How to ask for pay rise in private cleaning?

silvercar

cmthephoenix said:

silvercar said:

My cleaner just asked for a pay rise from January from 12.50 to 15. I was actually quite shocked at a 20% increase. She said she thought some people may reduce her hours as a result. She’s good, so I guess she thinks she can fill any hours that her current clients give up.

You were shocked?? You've agreed she is good. Do you know how hard cleaning is for a good worker? Add to that the travel time and travel expenses between jobs. When I first met my now wife in 2007 she was both a private cleaner and an office cleaner. For office cleaning she got up at 3:30am for minimum wage (I think it was something like 7.50 an hour then) and they didn't give a s**t about her - she once got locked in the office overnight and didn't even get an apology. For her private cleaning she would often have to travel an hour between jobs and they would cancel jobs at a moment's notice leaving her with no income. She shared her bedroom with 2 other people she hardly knew just to make ends meet.

Thankfully she has worked hard for her way up in life and she is now a senior manager in the NHS on a very good wage.

Shocked at the 20% increase, I don’t think many people are getting 20% in other industries. Also shocked that the going rate has gone up so much. This is house cleaning in day time, so no offices, no early starts and actually no long distance travelling - all her clients are within 2 miles of where she lives and she has a car.

elsien

I think it depends in part when the last payrise was. My window cleaner has kept his bill at £10 for two or three years now. If he put it up to £12 which is also a 20% rise, I would find that acceptable given that everyone's costs are going up and given how long it has been since the last increase. 

diystarter7

silvercar said:

cmthephoenix said:

silvercar said:

My cleaner just asked for a pay rise from January from 12.50 to 15. I was actually quite shocked at a 20% increase. She said she thought some people may reduce her hours as a result. She’s good, so I guess she thinks she can fill any hours that her current clients give up.

You were shocked?? You've agreed she is good. Do you know how hard cleaning is for a good worker? Add to that the travel time and travel expenses between jobs. When I first met my now wife in 2007 she was both a private cleaner and an office cleaner. For office cleaning she got up at 3:30am for minimum wage (I think it was something like 7.50 an hour then) and they didn't give a s**t about her - she once got locked in the office overnight and didn't even get an apology. For her private cleaning she would often have to travel an hour between jobs and they would cancel jobs at a moment's notice leaving her with no income. She shared her bedroom with 2 other people she hardly knew just to make ends meet.

Thankfully she has worked hard for her way up in life and she is now a senior manager in the NHS on a very good wage.

Shocked at the 20% increase, I don’t think many people are getting 20% in other industries. Also shocked that the going rate has gone up so much. This is house cleaning in day time, so no offices, no early starts and actually no long distance travelling - all her clients are within 2 miles of where she lives and she has a car.

Hi

Yes it is a lot but like you I'm pleased for here.
IMO, its only a couple of hours and last rise was 18 months ago I think.
It is more of a one-to-one relationship and trust possibly, most likely resulting in the rise.

If my EA asked for 20%, I'd go to another. It is a lot but it is because of the above IMHO.

We are heading towards pension age fast and the 10% sounds good but those on benefits, good luck to them but
I've heard people, some are very unhappy as they are working hard, getting up at 4/5am and pay to get to work and often home 6/7pm only getting 2/3/4% in the private sector. Yes there are some getting a bit more than the 10% but most a lot, lot less.

If OP was our cleaner for the couple hours a week, we would hve paid her the 15 but possibly looking over our shoulder for a better deal. However, it is difficult to build trust and find a good cleaner so its worked for both of them

Thanks

General_Grant

billy2shots said:

cmthephoenix said:

silvercar said:

My cleaner just asked for a pay rise from January from 12.50 to 15. I was actually quite shocked at a 20% increase. She said she thought some people may reduce her hours as a result. She’s good, so I guess she thinks she can fill any hours that her current clients give up.

You were shocked?? You've agreed she is good. Do you know how hard cleaning is for a good worker? Add to that the travel time and travel expenses between jobs. When I first met my now wife in 2007 she was both a private cleaner and an office cleaner. For office cleaning she got up at 3:30am for minimum wage (I think it was something like 7.50 an hour then) and they didn't give a s**t about her - she once got locked in the office overnight and didn't even get an apology. For her private cleaning she would often have to travel an hour between jobs and they would cancel jobs at a moment's notice leaving her with no income. She shared her bedroom with 2 other people she hardly knew just to make ends meet.

Thankfully she has worked hard for her way up in life and she is now a senior manager in the NHS on a very good wage.

Absolutely amazing well done her.

£7.50 was minimum wage in 2017. To go from cleaner to senior Manager in the NHS in 5 years (less if it was before this year) is inspiring. 

Just shows what can be done with the right mindset. 

According to his post, cmthephoenix's wife was working as a cleaner in 2007, not 2017.  So it probably wasn't such a meteoric rise.  (Though "senior manager" in the NHS starts at Band 8a, it doesn't mean one is at chief executive level.)

cmthephoenix

According to his post, cmthephoenix's wife was working as a cleaner in 2007, not 2017.  So it probably wasn't such a meteoric rise.  (Though "senior manager" in the NHS starts at Band 8a, it doesn't mean one is at chief executive level.)

Not meteoric but probably true to say inspirational (I'm certainly proud of her), most years by a band. Started as a band 2 ED receptionist in 2012 and is now 8c.

silvercar

We’ve now been sidetracked but if you want comparisons to the NHS £15 per hour is definitely more than band 4 NHS workers, so that would be more than newly qualified nurses.

cmthephoenix

silvercar said:

We’ve now been sidetracked but if you want comparisons to the NHS £15 per hour is definitely more than band 4 NHS workers, so that would be more than newly qualified nurses.

As you say it's well off topic but as the original thread has had all the answers it's going to get now I don't see any harm in evolving it as a conversation would naturally and I think it's quite interesting to look at different people's view points.

I thought a newly qualified nurse was band 5 and casual internet searching would appear to confirm that, though I'm happy to be corrected. Even so as you say the base per hour starting rate of band 5 is lower at £13.84 per hour.

So initial comparing to £15 per hour for a self employed cleaner would look like the cleaner has the better deal but I would say what the NHS nurse gets paid in a month is far more than the cleaner. I'm in no way trying to say what the NHS nurse gets is a good salary, just challenging the statement that was implied by only comparing per hour rates that the self employed clearner is in a better financial position. 

So why do I think the NHS nurse is in a batter paid job than the self employed clearner?

The starting point it the self employed cleaner doesn't get paid for their holidays, so that's automatically 13.46% (27+8 days annual leave compared to the cleaner of 0) extra to the per hour wage comparison so that's immediately a higher wage per hour than the cleaner. Even if the other points I make may have more debate around them this would alone say the NHS nurse is in a better financial position.

Clients of self employed cleaners will cancel jobs at no notice (whether they are taking annual leave themselves or for other reasons) leaving the cleaner with no work and no income at short notice. The nurse has a minimum number of contracted hours per week.

A typical self employed cleaner will have 2 - 3 jobs in a day which they have to travel between, taking  say anywhere between 0.5-1 hour, for which they don't get paid. So a 7.5 hour shift for a nurse (and I know nurses do not typically work a 7.5 hour shift but whatever they do work is paid in full per hour) is more realistically 6 hours for a cleaner in real wages after tavelling between jobs

The OP didn't say whether the cleaning work is in London but if it is the Nurse will get a 15-20% uplift per hour rate for London allowance (this is not a valid point from me if the cleaner does not work in London)

The nurse will get substantial premiums for unsocial hours shifts (up to 60% extra in the per hour rate) which the cleaner won't normally, not for weekend anyway. Overnight possibly but few people want their house cleaning overnight.

The nurse has the ability to get bank and agency shifts on top of their normal working hours at higher per hour rate (and some of these per hour rates can be eye watering - not as a fault of the nurses but as a fault of the system) whereas the cleaner taking on more hours would be more usually at their basic per hour rate whatever day of the week it is.

The nurse will get progression points for extra per hour wages n their salary with more experience, whereas the cleaner won't.

The nurse has access to the NHS pension, which in my opinion is a very good deal, but the cleaner will only have access to whatever private pension they can find in addition to the state pension.

As I say I'm not trying to say either the nurse or cleaner is well paid but just challenging the implication that the cleaner is in a better financial position.

silvercar

My cleaner gets paid when I don’t need her eg if I am away, but I don’t pay her if she is away or sick. She has organised her work so that she never has to travel more than 15 minutes between jobs. I would say she works at least 8 hours a day, so we can say 40 hours a week. She also does a bit of waitressing in private houses at weekends occasionally. And she gets a Xmas bonus of an extra weeks wages. I would guess that all this is tax free, though I don’t know that for sure. 

cmthephoenix

silvercar said:

My cleaner gets paid when I don’t need her eg if I am away, but I don’t pay her if she is away or sick. She has organised her work so that she never has to travel more than 15 minutes between jobs. I would say she works at least 8 hours a day, so we can say 40 hours a week. She also does a bit of waitressing in private houses at weekends occasionally. And she gets a Xmas bonus of an extra weeks wages. I would guess that all this is tax free, though I don’t know that for sure. 

Not paying tax would be illegal - my wife certainly didn't work illegally and filled out her self employment each year (even for the transition year when she was part self employed and part employed). Apart from it being illegal if you don't pay national insurance for a minimum number of years then you don't qualify for full state pension so it's a fool's choice.

Of course if you work extra hours then you get paid more but the same is true with nurses taking on extra shifts and they can be very lucrative at the rates sometimes they get offered.

My wife's experience is that just about all of her clients wouldn't pay for if they were on holiday and would cancel her at short notice. Ideally she would have worked for clients that lived a short distance from each other and organised her routine like that but it didn't work out in practice because you had to work the hours the client wanted you to work and it was always better working for someone you trusted not to play your around.

cmthephoenix

silvercar said:

she gets a Xmas bonus of an extra weeks wages. I would guess that all this is tax free, though I don’t know that for sure. 

I've just also seen you're a forum ambassador and yet you're employing someone you allege to be committing tax fraud?? What basis do you have for the allegation and if you do believe that then stop employing them because that in my opinion makes you just as culpable!