Hi everyone, I though I type my thoughts here hoping somebody will be able to give some honest advise. We are running a limited company for about 2.5 years now, my partner is the director but also the best skilled fitter. He built a company solely on his good reputation and perfections for details. Now we are in that stage when he cannot carry on on his own as the jobs are getting bigger, more complex so he started using sub contractors he knew for years. The problem is, every single job is not personally attending snags comes after snags, nobody is able to reach his standard in this field, and the customers noticed that too. We are not big enough to guarantee continuous work for employees, this is why we have to use subbies. Wonderinf if anybody is in the same position perhaps advise me what we can do. Where do you find skilled/reliable subbies? How do you deal with the snags? How can you maintain good customer relations in the future? How can our company expand safely? Thank you for reading.
Its very difficult. Good subbies can be hard to find, and hard to keep, if you don`t have a steady workload. At the stage your at, my thinking is, this would be a management problem. If your partner is off the tools, due to workload in the office, he or someone needs to be making regular visits to your sites, to ensure standards are being maintained. If standards are not being met, you need new subbies. This is normally down to 1 or 2 things. 1- they are not up to the job 2- your not paying what they want, for what you are asking of them. No-one will work as hard as yourself, for your own company, but they won`t reap the rewards either. Snags, genuine ones, not those created on site, after leaving should be dealt with by any decent subbie. One way to deal with this is to give your subbies sign off sheets. When an area is completed, the site agent then signs off this area, to his satisfaction. Its not perfect, but can help if faults are raised, after the area has been signed off.
And get them to take photos of the work to back up their claims of it being a good finished job time and date stamps help Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Neil has hit the nail on the head . they are generally not very good if you keep getting snags Or are getting underpaid... ive fell out with many shops , due to being penalised for being good at what i do . example... no snags or comebacks from me , so i get all the involved jobs . Prestigious work etc etc... Then joey comes along .. 20 year old on the same meterage rate ... but .... He cant sew bullnoses .. he cant fit winders properly.. he cant line up patterns or seams ... so he gets all the easy flat lay throw down with no grief ... hows that work lol.
The main thing is not to pay them until the job is signed off. If they do constant work they will have to go back and do the snagging for free. Problem is good guys are hard to find. I worked for 2-3 shops before I did all my own work. Ones work was all over seen by the family owners father/son. One had 2/3 teams that did all the work. And they had constant work. And one of them went through about 20 subbies over the 2 years I worked there. These shops all had high standards and unfortunately a lot of subcontracting Floorlayer’s don’t. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
It's not going to be easy, unless you get really lucky, if it's domestic, then personality also counts, he could do a perfect job, but if the customer doesn't like him, you're unlikely to get a recommendation,a lot of fitters will come to you claiming to be great fitters and most actually believe they are, qualifications are a good sign, but just because they know how to do a good job, doesn't automatically mean they will and like i said, unless you get really lucky, it's probably going to cost you at some point
Been through this a lot. Takes a while finding good honest fitters. You have to pay them more then tell them what you expect. If there is a snag then they have to go and sort it after 5pm. Do you pay them day rate or price? the best way I’ve found is to train lads up. I have a 23 year old who’s great. Been with me since 16. Also have 2 Apprentise’s now 16 & 19. I have 5 years to train them then I can come off the tools 100%
I keep telling myself the same thing Daz. I`ve got my 3 sons, my nephew and another lad on for years now. Still going the same. I do get the occasional day off now though.
Good fitters are like rocking horse shit, find out which ones locally are having issues with anyone they work for and try nick em. I’m a one man band and not the cheapest and have same issues, take time to prep and install correctly and subbies I’ve used fire it down then struggle to get them to go back...... Good shops have good fitters and tend to try keep hold of them but good luck
Thank you for everyone for the good advise and all the support, means a lot. The thing is that, we pay them waaaay much more than other companies, not day rate, price jobs, they get the same money what my partner would go and do it himself it he had the time and energy. Very good pay. As you mentioned before, this is not their company so they don't really care. And we pay them after every job, they dont even have to wait until we get paid from contractors. Sometimes I think we are way way tooo generous but still nno sign of improvement. We cannot manage without them, as the work is too much for just my partner, very busy, but still not continuous to take anyone on board. I understand this is just a phase in the company and it will grow, but I would like to know how we can grow. Partner is not getting younger, sings of 20 years of fitting is kicking out and he would definitely not want to be on his knees every day in a few years time. I would like our company to become a contractor company who gets the works and contracts, so then we can pass it on to good fitters. Not sure how to do that, but this is the dream. If you can guys suggest anything or anybody who has been through this, I would love to hear from you. Thank you again for all your support, I will be back with more questions, I actually really like this site Happy I found it. Take care all
Also forgot to mention previously, that the root of the snag sometimes lies beneath the prep work which we do't do. We are sent to fit a job, which was previously prepared by other builders (butchers) and expect perfect finish on the job. This is like picking up someone else's snag , because all they care about is the finish, we are not magicians, just doing the best possible on every job, but of course, if the prep was just chuck together, what can we do? Dont want to let the customers down by refusing the work, but we do make them aware that this might affect the finish.
You’ve had some great advice on finding good fitters. Perhaps though it’s also about your attitude towards them, do they feel part of the team or just a temp contractor? To grow the company I’d suggest finding yourself a mentor and/or business coach to help you drive forward. Find a good one and they are worth their weight in gold.
What exactly is the theme of these snags? Blown screeds? Moisture issues? Problem with taking on jobs that the prep work has been done by the builders is one of your main issues. Builders would happily slap pva down over a gypsum floor and throw a cheap screed over it, soon as your fitters kneel on it and start fitting then you've inherited the lot. Doesn't matter how much you warn the customers of this, they'll be on your case as you already know because you fitted on it.
I'd rather refuse the jobs that have been prepared by the builders than risk wrecking a rep like your partner has built up if he's as good as you say because eventually you'll end up with no enquiries at all.
As a subbie, ive worked at a few flooring contractors and follow the money, previous places are always asking for us back but dont want to pay so they get the fitters who cant find the better paying work because theyre not good enough. Its hard to find fitters who will give an extra hour a day to do a perfect job, theyll slap it down for a quick finish. And honestly, the work ive seen from fitters of "20 years experience" is absoloutely disgusting, the worst bit is its often not even snagged by site managers or customers
This is something a bit different, and again more likely management error, not fitter error. If you, as a company, accept the floor prep completed by the contractor, you are taking on the job, and are accepting the prep they have done is correct. 9 times out of 10, we all know the prep will be poor, so why not just refuse ? You can`t ask a fitter to fit over somebody eles prep, then ask them to be responsible for the finish. Thats just not fair, and its up to you as a company to refuse.
This is similar to one of the issues I had when I first started. The jobs were not priced correctly from the start or a lack of communication. You turn up to do a h/s/l and all the gripper needs re doing but the shops don’t offer any more money for doing it so why would a fitter do it? Also door cutting. Another one that the shops would claim they hadn’t allowed to do and they want the fitter to do it for nothing so they don’t have to ask the customer for more money. If your talking about getting floors flat after a builder has butchered a house renovation or they’ve put the new screed down blindfolded then again 1 bag of latex will not carry you 5m2 and give you a perfect finish. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
