My team renovate wood floors by sanding and sealing and they are really good at it judging by the positive reviews and testimonials given by our customers. Maybe the reason they are so good at it is because they only concentrate on just using these skills. However, I have recently had quite a few enquiries for wood floor ‘fitting’ and have turned these potential customers down because unfortunately, my team don’t have the necessary skills. We get plenty of work anyway, but this would probably get the phone ringing even more, and mixing restoration with fitting may be less repetitive work. I’m sure they would be keen on learning how to correctly lay a wooden floor, but as I don't have the time to do the training in-house, I am thinking of sending them on a basic 3 day course which would give them a jump-start. As they are employed as ‘sole-traders’ - I may agree to pay for the training initially on condition that they will in turn, agree to pay me back in full if they resign within one year and 50 percent if they resign within two years. What are your thoughts please? Bob www.floorfixer.co.uk
Training is the only way forward. But if you are paying for it you should Defo get them to sign something so they don't bugger off straight away, good idea Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
If you have plenty of floor sanding work i'd stick with it and leave the floor fitting alone [its what i'm gonna be doing very shortly tbh] Even doing literally everything by the book things can often come back to bite you with regards to floor fitting in my opinion. I'm gonna be stopping any parquet installs as well and stick to S & S.
I really appreciate your advice Gaz as when I met you and your lads at the FITA Training Centre last year, it occurred to me that our businesses are very similar in every way. It is because of your post, that I have decided not to go ahead with my original plan and to just carry on specialising on what we do best - sanding and sealing floors. We will continue to do repairs, and leave the fitting to others. This is an example of just what this forum is all about and getting advice from other people in the same position is a valuable attribute. Bob www.floorfixer.co.uk
I enjoyed that course, always good to meet fellow S & S merchants have used a few of the Woca products that we saw on the course, good products that work well... i've got a 50m + new parquet install in a few weeks [all the subfloor prep as well] and after that i'm not doing any more installs, just concentrate on Sand and Seals & minor repairs...
