Can I blow of a little STEAM?!! Employees...

[itsaplane]

I've got an attended laundromat with quite a bit of wash & fold and it's fair to say that MY EMPLOYEES ARE DRIVING ME NUTS!!!!

Okay, I'm feeling a little better now. But here's the thing - I've got an employee who always seems to need some time off - to go to the dentist, to go out of town for the weekend, to do this, to do that!

Now, I'm an accomodating kind of guy (part of the problem???), so I try to let my 3 attendants (one is 32 hrs/wk, the other two are 16 hrs/wk) trade shifts for their mutual convenience. But, this always creates problems - the other attendants say it's not fair that they frequently have to fill in (I guess they don't need the money!) and it's a pain in the neck for me to have to referee.

Worst of all, it looks like my best attendant is ready to quit over it all (maybe she's not that good after all).

What solutions would you recommend? I'm leaning toward instituting a time-off rule for *planned* absences - similar to accruing some vacation time for every hour they work. But, this kind of procedure adds complexity.

The other issue is that, with a small three person work force, arranging subs can be hard (or impossible). Should this also be a requirement? "I'm sorry but, if there's no one to work for you, you're required to work your shift!"

And, if someone just can't work (and doesn't have accrued time off or a subsitute), am I then given the choice of (somehow) accomodating or firing them?

On the other side of the equation, maybe I could offer an incentive to employees who take fill-in shifts. Like a dollar an hour more? I guess I'd be the one who had to pay that...

Makes me want to go unattended!

[brucehwalker]

You have fallen into the trap that many of us have. You get a set of employees you are comfortable with and don't want to mess with rehire, retrain, and restrusting them.

When you find yourself in this situation you should consider retooling your staff. Everyone is replaceable. They are tools to serve your instituation. When they don't perfrom as they should move on. You aren' married to any of them so don't act like it.

I once had an employee who I thought was fantastic. I kept increasing his pay, givng him time off, no eves or weekends whatever he wanted. He did do good work, but after he left I found he was badmouthing me to my staff and customers. It took me a year to finally remove everyone he had infected.

Put out the help wanted sign. Hire someone and work them into the schedule. Cut the hours of the troublemakers and move on. I have at least 5 employees on the schedule. One 32hours, one 24 hours and 3 16-24 hours. This seems to work good and plenty of folks to sub without my assistence.

[galaga]

I set up all my stores can run with or without attendant,auto door,seucrity sys.....so if my attendant don't want to work any holiday,I just run unattendant.None of my stores are fully attendanted now.
Emplyees are always pain,I had 14 emplyees,now down to 9-10.I can writ a book about my attendants or ex-attendants,some are funny,some drive me nuts,some were fired from my stores,went to my friends stores tried to get a job,told my friends about how bad I was...it is funny.

[petefritz]

You know who the problem is, replace him/her. When you are nice and accomodationing and it gets taken advantage of, time to change things around. While you may end up taking the shift for a period of time, there is always someone else who wants that job!