Week 3

Task 2: Case Study – House Angels ( 15 marks)
House Angels is a domestic cleaning agency run by 45 year old Sarah Diaz. She is in her fourth
month of trading and operates from her home office in Brighton. Sarah has worked in a similar
business for eight years and when that business closed down and the owner moved interstate, she
decided to set up her own agency. The previous business was run from offices in Camberwell and
employed two full-time and one part-time staffs. At present Sarah has thirteen cleaners on her books
and twenty regular clients, most of whom she got through word of mouth. Sarah has figured out she
needs between 100 clients on her books by the end of twelve months in order to reach her cash-flow
projections. She will also need around 50 cleaners if the client level crosses 100.

Sarah thought hard about the decision to start the business on her own. She certainly had enough
knowledge about how to run a cleaning agency from her past work experience. She also had a few
ideas on how she could improve operations if she was to do it herself. However, she knew that it was
going to cost a lot in the early stages and decided that initially she could not afford to employ any staff
to assist with running the business.
Due to her lack of financial resources Sarah chose to start up as a sole trader. All she had to do was
register her business name and get an ABN. Later on down the track, if all things run smoothly, she
will be achieving around $60,000 per month, i.e. $3,000 per client on an average. Her expenses per
client on an average are $2,000 including operational costs such as chemicals, accessories, tools,
and staff. Eventually she will register as a proprietary limited company if it grows to 100 clients. She is
currently considering whether she should extend her business to partnership or corporation or just
stay as a sole trader. As a sole trader Sarah’s time is very important as she has to do all the day to
day running of the business, as well as going out to meet new clients, run regular advertising
campaigns and see that her customers are happy with the service.

Step 1: Suggest generic advice to Sarah on her business restructuring considering the expansion. Suggest if she needs to get partners, or more investment, or more staff, or a large operational office. (100 words)

Step 2: Prepare 5 job duties in designing the Job Description for cleaners

Step 3: Develop 5 KPIs for her employees (cleaners)

Step 4: Prepare an induction checklist for the cleaners who will be hired

Checklist items for induction	Checklist items for induction

Step 5: Prepare a HR operational plan with work allocation with supervisory roles

Step 6: Develop a common roster template to use for all client sites (You may use scales to
draw tables)

Step 7: Prepare a list of resource allocation and a monthly budget for her considering the
business has reached 100 clients

Cost factor	Unit cost	No. of units	Total

Step 8: Analyse the budget and identify approximate profit/loss that she should have after the
expenses

Step 9: Develop a contingency plan mentioning what should be her backup plan for extra
workloads or new clients

Step 10. Prepare a draft letter for Sarah so that she can send to all employees in various site
locations. The letter should advise and encourage supporting individual cleaners and teams to
effectively, economically and safely use resources