Over Hundreds of Handyman Professionals Choose Connecteam for Daily Business Needs

The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently reported that, “Employment of general maintenance and repair workers is projected to grow 6 percent from 2018 to 2028.” So if you’re a handyman professional, knowing that your industry will only grow means that tackling your most common challenges, both in residential or commercial areas, is key.

From hiring and training skilled employees to finding new clients and retaining them to creating a work schedule, tracking hours, maintaining communication and more, you’ve got a lot on your plate. Not to mention focusing on the bottom line and coming out on top. 

With challenges like these, hundreds of handyman professionals turn to Connecteam, a leading solution for mobile workforce management. We spoke to these professionals to learn how they utilize Connecteam on a daily basis to overcome those challenges.

Challenges handyman professionals faced before Connecteam: 

• Reports are endless

“We have to act on reports our employees submit right away but using outdated methods just causes me unnecessary stress as it isn’t efficient.”

“Most of the time, I’m sending email after email without being able to track who is reading my messages. It’s important for me to know that my team read my update or saw my report and chasing after everyone to check up on this wastes a lot of time I don’t have.”  

• Time tracking is a complicated process

“Being stuck going through form after form to ensure everyone’s time tracking and payroll is accurate is important but a tedious task that takes up my whole day.”

“I don’t like having to play phone tag if I have questions about the hours an employee entered, it can last all day and that only causes me and my employees unwanted stress.”

• Internal communication is a tough task

“Communicating with my team is really hard because it’s not like we all sit in the same office. I don’t want to have to send emails or text messages that no one reads, and sometimes it’s an important update everyone has to know. Like a new safety protocol or bad weather conditions.”

“I’m always answering phone calls or trying to call someone back because I missed the call, this is really time consuming and super inefficient.”

• Scheduling is tedious and time consuming

“I waste too much time creating the work schedule and it isn’t even my top priority but it has to get done. If someone calls out or something happens, I lose even more time finding someone to cover a shift.”

How Connecteam helps you tackle common challenges

Daily checklists and reports

As a handyman, daily operational needs involve a lot of checklists and reports to automate information flow and gain oversight, that’s where Connecteam comes in. Instead of dealing with paper forms, everything is instant and digital. Handyman professionals usually create the following: 

• Service summary form
• Stock order request
• Chemical/pesticide materials usage
• Customer incident (if a customer is very unhappy)
• Vehicle accident report
• Service quality inspection report (done by supervisors)
• Expense reimbursement
• Employee performance review

Additionally, all submitted entries are digitally logged, are automatically sent to a predefined email address as a PDF copy and can also be exported in an Excel sheet.

Streamlining communication 

There is no doubt that communication is a must for managers and employees, but when you don’t work in the same location, it isn’t easy to achieve. Connecteam makes communication much easier for handyman professionals: 

• Chat groups and channels: streamline day-to-day communication easily and efficiently, spreading the word about the employee of the month, poor weather conditions, the best route to the job site, great customer reviews, and more. Start a one-on-one chat or create specific groups separated by location, customer, etc. 
• Realtime push notifications and updates: send formal and informal announcements, including HR updates, information distribution, safety reports, employee of the month, birthday wishes and more.
• Employee directory: find the right contact details of coworkers, managers and more. Search by name, job role, department, etc.

Job scheduling

While scheduling can be a complex process, that isn’t the case with Connecteam as many handyman professionals benefit from the following:

• Assign employees to service calls  with all the relevant information
• Keep records of clock in and out time and location with GPS stamps.
• Allow employees to add shift notes and comments for further explanation and documentation when necessary.
• Let employees accept and reject shifts (optional – can be disabled).

Accurate time tracking 

When it comes to accurate time tracking and payroll sheets, handyman professionals rely on Connecteam to make this a smooth process. 

• For clocking in and out of service calls with a GPS location stamp.
• Live Breadcrumb geo-tracking to oversee and track employees while on-the-go at every point throughout the day.
• Sending push notifications to remind employees to clock in or out. 
• Utilizing notes and tags to address specific needs (like filtering by customer or specific dates, keeping track with equipment or stock used).
• Exporting payroll sheets to Connecteam’s QuickBooks Online and Gusto integration for smooth and 100% accurate payroll, per shift or as a total.
• Viewing current and past timesheets.

Human resource needs

Even a handyman has to have an HR department to help automate processes and ensure employee engagement. The following are made much easier:

• Recommendations: recommend friends or family for a position to improve recruitment reach.
• Vacation and sick leave request: employees receive an automatic update if requests were approved or denied. 
• Personal information form: on-boarding new hires requires key information such as personal information, contact information, emergency contact, documents like tax forms and a photo ID.
• Updating contact information: employees can easily update contact information on the app and HR can see it in real-time – from changes to address, name, phone number, email, bank account information and more. 
• Employee satisfaction surveys or performance reviews: HR can use premade templates or can create their own to send surveys and track responses in real-time. Additionally, maintaining performance reviews on a regular basis allows for more accurate feedback.

Compliance purposes

It’s crucial for handyman professionals to remain compliant at all times with ‘Read and sign’ forms and periodical refresher training courses. Connecteam ensures that all documents are logged and automatically sent as a PDF copy to predefined email(s) which may be customized per form. In addition, users can export a summary report whenever necessary.

Read and sign documents include:

• Employee handbook acknowledgment
• Uniform agreement 
• Usage of hazardous materials
• Sexual harassment policy
• Incident finding report

Company protocols are instantly available:

• Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) 
• Safety and emergency protocols
• Usage of hazardous materials
• Employee handbook
• Code of ethics
• Sexual harassment policy
• Uniform policy

Training all employees

Whether you have new hires or current employees, training is an on-going task. With Connecteam, your entire team be reached on a regular basis. Managers can monitor progress and can execute training at anytime. Employees enjoy being able to work at their own pace and it’s nice to be able to pick up where they left off at a time that works best for them.

Training can include: 

• Health and safety training
• Sexual harassment training
• Equipment usage and maintenance
• Test and quizzes