Strategies to decrease downtime due to employee sickness?

[purbeast0]

The answer is to not have piece of shit employee's. Unless you are falling over nearly dying - coughing up a lung and getting other people sick - the last thing you should be doing is calling in a "sick day". 9 times out of 10, it's simply trying to get out of work for the day.

lol says the guy who works 60+ hours a week.

employees taking sick days is normal. when that happens, there will be productivity loss. i'm just not seeing what the big deal here is.

 

[gorcorps]

lol says the guy who works 60+ hours a week.

employees taking sick days is normal. when that happens, there will be productivity loss. i'm just not seeing what the big deal here is.

Yup, that's the cost of doing business.

The one thing I will say is regarding this comment:

Having a photographer on standby just for emergencies isn't feasible, especially considering that our shooting rates are lower than the competition. If I passed on the job to an outside photographer, I would take a loss on the job, plus they won't shoot the way our core team is trained to shoot (we have a certain look and quality level to our shots)

At a certain point you need to weigh what cancelling on a client might do to your business vs. taking a loss for a few jobs. If it's truly a sick day it should only be a day here and there you have to worry about. There may be some clients who aren't happy to be cancelled on (especially for RE related stuff where you want to get things done quickly) so for those types it could be worth taking the dollar hit to keep them semi-happy.

 

[zCypher]

Yup, that's the cost of doing business.

The one thing I will say is regarding this comment:


At a certain point you need to weigh what cancelling on a client might do to your business vs. taking a loss for a few jobs. If it's truly a sick day it should only be a day here and there you have to worry about. There may be some clients who aren't happy to be cancelled on (especially for RE related stuff where you want to get things done quickly) so for those types it could be worth taking the dollar hit to keep them semi-happy.

This. I'd say that finding an ideal part time or standby guy that could be up to the task of your level of standards might be a challenge, but not impossible. Work on finding that guy / those guys who may fit the bill. This is obviously a concern since you posted this, so I wouldn't advise continuing on the same path or necessarily operating under 100% capacity. Photography is one of those things that many people do on the side, so it's just a question of finding the time to get the one who is the right fit for you.

Edit: I seem to remember your threads from way back, glad to hear that things are going this well for you.

 

[soulcougher73]

The answer is to not run at capacity - you have enough historical data to factor in these sick/vacation days into your projected capacity.

So plan accordingly, either overtime or run under capacity.

This. I'm sure most businesses learn this eventually.

 

[TheSlamma]

I'm not going to reinvent the wheel, lookup Wellness benefits. A common mistake many places make is if you max out or have too much sick time you lose it. Allow that to convert into something so people have a reason to get it. Otherwise the only other option is to just use it.

 

[Homerboy]

The answer is to not have piece of shit employee's. Unless you are falling over nearly dying - coughing up a lung and getting other people sick - the last thing you should be doing is calling in a "sick day". 9 times out of 10, it's simply trying to get out of work for the day.

Are you really that stupid?

 

[SearchMaster]

The answer is to not have piece of shit employee's. Unless you are falling over nearly dying - coughing up a lung and getting other people sick - the last thing you should be doing is calling in a "sick day". 9 times out of 10, it's simply trying to get out of work for the day.

People who are paid by the job (or hourly at a decent wage) don't generally do this. And sure, most of the time people who call in sick probably *COULD* get the work done anyway, it's not good policy to expect it from otherwise good employees. Hell my wife worked several hours last month with viral meningitis, and if you've ever had that the LAST thing you want to do is have to think or your head will feel like it's going to explode.

 

[KeithP]

We can't purposefully NOT run at 100% capacity.

(I assumed you meant "can't")

Sure you can. What you actually mean is you don't "want" to run below 100% capacity.

There is a difference between not scheduling for 100% capacity and not running at 100% capacity. Is it feasible to leave time open each day in the schedule, and if you don't need the cushion that day, do work scheduled for tomorrow to fill the day? If this will work, it has the advantage of getting some work done early which your customers may value.

The only other answer would be to pay overtime or have some folks that you can hire on a per shoot basis to get work done when the problem occurs.

-KeithP

 

[Exterous]

dont offer sick time, you work or no pay. Make em contractors.

Alternatively you can offer them monetary compensation for unused sick time at the end of the year

The problem is that we sometimes have too much business for the current team, but not ENOUGH business to justify another full-time or even part-time photographer.

Is there another company that you know well, does good work and could work out a deal with to give them a call and subcontract to them if they have availability? You might not make a profit or, depending on the client, you might be willing to take a small loss but it may keep the client happy with your response time. There's also the risk they would try and snake the client but some companies are more respectable than others

 

[Genx87]

I'm wondering if there are any strategies for increasing uptime that I may be missing.

I have three photographers who shoot real estate photos for my business. They are normally fully booked for each day.

The problem comes when one of them gets sick. The jobs that we have confirmed with the clients (could be four or five houses a day) need to be rescheduled for the next opening we have with another photographer. That's a lot of jobs we have to try to find room for. The problem is that sometimes we get so busy that we don't have any openings that are soon enough for the clients.

This doesn't happen all that often, and I'm a realist when it comes to "shit happens." Sometimes we just have to cancel if we are really out of our capacity.

But are there some other strategies that I might be missing?

- Having a photographer on standby just for emergencies isn't feasible, especially considering that our shooting rates are lower than the competition. If I passed on the job to an outside photographer, I would take a loss on the job, plus they won't shoot the way our core team is trained to shoot (we have a certain look and quality level to our shots)

- We can purposefully NOT run at 100% capacity. We could, say, purposefully leave two hours a week or so open on our calendars for those "oh crap" moments. But of course that means that we're purposefully not running at capacity = not making as much as we could.

Thoughts?

Need to build in some leeway to your system. Either hire a guy on part time or cut back on schedules so somebody else can cover for a sick photographer.

 

[OutHouse]

How are you at taking photos? I know it's probably not idea, but you might consider this as an option. Learn the skill yourself so you can pitch in whenever an emergency arises. I know it will take time, but once you learn how to take proper photos it will pay itself many times over.

Could you hook up with a local college? Do they have a photography class? Maybe you could ask if anyone there wouldn't mind being called in when your main photographer is out sick. Don't know how reliable that would be.

I kinda like my first suggestion. My parents were business owners for many years, and the one thing my dad said to me was "no one is going to care about your business like you."

umm post #7.....

 

[ponyo]

He's subbing out all his work. They're contractors and not employees. I'm sure for important clients and critical jobs, he will adjust the schedule that day to make sure it gets done. He's done it for six years. We all face the same problem as business owners.

 

[Jaepheth]

Hire more photographers and increase capacity. Then if one calls in sick it represents a lower percentage of your bookings, and there are more chances that one of the others can pick up the slack.

 

[drebo]

Why would you ever want to run under capacity? I don't get this mindset. If I were in business I'd want as much business as I could get, and once I acquired enough business I'd find a solution. It's like saying you wouldn't want a packed restaurant because the wait times would increase. Does that mean that I should hope that I don't have a line of customers at lunch time? No, You want problems. It means you're doing something right.

I think it would be argued that it you can't handle incidentals like this, you're probably running over capacity.

 

[Carson Dyle]

Sorry. Something just isn't right here. On many levels.

The first being the very high likelihood that the OP is abusing the independent contractor status of the people who are his employees. Just because they don't have a set schedule doesn't make them contractors. There are checklists readily available from the IRS that will verify this. Things like giving them specialized training and providing them with their work tools are red flags. Not to mention the fact that these folks have been working exclusively all week, every week, for years on end for just one employer.

If they were really contractors, you'd simply go out and find someone else who has free time that week. There should be no great concerns about paying those outside contractors more than you're paying your "regular" guys, because you'd be paying market rates.

And it cuts to the core of the original problem. With real employees, you have attendance rules, you have vacation time and sick time and personal time. Anyone violating the rules is subject to disciplinary action or termination. You can't have such rules for contractors, so it's impossible to hold contractors to the same expectations.

It must pose other scheduling problems. If a contractor says "I'm taking two months off to tour Europe", the best you can do is find another contractor. You can't say "you don't have two months of vacation coming."

 

[Midwayman]

If you don't account for sick/vacation time you aren't running at capacity, you are running over capacity and its coming back to bite you in the ass.

 

[WHAMPOM]

I'm wondering if there are any strategies for increasing uptime that I may be missing.

I have three photographers who shoot real estate photos for my business. They are normally fully booked for each day.

The problem comes when one of them gets sick. The jobs that we have confirmed with the clients (could be four or five houses a day) need to be rescheduled for the next opening we have with another photographer. That's a lot of jobs we have to try to find room for. The problem is that sometimes we get so busy that we don't have any openings that are soon enough for the clients.

This doesn't happen all that often, and I'm a realist when it comes to "shit happens." Sometimes we just have to cancel if we are really out of our capacity.

But are there some other strategies that I might be missing?

- Having a photographer on standby just for emergencies isn't feasible, especially considering that our shooting rates are lower than the competition. If I passed on the job to an outside photographer, I would take a loss on the job, plus they won't shoot the way our core team is trained to shoot (we have a certain look and quality level to our shots)

- We can purposefully NOT run at 100% capacity. We could, say, purposefully leave two hours a week or so open on our calendars for those "oh crap" moments. But of course that means that we're purposefully not running at capacity = not making as much as we could.

Thoughts?

Stop overworking your employees.

 

[WHAMPOM]

The answer is to not have piece of shit employee's. Unless you are falling over nearly dying - coughing up a lung and getting other people sick - the last thing you should be doing is calling in a "sick day". 9 times out of 10, it's simply trying to get out of work for the day.

You judge everything by what you do?

 

[Scarpozzi]

You said it's not feasible to have another photographer....maybe you should consider hiring one or two part-timers. Train them to do the shots the way you want and send them limited jobs on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. The concept here is to find an employee or two that wants to make extra money, can produce quality, and you keep them in your pocket for when you need them. They can be there to pickup the slack....this is basically what school systems do with substitute teachers. The advantage here is that you can use this as a training program in case you want to grow your business.