hours worked per week

southsoundtree

southsoundtree

Been here much more than a while
Location
Olympia, WA
As an owner, how many hours/ days do you think that you typically work in an average week during your respective seasons (we are year round here)?

How many hours do your employees work per week?

What is your goal?

Do you try for 40 hours per week for employees? I imagine 40 per week for owners is far-fetched, but that may be 'cause I'm only in my third year, with 2 employees.
 
Work about 37-40hrs a week. I´m managing the company and own a 20% share. We are 13 now with a turnover at approx 1,7 millUsd but we mainly do lineclearance on long term, easy managable contracts.
 
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Is that "on the job" time, or does that include bidding and maintenance?

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any way you want.






I figure that my guys average about 30/ week across the whole year, maybe a little less. Sometimes, people have gone on to other things right as I've slowed down or been on vacation.


I figure all said and done, I've got to average 50-60 week across the whole year, as a guess-timate. Too many. But, that's what I've signed on for, as a business owner 2 1/2 years in. Sometimes I wonder if its worth it. I've had that feeling a bit more lately after running across someone with a brain injury from a construction job--falling wood, and just knowing the wear and tear add up. But what else would I do? Maybe municipal arboriculture/ urban forestry would be cool--a job with a pretty fixed schedule, leave most of it at the jobsite when going home for the day/ weekend, benefits, steady pay.

I'll probably change my mind if we get some big storms this winter. The extra change in the pocket can change the mind.

Also, I've lined up my best employees to date, and they only live walking distance away. What a combo.
 
As an employee I work 35-45/week. I used to work 60-70 managing.

Bids and maintenance is working and needs to be included. You pay your employees to do it.

Sean, strive to delegate more to employees with the goal of reducing you work hours to 45/week. You'll be way more productive and feel less stressed. Hire a PT admin person to handle bookkeeping, general office work and answering the phones. That will free up your time to focus on revenue generation.
 
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As an employee I work 35-45/week. I used to work 60-70 managing.

Bids and maintenance is working and needs to be included. You pay your employees to do it.

Sean, strive to delegate more to employees with the goal of reducing you work hours to 45/week. You'll be way more productive and feel less stressed. Hire a PT admin person to handle bookkeeping, general office work and answering the phones. That will free up your time to focus on revenue generation.

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Thanks for the input Rob.

I've been feeling burnt out lately. A beautiful spring-weather day today helps (and it only a week into the new year).

After the end of year tax crunch, I'm going to schedule a meeting with my bookkeeper to see what more she can do.

A New Year's Resolution is that I'll keep the office for office stuff, attending to it daily or every few days.
Organization, and frequently visiting these admin tasks will be key to making it easier.

I found out in college (part one) that being overwhelmed and behind in tasks is a recipe for stress and unhappiness, whereas (in college part two), staying on top and being ahead/ prepared for things is key to lower stress and happiness.

Its a balancing act between delegating/ paying and creating increased revenue to make it worth while.


Its great to have my employees Ben (now a few months employed) and Colin (a month) close by, instead of across town (only 1 minute drive). This has been a change of pace from past employees. I'm kinda in the country outside Olympia, proper.
As well, their skill sets are shaping up to be greater than employees that I've had in the past. Finding the right employees is hard.
The skills checklist idea is part of the plan to be able to turn things over to them, as appropriate, and formalize training, and work in the performance evaluations and compensation evaluations, as well.

Finding people that are investing in staying around for a while (both as my employee, and in the tree industry) is also key to making it worthwhile to put in all the training costs, and supervision/ follow-ups to be able to turn it over to them.
 
I was trying to keep my employees hours down to 32/week. Because most of 2009 was crappy when it came down to work. When things picked up, he was at 40+ hours per week. I didn't like the the over time because that means that my W.C. insurance went up.
smirk.gif


As a owner operator I don't even want to start counting the hours I put into this business.
smirk.gif
 
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Is that "on the job" time, or does that include bidding and maintenance?

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The extra time is for maintenance and fabrication, I don't do bidding or office work and only get paid when I'm away from the shop, but if employees are there for extra hours I make sure they get paid for them.
 
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I was trying to keep my employees hours down to 32/week.

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The old walmart full week ploy, eeuuuhhh. Do you teach your employees how to reap all the welfare hand outs also????
 
I don't know if it is universal, but at my work comp audit, they break out the overtime hours and charge me at a lesser rate, to offset the time-and-a-half pay for OT. You might check and see if that is the case with yours?

Overall, I would say my guys averaged 40 hours a week this year. In '07 and '08, with the back-to-back ice storms, they averaged 50 hours. It would be depressing to think of my average hours per week over the last 5 years, as I'm sure I would average less $$ per hour than my employees for a good portion of it.... This year I have done much better at delegating and probably averaged 50-55 hours per week, but almost always did it in 5 days. (hardly any Saturday work last year!) I think it is unrealistic for me to accomplish what I have to do in 40 hours a week, but it sure sounds nice!
 
I kept close track of billable hours (not maintenance or bidding) last year, and only came up with 73 per month avg. This is my 3rd year in business and I have 1 part time employee. Is this normal or is something wrong? I know it takes a while to get a business going, but it seems like there should be more work.
I close about 85% of jobs that I bid, but there also is somewhere around 17 other advertised tree services in the area.
 
I always find it interesting when companys don't do a standard 40 hour work week.

The crew works Monday-Thursday 730-530. If it rains one day during the week, they work Friday instead. If we get real busy, the crew will work Fridays and get paid time and a half. Recently I've taken on a lot more responsibility and started doing sales and other company related things (classes and what nots) so it seemed to make sense to both my boss and myself to salary me at 50hr work weeks.

What I like most about it is, if the crew straight up hustles and we get done early (4 o clock seems to be the new trend) then we all head to the shop, do our morning maintenance and then head home. This allows us to get a good jump on the next day. If for some reason we finish earlier than that and we don't have another job that would fit into the time slot, we do maintenance, sometimes training or watch videos, and sometimes they go home early

no matter what, they get paid for the full day. If the company made the money that needs to be made than the crew deserves to be given their pay for the day. On the flip side of that, if the crew works a little late during their usual work days (dump runs or a job runs a little layer than expected) they still get paid for the time, but no over time is issued, not unless a fifth day is warranted. This system has worked wonders for both staff and owner and all is happy.
 
There are lots of good admin people out there that would be willing to do PT. Find one and get out of that area of the business. It is a time killer. That is valuable time to do your reports, sales, marketing, crew evaluations and reducing your weekly hours while increasing revenue. The benefits will eventually be reduced stress, and increased profit. The sooner you learn to delegate tasks that are better performed by others the easier it will be as your business grows.
 
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While your making resolutions please include minding your own business. Posting a fellow arborists phone number,questioning his ethics and and degrading him on a public forum shows your lack of class. In a city full of uneducated hacks you chose a full time student and CA to attack These are my thoughts and in no way associated with said arborist.Drew Seattle,Wa

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Drew, you are showing your lack of class. The name, the way you approached the subject, hell your tone in general is hypocritical; step above and confront the man in a pm, not on the open forum. thanks Jeff

ps. If you want to confront him in the open forum do it in the thread you disagree with, you never can tell, he or one of the mods might delete it.
 
i think that family tree is right on
by basing your employee pay on money brought in is great
gives more production and makes us much happier
the harder u work the better ur pay
 
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While your making resolutions please include minding your own business. Posting a fellow arborists phone number,questioning his ethics and and degrading him on a public forum shows your lack of class. In a city full of uneducated hacks you chose a full time student and CA to attack These are my thoughts and in no way associated with said arborist.Drew Seattle,Wa

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Drew, you are showing your lack of class. The name, the way you approached the subject, hell your tone in general is hypocritical; step above and confront the man in a pm, not on the open forum. thanks Jeff

ps. If you want to confront him in the open forum do it in the thread you disagree with, you never can tell, he or one of the mods might delete it.

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Your right, I let my anger get the best of me.After talking to southsound im over it and will change my screen name. Please return back to the posted topic.
 
2009 - 3315.25 hours of production, sales, admin and periodically banging my head against a cement wall. Logged daily and used to create my own paycheques. (Minimum wages looks FAT with those kind of hours)
 
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