ve undercharged for your work.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with using averages at first. They’re a great way to provide estimates, determine starting points, and figure out how many people you need to send for a job. The problem is that if you aren’t tracking time, you don’t know how long any given job is actually taking. You don’t know if one employee is spending far more time at a location than other employees, or if people are showing up late and doing a rush job.
To be clear, this isn’t to say that the people on your team are trying to cheat you. There could be very legitimate reasons for these discrepancies in time. You may not be allocating enough travel time between jobs. There could be a communication issue, and someone is doing more work (or less) than they need to. Attending to these issues can help you schedule and plan more efficiently, leading to better profit margins.
For that matter, janitorial time tracking can help your employees, as well. No more guessing how many hours they worked when they forgot to clock in last Tuesday. No more looking for that sheet of paper where they wrote everything down. Use the right time tracking tool, and everything is right there when you need it.
Making your janitorial time tracking better and easier
How do you get all those advantages? We are, of course, biased, since Janitorial Manager includes a geolocation-based time tracking feature. Among other things, this app automatically clocks your team in and out based on location settings. But there are plenty of other ways to improve your janitorial time tracking.
1. Track time. Even if your employees are on salary, time tracking gives you insight into all those issues mentioned above. And it helps you plan better for the future. So if you aren’t already tracking time, now is the time to start.
2. Get your employees on board. Whether your team is salary or hourly, if you start or update your janitorial time tracking, you’re sure to face some unease. People are going to feel like you don’t trust them or you’re watching them. Point out the benefits of time tracking mentioned above (more accurate payroll) and assure them you aren’t trying to cut people or micromanage them.
3. Make it effortless. The easier something is to do, the more quickly it becomes a habit. Don’t expect anyone to put a lot of effort and time into a new time tracking system. It won’t happen. Choose a system that’s easy and user-friendly.
4. Keep it organized. You can determine your expenses and profit and more if you have your time tracking organized by location. Most cloud-based time trackers can do this, although we know of one (ahem…Janitorial Manager) that does this automatically.
5. Don’t micromanage. This is worth mentioning a second time. One trap that so many business owners and managers fall into when they start time tracking is trying to manage every minute. The fact is, to be productive, your team needs a little downtime throughout the day to talk or grab a snack or just stop and breathe for a few minutes. Don’t expect every moment to be accounted for. It’s not realistic, but more than that, you will drive away your employees, and that leads to an entirely new set of problems.
Best of all, time tracking can make your work easier. In an integrated system (like Janitorial Manager!), your timesheets can go directly to payroll, so you don’t have to spend a lot of your day calculating hours and chasing down employees. And since your team can submit hours through the app, they don’t need to spend extra time driving into the office to drop off a timesheet. It’s truly a winning situation for everyone.
Find out how easy it can be to stay in touch with employees and clients, bid on jobs, manage inventory, perform inspections, and more with Janitorial Manager. Check out a free demo to learn about all the great features!