Cleaners increase in hourly rate

[user1478790138]

Hello

First thread here so pls be gentle.

We have a largeish house in the Nottinghamshire, 6 BR, 4 BA and a fairly large ground floor, 2 children and dogs. Have had a pair of cleaners who come twice a week (initially three times but then it was to hectic for us) for several months now and paid £12ph, they want to increase it to 13.5 now. They do the cleaning and tidying, of which there is a fair amount but I don’t limit them time wise. Not sure now how to react, we’ve had them since March, somehow an increase of 100+ quid a month seems a bit steep in such a short period of time? What would you do??
Thank you

@icedcoffees in which case the alternative is I let the cleaner go isn’t it? See this is the point, the extra costs all have to be paid by SOMEONE and that persons salary, this isn’t an argument AGAINST paying people more, it’s about making sure that the people who are PAYING these people are also earning enough to do so, and that means that they are earning enough to incentivise them NOT to go off and do something different

Skills are valuable, I don’t see why this is such an issue, it’s how the market has worked forever. There are skills shortages, and there are labour shortages. Two totally different things that have to be addressed in totally different ways. At the moment we have a labour shortage and you can see the effects, a skills shortage would be even worse.

You don't have some kind of moral obligation to society to remain in your "worthy" job, lol

Yes yes you can lol all you like, seriously, grow up. If we lose skilled people we all lose. And actually I do feel there’s an obligation of some kind as much of my professional training has been paid for in / by public sector, with the expectation that I would continue using it for the benefit of other people

I think that wage is pretty standard, even slightly low, especially if they're from a company that will have admin costs as well as paying the cleaners .

If they're doing their job well, I think you have to accept it, and either reduce the hours and e.g. have them come once a week rather than twice, or put up with the expense for the time being: presumably you'll have less need for that amount of cleaning when both children are at school.

I don't know why people say cleaners shouldn't tidy. You can pay them to make origami shapes out of your pants if it's agreed up front. I don't want to tidy for a cleaner and never have.

[quote RoseStar]@icedcoffees in which case the alternative is I let the cleaner go isn’t it? See this is the point, the extra costs all have to be paid by SOMEONE and that persons salary, this isn’t an argument AGAINST paying people more, it’s about making sure that the people who are PAYING these people are also earning enough to do so, and that means that they are earning enough to incentivise them NOT to go off and do something different

Skills are valuable, I don’t see why this is such an issue, it’s how the market has worked forever. There are skills shortages, and there are labour shortages. Two totally different things that have to be addressed in totally different ways. At the moment we have a labour shortage and you can see the effects, a skills shortage would be even worse.[/quote]
I mean, of course that's the alternative, and why is it an issue? If you can't afford someone's prices, you let them go and look elsewhere. Nobody is saying otherwise.

The cleaner can always find another client and I doubt she'll struggle. Cleaners are massively in demand where I am - in fact, they all have waiting lists!

Again, nobody is saying a skills shortage would be a good thing but a skills shortage in teaching/nursing/caring is not the fault of cleaners being paid £13 an hour.

@RoseStar

You don't have some kind of moral obligation to society to remain in your "worthy" job, lol

Yes yes you can lol all you like, seriously, grow up. If we lose skilled people we all lose. And actually I do feel there’s an obligation of some kind as much of my professional training has been paid for in / by public sector, with the expectation that I would continue using it for the benefit of other people

But again, presumably you chose to do that career, knowing it was partially funded by the government and knowing it was fairly poorly paid. Still, you don't have to stay there if you don't want to - you're placing those obligations on yourself.

Nobody is saying teachers, nurses etc. shouldn't earn more money but the cost of employing someone is a lot more than what their hourly rate is.

Is building an annex, even one of those kit garden ones, an option to get back a housekeeper. A housekeeper bring loads more value.

@Canii

If that cleaner worked full time then she’s getting paid more than the starting salary for a nurse! Either that’s too high for a cleaner or nurses are being seriously underpaid!!

Are you for real? The £15 is all the cleaner gets, no enhanced sick/maternity pay, no pension, no national insurance, etc., which will all be paid by the NHS for student nurses, plus paid holidays, etc.

You simply can't compare an employed rate with a self employed rate. If you're going to compare you have to cost in all the extras that the employer has to pay.

You simply can't compare an employed rate with a self employed rate. If you're going to compare you have to cost in all the extras that the employer has to pay.

Exactly! So many people are missing this.

A self-employed cleaner and a nurse in their first job may, on paper, both be earning £15 an hour, but that's not the reality.

The nurse will get: an NHS pension, sick pay, annual leave, in-house benefits (like training) and plenty of opportunities to progress up the pay scale and increase their earnings.

The cleaner won't get a pension, sick pay or annual leave. They need to pay for their insurance, equipment, pension, annual leave and sick pay out of that £15. They also need to cover things like uniform/clothing, any training they want to take etc etc.

While a nurse/teacher may "only" earn £15 an hour, the cost of hiring them is MUCH much more than that, and the employee benefits of being a nurse are huge.

@user1478790138

Take care that they aren't trying to price you out -it doesn't sound like a particularly good deal for them and cleaners can really choose who they want to do business with, as they will get many new enquiries all the time.

We have a similar sized house with three children in it, 2 working out of the home parents. 2 of the children have ADHD so very disorganised/messy.

We still tidy before the cleaner comes. Cleaners usually expect this. You tidy all the surfaces and they clean them. If the surface isn't tidy it doesn't get cleaned. I have had friends who've had their cleaners leave or ghost them after one visit, because of this issue. Must be an absolute pain in the backside trying to work out where everything should go, tidying up someone else's stuff, just to do your job. If you want to pay someone to do these things, tidying is a housekeepers job, not a cleaner's. Most of us have the latter.

We pay £12.50 an hour, for 5 hours every week. We leave some ironing out and if they house is finished before the 5 hours are up, our cleaner will do some ironing until the time is up.

Occasional deep cleans or extra tasks (like taking Christmas decs down, hanging some curtains etc) are paid extra.

We pay when we cancel. We don't pay when she cancels/is on holiday.

We supply cleaning products etc and make sure she is happy with the vacuum etc (we discussed a recent replacement with her).

Our cleaner has been coming for over 5 years now and has become a reliable part of our lives. Someone who'll feed the cats if we are away, who helped us enormously during the lockdown. Mutual respect and fair pay is important.

TBF we paid our cleaner throughout the Covid lock down when she couldn't come and always give her an extra week's money at Xmas.

I think people are forgetting the potential travel time between breaks which probably reduces the number of hours a cleaner wants to work.

Good cleaners are like gold dust, it pays to look after them.

I would also add I think a three hour dot is optimal - it's hard physical work and the cleaner needs a break or slows down after that.

Just for the record, nurses don't 'get' an NHS pension - they have to pay for it like everyone else, and since several changes to the NHS pension scheme over the last few years (2008 and 2015, as well as the changes more generally over the last couple of years which mean employers have to contribute a certain %) it isn't much different from any other employer pension scheme.

Also, I'm at the top of the NHS band 6 scale (not a nurse) with 2 degrees and over 20 years experience, and after tax and NI (which I still have to pay out of my wages by the way, why do people think we don't?) I earn a lower hourly rate than most cleaners - and then have to pay for my NHS pension out of that.

I can easily be working 50 hours a week, and am too exhausted at the end of the day to come back and do any more than cook dinner for all of us, do the most basic tidying, one load of washing, try to do homework with the kids, and collapse, but since cleaners wages have jumped compared to inflation (unlike mine!) I can't buy in more help, so I'm considering cutting my hours to cope instead.

Thank you for setting all that out @WarmAndFluff it sounds so tough.

Can I ask, what’s your response to all the people who have said to me in response to my worry that a huge number of highly skilled (or trained as some people don’t like the word skilled) aren’t paid enough…

“Well why don’t you just go and become a cleaner then”?

@WarmAndFluff people know all that, but you also get sick pay, annual leave, compassionate leave and all sorts of other benefits that self employed people don't get.

Out of the £15 an hour a cleaner charges, they have to save enough to put away a pension (with no added employer contribution - just what they can afford to save), money for annual leave (so 5.6 weeks worth if they take the same amount as most employees), and money to cover sick days (including long term sickness).

They also need to cover equipment, travel time (which takes time out of their working day but for which they can't charge for), insurance etc.

The benefits of being employed are so much more than a guaranteed income each month.

I charge for blocks of time rather than hours, and it works out at about £13.30 per hour.

I was due to put my charges up at the start of 2019 but left it a year because of covid, and they are due to go up again at the beginning of next year. I'm going to put them up to around £14.00 per hour.

£12.50 is quite cheap. I wouldn't expect brilliant service for that. Anything less is a bit of a joke. If cleaners work for that they are doing themselves a disservice.

I don't clean ovens and expect my clients to keep their toilets in general good order. I don't cleany shitty loos and think it's disrespectful to your cleaner if you leave them like that for them to sort out. I'm happy to do general tidying, but won't clean up after excessively messy people. (I'd be charging £15+ for that, I don't need to because I'm good and reliable so can pick my clients, and dump any who take the piss.)

I took the opportunity over covid lockdowns to get rid of the clients who were annoying me, such as those whose attitude was that I was 'staff' in any way, and the ones who I had to chase up for payment.

The ones I kept paid me during lockdowns, are flexible if I need to change a day (and I am flexible if they need it), pay me on time, communicate well, treat me like an ordinary business owner. For these people I go that extra mile, so when one lot booked into a hotel whilst their house was being refitted and then decorated, I went over for a day before they got back to put everything that was boxed up back in place and cleaned up after the decorators so that when they got home everything was just so and they didn't need to do it. I also do extra spring cleaning when my people are on holiday because they kept me going when times were rough for me during the worst of covid, so it's my way to show that I appreciate that.

All of my current clients had poor cleaning experiences before I arrived on the scene, and we mutually appreciate each other.

For information our cleaners provide all materials and bring their own cleaner.

@WarmAndFluff employee contributions to the NHS pension scheme range from 5% to 14%; the employer contribution (in addition) is 14.3%. Also if you are working a 50 hour week, would some of this not be as paid overtime? It is extremely generous compared to other employer schemes particularly outside the public sector. Add in the sick pay schemes and life insurance elements and its a very valuable benefit. The entitlement of some people never fails to amaze me.

[quote icedcoffees]@WarmAndFluff people know all that, but you also get sick pay, annual leave, compassionate leave and all sorts of other benefits that self employed people don't get.

Out of the £15 an hour a cleaner charges, they have to save enough to put away a pension (with no added employer contribution - just what they can afford to save), money for annual leave (so 5.6 weeks worth if they take the same amount as most employees), and money to cover sick days (including long term sickness).

They also need to cover equipment, travel time (which takes time out of their working day but for which they can't charge for), insurance etc.

The benefits of being employed are so much more than a guaranteed income each month.[/quote]
Exactly.

I used to take 6 weeks leave a year which meant that if I was paid £13.30 an hour, if you multiply that by 46 and divide by 52 it's actually an hourly rate of just under £12. (At the moment I grab runs of days where I can whenever clients are on holiday or self isolating as covid has made planning exact routines a bit trickier, plus I've had a lot of down time during lockdowns.)

I also pay for insurance, my own materials, a private pension, and work through most illnesses unless I'm absolutely unable to.

I much prefer working for myself despite the extra costs, though.

@RoseStar and @icedcoffees I understand what you're saying, and I have worked as a (part time) cleaner at various points throughout my early career, so I am aware what a cleaning job is like.

However, I'd like to say the opposite - if NHS work is so fantastic, why don't the cleaners do that instead?

The reason is that working for the NHS is stressful and inflexible - we may have annual leave, but we often can't take it, I have to book 6 months in advance if I want time off during school holidays as we're so short staffed that only a very small amount of people are allowed off on any one day (let alone a whole week!). This year I've been given one day off for the Christmas holidays, the 24th (after I threatened to resign to get time with my family).

I have to work two of the bank holidays over Christmas, and I had to take New Years Day as annual leave this year because Saturday the 1st Jan was not a bank holiday (no one else is allowed to now as only one person from bands 5-7 are allowed off).

Cleaners can come and go - they don't have to work weekends, nights, or bank holidays if they don't want to.

They would have to put in years of education before they can come into an NHS job like nursing - nurses have to pay for their training, and most these days are graduates (and for a lot of other career paths in the NHS at band 5 you must have a minimum of a relevant degree).

To be a cleaner, all you have to do is answer an ad, be physically able to clean, and show up. No qualifications needed, no debts owed so they will never have to pay huge loans back with their £15 an hour.

However, I'd like to say the opposite - if NHS work is so fantastic, why don't the cleaners do that instead?

Do you mean as cleaners? Yes very good point.

If it’s as eg a clinical role, then we are on exactly same page. It just doesn’t work that way

However, I'd like to say the opposite - if NHS work is so fantastic, why don't the cleaners do that instead?

I don't think NHS work is at all fantastic, lol. My parents worked for the NHS and I'm well aware of all its' pitfalls. I'd never work there.

However, opinions on the NHS aside, what I'm saying is that you can't compare the pay between two totally different roles.

People on here are getting upset because self-employed cleaners (and other 'unskilled' self-employed individuals) earn "more than nurses" but they're not making valid comparisons. It's not like for like scenarios.

They would have to put in years of education before they can come into an NHS job like nursing - nurses have to pay for their training, and most these days are graduates (and for a lot of other career paths in the NHS at band 5 you must have a minimum of a relevant degree).

Yep - but as people have said, that's a choice you make to get into jobs like nursing or teaching. You don't HAVE to spend years in education or university unless you want to do those jobs.

To be a cleaner, all you have to do is answer an ad, be physically able to clean, and show up. No qualifications needed, no debts owed so they will never have to pay huge loans back with their £15 an hour.

That might be the case for employed cleaners, but we're talking about self-employed cleaners, and being a good small business owner takes a lot more than that. You need to be organised and have excellent time-keeping and time-management skills. You need to be punctual and good at communicating with your clients. You have to be insured and responsible. You need a back-up plan if you're unwell and unable to get to work. You're responsible for your clients' home, it's security and their belongings. It's so, so much more than "turn up, clean, go home".

[quote elbea]@Canii well nurses are getting pensions aren’t they, and self employed cleaners aren’t. Cleaners have to pay for fuel to multiple jobs, equipment, insurance - all things nurses aren’t. Surely nobody is that dense.[/quote]
I'm puzzled as to why people are pitting cleaners and nurses against each other?

Is it some kind of bizarre race to the bottom? Nurses are badly paid and treated like shit, so self-employed cleaners have to be the same?

Oh for goodness sake @WarmAndFluff - did you not realise when you went into nursing that sick people didn't stop being sick at Christmas! Almost everyone I know and wherever I have worked has had to book school holiday time annual leave six months or more in advance to maintain cover.

Whilst my cleaner gets £15ph, out of that she has to pay tax and NI, let's say 20%, her own annual leave and her own sick pay.

Let's say she works 35 hpw - £525 pw. 35 x 52 = 1920 hrs per annum. If the cleaner just takes the statutory hols of 28 days and allows for 5 more when they might be ill, that's 33 days - roughly 6.5 weeks where no money is earned. £525 x 45.5 weeks = £23625/1920 = £12.30ph. Out of that the cleaner has to pay for their own pension - 20% to match total NHS pension contributions taking their hourly rate down to less than £10ph less their tax and ni. Plus they have little or no job security and do a hard physical job 100% of their time.

I pay £13 an hour which I think is OK; cleaners have to live as well. Its actually on the low side if they're doing things properly and are self employed.

So £13.50 to manage around your kids and animals is fair. What I would suggest is that you get your family to tidy up after themselves so the cleaners can do what they ought to be doing - cleaning!

That’s a positive that low paid workers can finally up their wages

Don’t have a cleaner then or one for fewer hours than before.