$ and cents

Tr33Climb3r

Tr33Climb3r

Participating member
Location
Wisconsin
Wondering whether owners out there have the dollar amount on their quotes/estimates that the crews use for the work that needs to be done. I haven't worked for another tree care company and one of our team members said that, of the companies that he has worked for 1 did and the other didn't.

The one that didn't put prices on the crew sheets was because he thought employees could leave him and compete with the prices they learned.
 
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I've seen both and for the same reason. It helps if the dollars or the hrs are on the work order so the crew knows what the target is.

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I agree with you their. Just looking for different opinions.
 
I hadn't seen this in Hawaii, but it appears to be pretty common in Portland. As an employee it can be helpful, like treehumper said, to be able to have a ballpark as to how much time should be spent on each project,
 
The company I work for doesn't have prices but there is an expected amount of time based on price on each work order
 
The price can aid in identifying exactly what and how much is expected to be accomplished to an experienced foreman...but to a degree it can also hinder those with little to moderate experience because they start to think "jeeze; i got to do all this work for this much money and they get all that?!" The ones that are just around for payday dont ever see how much goes out to maintain equipment, keep them safe, WORKMANS COMP, fuel, or pay other employees. ( i could keep going on that list, duh) Estimated times would work well too...to some companies maybe better. I often wonder myself. To me, being second gen, i can see the price and figure what daddy thinks it's gonna take time wise...but sometimes he's wrong. It happens. It happens to us all. Good thread!
 
I run a small outfit; just me and my helper. He's 20 and doesn't have a lot of experience in the labor force. He hears the numbers often negotiated between me and the homeowner. I don't try to hide those from him.

However, I realize that he may have an unrealistic idea about what I do with the large piece of the pie that he doesn't get. To help him understand, I spend time, (riding to and from jobs), explaining the costs associated with running the business. I tell him things like, "That new pintle ring for the chipper cost $90," "New chain for the 066, $46," "150' of bull rope, $139," Oil change in the F550, 15 quarts of oil + filter, $95, and the time it took me to change it myself," "Truck insurance, $950," & on & on it goes. He's smart, and I can tell, at least to a degree, he gets it.
 
We used to get hours on the work orders, cause the formula used is super top secret (expenses+labour+profit margin=hourly dollar value). Boss was worried about us leaving and under cutting. Some of the hours were way out to lunch, it happens.
 
I think this is a good thing, for employees to be aware of costs and goals and rates. I have found it to be very helpful to bridge the sometime-gap between employers and employees.

Thanks Chris. Hope you guys have been staying warm here over the past couple weeks. Yikes!
 
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Staff deploy with work orders identifying time estimate and fees. This permits them to collect, add "value-added" service when appropriate, appropriately bill for extras etc. A leader cannot ask for trust if they arent willing to give trust.

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Same here- especially the leader part. Those add-ons done at the site add up to better margins. The best guys, who you can trust, understand it's a team effort.
TEAM= Together-Everyone-Achieves-More
 
I found it helps with pricing additional work for a specific client. The price I give at the time will better reflect the established value that client has accepted. Consequently, I can also explain why the add-on may be more if there was an underestimate for the original work.

Explaining the cost of doing business is a great way for employer and employees to better appreciate what goes into a day. That also allows employees to start thinking about ways to save money and improve productivity. My first boss went so far as to explain to tell me how much I was generating per hr.
 
Running my own show now and on every job, I simply tell my guy how many hours I anticipate. When I worked on crews, I saw both ways done. If you're trying to collect after each job and not on-site, the crew boss needs to know a dollar figure and what to bill out if additional work is added.
 
Clearly there are pros and cons to both approaches.

All my staff are aware of the budgeted time for each job. My foremen (when I'm not on the site) are informed/familiar with general pricing for add-on work so they can up sell value-add.

In a prior life I worked both as an accounts receivable administrator and as a financial programmer writing accounting software. In that role I became acutely aware of the relatively large sums of money my employers were handling over the course of the year.

One paradigm I learned early on was that such knowledge in and of itself is benign. However, the maturity/work history level of the individual knowing it played a decisive role in how they handled that knowledge.

Those with less maturity or just getting started in the workforce tended to develop a jaded attitude about the employer when they start comparing their pay to the volume of cash flowing through the system. This held fairly true even when their salaries were excellent to better than the local market.

I wish I could find it but there was a study some years ago that showed that financial data share with employees had an effect on productivity as well. The positions that required the most maturity or experience tended to see an increase in productivity while those with the least tended to see a decrease.

I heard the maturity concept once described as job mentality versus ownership mentality. Employees and owners can have either trait. You want your employees with ownership mentality to be able to use the big picture information, such as price and costing, so they can grow and improve while the job-set employees do best when they can data focused on the tactical/task information such as time expectations.

By understanding and nurturing such mindsets you can help your people grow and become better at what they do. The idea of one-size fits all is really a good idea but just doesn't exist.
 
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