Feedback wanted: Cleaners

Hello everyone!

As some of you already may know, we want to change how cleaners work, so you can choose which hours they should be cleaning, instead of having fixed working hours (0 to 4 AM).

What do you think if:

  1. Cleaners are assigned to a specific business (like any other employee type)
  2. Cleaners have reduced wage (as they clean slower than the player)
  3. Cleaners require cleaning stations instead of mops, so mops would be for early game and for the player only
  4. Cleaners clean once an hour, and the amount cleaned depends on their skill level
  5. Cleaners are assigned to the cleaning station the same way other employees are assigned to their working stations (through the schedule, choosing the work shifts hours)

For reference, a possible cleaning station:

What do you think?
@trust_level_0

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Hi David,

Cleaners are assigned to a specific business (like any other employee type)

The best way would be if they are not assigned to one business, but the system checks their schedule and it shouldn’t interfere with another business in particular hour and day.

Cleaners have reduced wage (as they clean slower than the player)

I don’t think this is needed. I can see it now, I`m gonna setup 3-4 shifts for 1 hour during the open hours, so the room is clean during the day. In to total they will work the same 3-4hours per business.

Cleaners require cleaning stations instead of mops, so mops would be for early game and for the player only

Totally agree. And this station could hold several mops which the player previously added there (lets say the limit will be 2), and the player could take one if wanted.

Cleaners clean once an hour, depending on their skill level

I think their skill level should apply only on how much % is cleaned for 1 hour.

4 Likes

Hi David!

Much much better. The unilateral allocation of staff in my view is one of the best solutions to dispose of the work optimally. Although, in doing so, I would also start thinking about fixing (not fixing, the translator takes it like this … I’m really talking about modifying) the hiring mechanism (currently you can only hire one type of operator at a time … and in the long run it could be boring).

As far as salaries are concerned, I am not talking about salaries at the moment, as long as the revenue is not balanced, I will not touch this issue.

Cleaning stations?
Brilliant. Yes. Absolutely.
That’s all I’ll say as I think it’s a perfect idea.

Have them cleaned once every hour according to skill?
Hmm, yes…
But wouldn’t it be possible to decide “exactly” when the operators should clean? Not because the idea is wrong, but because of my sense of ‘order and control’!

Totally agree with this point, absolutely.
Although it is necessary, in my opinion, to divide up each cleaner for each shop in the shift card. I often find myself not remembering which operator works in which shop, and in case I have to redo the shifts, it becomes really difficult to manage all those cleaners on screen.

_

Thank you for asking our opinion!
I wish you good work and a good day

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Thank you very much @Ampire and @IronPatriot! Valuable feedback there.

Regarding point 4, I’ve reworded it:

  1. Cleaners clean once an hour, and the amount cleaned depends on their skill level
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  1. Cleaners are assigned to a specific business (like any other employee type)

I think I would prefer cleaners to be an HQ task instead. You have one cleaning manager who sends any available cleaner who is on shift to clean any building that is dirty. The longer a store is open, and the more customers it gets, the dirtier it would get. This would allow your Cleaning HQ Manager to dynamic move Cleaners around as needed so everything stays clean…unless you haven’t hired enough cleaners for that shift.

  1. Cleaners have reduced wage (as they clean slower than the player)

Sure…money is so unbalanced right now, it’s hard to tell.

  1. Cleaners require cleaning stations instead of mops, so mops would be for early game and for the player only

I like this…the Mop makes sense for the Player early game. Combining this with my HQ option above…each business that has a Cleaning Station will be included in the HQ cleaner’s rotation.

  1. Cleaners clean once an hour, depending on their skill level

I like this concept. If you don’t have some HQ manager, then yes…they just clean as much as they can during each hour they are assigned to a store.

  1. Cleaners are assigned to the cleaning station the same way other employees are assigned to their working stations (through the schedule, choosing the work shifts hours)

Yes. If you don’t have an HQ manager, then each businesses’ Cleaning Station would be handled manually in the Schedule section.

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I’m a bit undecided on whether I would like the cleaners to be assigned to a business (like customer service) or to the HQ (that was my original idea, so they can handle multiple businesses depending on how much needs to be cleaned).
The problem I see with HQ is that it might get very messy once you got 20-30 or even more businesses and a loooooooong list of cleaners. At least unless you have to assign their working schedule and a list of businesses they should take care of. If they just “magically” do the cleaning during the day, it would be way easier but feel less realistic.

For number 4, I have to add that the amount cleaned should also depend on the building size. A tiny little gift shop is quicker to clean than my giant casino (beta 4). Of course a larger building should also get dirty slower (talking about percentage; in absolute “dirty spots” it should be the same).

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well said … I hadn’t thought of that!
The larger the surface area to be cleaned, the longer it will take!

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The problem I see with HQ is …If they just “magically” do the cleaning during the day, it would be way easier but feel less realistic.

I see it more like the delivery driver. The driver is assigned to a truck/van. Each van/truck can handle a certain number of businesses to deliver to, depending on the type of truck, then the logistics manager handles the specifics.

Similarly, a cleaning “crew” can handle a certain amount of “dirtiness” in an hour/day. A larger “cleaning crew” can handle more dirtiness per hour, etc. The Cleaning Manager can send crews to each specific businesses once they reach a certain threshold of dirtiness, - this threshold for each business would be set by the player.

If you have more dirtiness than your crews can handle, they are not able to keep up. You can hire more crews or larger crews, otherwise the dirtiness will accumulate over time.

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Whilst reading your comment, a crazy idea popped in my head. Why not making a cleaning business. It can work as lawyers right now. But, you can make a contract with them, or, just tell them to clean your businesses and set the cleaning hours. In this way we will have a business for them to assigned and have our shops cleaned.

update: maybe eventually, character customization will come. We will have different suites that get dirty and need to be cleaned or washed. We can have washing machines there in that business.

update2: and to make it more realistic. Vans and drivers can also be assigned there.

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Hi guys! After reading all your feedback and discussing with the team, we’ve decided to choose something that should work for most of you:

  1. Cleaners will have to be assigned to one business. But! It can be a HQ :sunglasses:
  2. Customer service employees will be able to clean (but with lower skill), so you don’t necessarily need a cleaner for a small business
  3. HQ will be able to handle cleaning through HR managers, being able to clean several businesses per cleaner

This way, there would be three steps of management:

  1. Early game, you’d want to assign one of your customer service employees to the cleaning station
  2. Middle game, on bigger businesses, you’d want a cleaner to handle the cleaning of your business
  3. Late game, many businesses and cleaners, you’d just let the HR managers handle that

What do you think?

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Hi David,

Customer service employees will be able to clean (but with lower skill), so you don’t necessarily need a cleaner for a small business

Good, can this information be displayed in the employee details? And few questions:

  • Can the cleaning % be upgraded?
  • Will it additionally affect their exhaustion?
  • And going back to the realistic part, will it affect the sales, since during cleaning time the customers are not served?

Overall, I can’t say exactly how its going to be, good or bad, need to touch it)

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Hey! Yeah, that information (the skill value) will be displayed both when hiring and in the MyEmployees App.

The cleaning % will probably work as any other skill, so it should be upgradeable (trained). We still have to do some internal discussion about this, though, but good point! We didn’t think about that.

Regarding exhaustion/sales: employees will have to be assigned to the cleaning station the same way it would be assigned to the cash registers. So ideally, you’d make sure the employees keep a good amount of working hours and that cash registers are always working.

This could be an example of how it could work:

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Regarding exhaustion/sales: employees will have to be assigned to the cleaning station the same way it would be assigned to the cash registers. So ideally, you’d make sure the employees keep a good amount of working hours and that cash registers are always working.

In other words, one employee cannot be assigned at the same hour for both cash register and cleaning station, correct?

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Exactly!

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I really like that concept - especially for the differences between early/mid/late game.

In general, I like the idea of being able to schedule cleaning to the customer service people. I like how you’ve already shown in the example how you can schedule cleaning during opening hours or when the store is closed.

Quick clarification about this part:

Cleaners will have to be assigned to one business. But! It can be a HQ

So you can manually hire cleaners still for each business and then assign their hours using the new scheduler?

Then additionally/late game, you can assign them to the HQ building instead, where HR will handle their scheduling?

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Yes, that’s the idea!

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Love it.

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@David I like that you are taking away the gap between cash register and cleaning station.
This is one of the things that have bothered me.
When you have 2 cash registers, 1 mop and a lot of staff you need to scroll a lot even with a 27" monitor.
so yes, make the staff page less spacious.

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I like the idea of a cleaning (janitorial) service business. It would create another playable business and it would give you the option of contracting out the work for your stores and/or offices instead of having your own employees do it.

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  • Cleaners Assignments: I like the idea/concept of scaling up of cleaning during different stages of the game.

  • Cleaning Wages: Cleaning wages should be similar to real world ~$40,000/year ($19.25/Hour) in New York (~$30,000/year (~$14.5/Hour) outside NY) if possible.

  • Cleaning Stations: I like the concept of a cleaning station. Janitors have small closets or stations in the real world.

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