Crew Manager Job Description & Pay

[bensurdi]

Hey guys,

So we're growing and as such I am needing to hire more people in management positions to free up more of my time. I've put together a job description for a crew manager for everyone to review and use as they wish - but my question really comes down to this:

Out of those of you who have people in these positions - what do you pay them?

I am making my #1 technician the Crew manager. He will still remain a technician but he will take on the responsibilities of the Crew Manager. We have a pay structure that starts at 20% of gross and goes up to 25% based on the total gross revenue per week.

Would like feedback from people who have this job in their company and what pay structure you would recommend. Thanks

Crew Manager

Job Purpose:

Provide support to the sales crew including - training, overseeing and maintaining the fleet of vehicles, providing excellent customer service and providing sales estimates to customers for both residential and commercial prospects.

Job Responsibilities:

• Manage and oversee the cleaning quality and selling skills of our healthy home technicians
• Implement and manage performance improvement plans for technicians in the following disciplines; sales, cleaning technique, customer service, and job efficiency.
• Assist in morning production / sales meetings.
• Responsible for new hire training
• Manage the fleet maintenance program including notifying the owner of vehicle problems, keeping a vehicle maintenance log, and scheduling repair services.
• Oversee and manage all aspects of inventory management (i.e. tracking usage, ordering supplies, doing weekly inventory).
• Assist with conducting commercial estimates.
• Supervises resolution of customer complaints in an efficient and timely manner, including authority to issue settlements and refunds.
• Responsible for the tracking of all re-dos and makes recommendations to owner on any problem technicians.
• Helps the management team maintain a positive, open-door employee relations policy
• Assists the owner to implement and grow new services within the region
• Responsible for technician hiring decisions as well as determining the overall need to hire new technicians.
• Responsible for sustaining and growing additional sales annually through the technicians sales abilities.

Specific Essential Functions:

• Manage the technical and sales skill development of all technicians.
• Must remain informed of current industry knowledge and attend industry training and seminars
• Must possess the ability to train others
• Demonstrate good customer service techniques, which include follow through on all matters of sale. •Adept use of a full range of proven selling techniques.
• Ability to develop and maintain positive relations with fellow associates and external customers and assist a wide range of individuals in a variety of functions.
• Must possess good verbal and written communication skills.
• Must be well organized, and possess outstanding interpersonal and customer service skills.


Desired Skills and Experience
Responsibilities/Skills/Experience Requirements

• 3-5 years supervisory experience
• High School Diploma or equivalent.
• Previous industry and mechanical experience a plus

 

[bensurdi]

No body?

 

[Hoody]

Is that 20-25% of the sales from his van, or company-wide total?

 

[Desk Jockey]

Will he have the time to both clean and manager?

Our crew leaders clean and our supervisors manage, I think it could be putting more responsibility on him than he will be capable of doing or at least doing to your satisfaction.

Personally I'd hire the inside position and let this tech remain doing what he is good at.

You can elevate people beyond what they are good at and in the end you'll have messed up what was working well.

 

[Hoody]

I had this long response typed out about how I was in this exact position as a tech and how it completely screwed everything up. Decide if you want the guy to manage or to clean full time but don't have them do both. Nothing wrong with a supervisor filling in when an employee is sick, but as your company grows the responsibilities you're putting on him as a manager will increase and will be too overwhelming to clean at the same time.

Pay the guy a salary with benefits and vacation. I think you'll shoot yourself in the foot paying a % of gross sales as your company grows and you have the growing pains that come along with it.

 

[Desk Jockey]

Nothing wrong with a supervisor filling in when an employee is sick, but as your company grows the responsibilities you're putting on him as a manager will increase and will be too overwhelming to clean at the same time.

That's exactly how our guys handle it. If we have a person sick and we are short and can't pull anyone from any where else they will go out. They will also go start a water loss until a crew can relieve them but the vast majority of their when in the field is managing the projects. Estimating, evaluating production and job progress as little cleaning as possible because there are far more important things for them to do.

 

[Shane Deubell]

Depends how many people/routes we are talking about?

Ben doesnt sound like has 40 hours of supervision work yet. So i would say give him a salary and x number of hours dedicated to management and then book 1 job a day or whatever.
In real life these transitions are rarely pretty.

Unless ben is ready to take a hit for now and thinks he can grow fast enough to justify it. That list looks like about 2-3 hours of work a day at best at his current size.

Impossible to say on a forum...

 

[Desk Jockey]

In real life these transitions are rarely pretty.

I agree. I think its much to hard to elevate someone with little management skills to a position to manage all your tech's. Its a positive that can quickly go south on you. It will be far easier to find a good manager than a good cleaning tech.

You're much better off with hiring the new position with someone that has some management experience. As a manager you know part of your responsibility is to fill in when needed. If it doesn't work out you only lose the manager not your best tech.

You can also expect to pay them much less than commission that you expect to pay the production people.

 

[The Great Oz]

Your job requirements say "3 to 5 years of supervisory experience." If this tech has that experience he will probably have the right mindset to be a crew leader. I understand wanting to give an employee the option to take on more responsibility but you're asking for a lot from this position. If the guy was a great tech (and in another thread you said your techs are making $82,000 per year) you're going to have to pay him enough to take on the extra responsibility. I'd say it's going to take at least $100,000 plus a 2 to 3% stake in the overall gross.


Or you could hire a crew chief from one of the jansan companies for about $35k, teach him what is unique to your company, and leave the techs alone.

 

[Shane Deubell]

Sometimes good techs make crappy managers and crappy techs make great managers...

How do you think i ended up here?

 

[Russ T.]

I was the "operations manager" at a 3 truck outfit in Colorado several years back. They paid me well (for an employee) but I was acutely aware of how much I was worth to them. They leaned on me pretty hard. I was their lead tech and managed many other things pertaining to the biz. They handled scheduling and marketing without much help from me.

All it took was the situation, to go on my own, to present itself and I was gone. I will be careful in the future to not allow an employee of mine to feel like they have the responsibilities of an owner.

I think it's smart to divide responsibilities too. Let techs be techs and managers be managers. Don't let any of them feel like they do it all. It may breed resentment and force a very valuable part of your biz out the door.


The Clean Machine

 

[Desk Jockey]

Good technicians don't necessarily make good managers.

Its very easy to promote someone from the level of competency to one of incompetency. It's a mistake that has been repeated many a time. Its know as the Peter Principal.

The Peter Principle is a management theory which suggests that organizations risk filling management roles with people who are incompetent if they promote those who are performing well at their current role, rather than those who have proven abilities at the intended role. It is named after Laurence J. Peter who co-authored the 1969 humorous book The Peter Principle: Why Things Always Go Wrong with Raymond Hull. They suggest that people will tend to be promoted until they reach their "position of incompetence".

 

[Brian H]

I think I can reply to this email from a different perspective since I have been a manager for more then 30 years and have never been a cleaner except to fill in here and there.

There is a conflict of interest if you expect him to manage AND earn commission on cleaning.

Not saying he would but he could:

*Give himself the best jobs in the best areas.

*Spend more time on commission cleaning then managing always with an excuse on why it was needed.

*Direct others in activities that assist in HIS sales.

*Hide issues that he caused by being both that cleaner and the manager.

In my opinion, it just sets him up to fail by being one of the cleaners AND their boss.


As far as what to pay, don't look at it as paying more then he makes currently. What is the new job worth? There are weeks that some of our technicians make more money then me. If they do, then they sure earned it. It's hard physical work to do the cleaning and they would have put in a lot of hours to accomplish that.

Maybe you should look to find someone that knows the business but can't physically perform any more. I did that with one of my crew leaders about 10 years ago and it has worked out quite well. He has been a valuable part of management team ever since.

We recently "promoted" another crew leader to Rug Care supervisor and he actually took a cut in pay to get off the road. Long term he will make more money, he just won't have to physically work so hard.

Just better make sure whoever you hire understands the difference between physical work and mental work. Many a day I drag my self home after a exhausting day of "sitting behind my desk".

 

[Desk Jockey]

Many a day I drag my self home after a exhausting day of "sitting behind my desk".

Sure says the non cleaner!

J/K
I prefer being on the truck while physically taxing, it was still a lot easier than going home mentally taxed.


SHUT UP Marty I know its easy for me to mentally taxed.

 

[GCCLee]

Sitting here doing Clerical Suks Go Nadz!




Although watchin the neighbors pup get lucky by every stray sure is entertaining : )

 

[bensurdi]

Wow, thank you guys for the great feedback. Defiantly gave me some things to think about and I think probably changed my direction - this was what I needed to here. Thanks


....

 

[Mikey P]

well Ben, at least you didn't waste that question and your time, on one of those rookie forums...

 

[Shane Deubell]

The two positions collide...

Techs have to focus on immediately what's in front of them, especially driving.
Managers are planting seeds and viewing everything over the long term, its hard to switch gears like that for most people.

I do think you can pull it off if he is the right person and you set a firm transition deadline, say 6 months he is full time manager. We need deadlines or we never act.