KickStart: STOP🔴 consistently ‘over scheduling’🟢 and start avoiding burnout! Instead, book employees (or you) for 75% of the day to have ‘troops in reserve’ for your inevitable overflow work.
Outline
Introduction –
Tired of feeling like you’re marching in circles? As a residential service contractor, you know the grind all too well. Long hours, demanding clients, and endless to-do lists can quickly lead to burnout. But don’t worry, you’re not alone. In this post, we’ll share a simple yet powerful strategy to help you reclaim your work-life balance and keep your team avoiding burnout: the power of “troops in reserve.”
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Be Vigilant for Signs of Burnout
Running a multi-crew, residential Home Services operation is not for the faint of heart! It’s a WAR out there! And as a business owner or manager you are the ‘commanding officer of your troops’! OR…
If you are a ‘Lone Wolf’ owner-operator it is even more important to not crash and burn out!
Do any of these apply for you or your team?
- Chronic fatigue: Persistent tiredness, even after adequate sleep.
- Irritability and mood swings: Feeling easily frustrated or angered.
- Increased stress and anxiety: Constant worry and tension.
- Lack of motivation: Feeling disinterested in work and other activities.
- Cynicism and negativity: A pessimistic outlook on work and life.
- Poor job performance: Decreased productivity, increased errors, and missed deadlines.
Avoiding Burnout: A General’s Approach
In war generals quickly learn to never commit ALL their soldiers at the beginning of the battle. Instead, it is essential to keep ‘troops in reserve’ to 1) respond to dangers, 2) reinforce weak areas and 3) to react quickly to opportunities.
So, how about you?🤔 Are your ‘troops’ (especially your ‘front-line’ service workers) totally committed (booked solid) for tomorrow, next week, even… next month?👎 BIG MISTAKE! Instead…
Always keep troops (employees) ‘in reserve’!
I know. I can hear your anguish: “Steve, I thought the goal was to keep my people booked up solid with profitable residential services? Didn’t YOU book your employees solid? You couldn’t have had it both ways in your business!” As a just starting out home services entrepreneur I agreed with you…
For years, I would typically schedule four average jobs per day for each crew. (Your job number and times may differ.) BUT then inevitably the customer would 1) add more work, OR 2) the job would take longer OR 3) Mr. Murphy would invoke his Law! So, an initially 8-9 hour long day would stretch to 11, 12 hours or even longer! The result?
Instead of avoiding burnout I was inviting it! Burned out workers, irritated clients left hanging, unhappy spouses AND a payroll bloated by unjustified overtime!😲 (I quake even as I write this!) Even worse, with my crews at (or beyond) their breaking point I had zero resources to respond to high-profit emergency and ‘Additional Service Options’ (“up-sells”) work.
How to Implement the “Troops in Reserve” Strategy
This constantly ‘under the gun’ business model was agonizing!😥 (Am I ‘preaching to the choir’ here?) Then I got smart. I discovered an ’employees in reserve’ approach that gave me ‘the best of both worlds’!💖 Let me share Steve’s Secret Sauce with you…
Book your residential crews ‘3/4 full’. Here’s the deal…
Instead of maintaining our four jobs per day booking average I told my office staff to normally only schedule three average jobs per day per crew. (To keep my workers from slowing down to ‘pad their day’ I developed my Worker Efficiency Bonus (WEB) Plan!)
The Benefits of Strategic Scheduling
This ‘Fudge Time’ let my staff routinely sell Additional Service Options AND have the time to complete them. (Without going into overtime pay.) We also had the resources to handle last minute “gotta have it done today” people who often would become our biggest Cheerleaders. Plus we now could switch employees around to help other crews to finish on time.
The really great thing here? I also raised my prices💲💲💲 (another bog post!) which let me add more trucks and employees to build a Critical Mass Business that would run smoothly without me! The result? I (and my employees) wound up making more money while working sane hours! And all because I recognized the importance of avoiding burnout and started keeping some ‘troops in reserve’!
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Summary – Focus on the War Not the Battle
By implementing this simple strategy of keeping your team at 75% capacity, you’ll not only avoiding burnout but also boost your business’s overall performance. Remember, a well-rested, motivated team is a profitable team. So, take a step back, reassess your scheduling, and give your team the breathing room they deserve. You’ll be amazed at the positive impact it can have on your business and your well-being.