What is a labour model?
A labour model converts a specification into hours and people — how many cleaners, at what times, for how long, to deliver the tasks at the frequencies agreed.
Use this diagram
Free to use on your own site, in training material or in a handout, as long as the credit link stays on it. Paste this where you want the diagram to appear.
<figure>
<img src="https://cleanoptix.co.uk/glossary/labour-model/diagram.svg" alt="labour model — diagram from CleanOptix" width="880" height="620" loading="lazy">
<figcaption>
<a href="https://cleanoptix.co.uk/glossary/labour-model">What is a labour model?</a> — diagram by
<a href="https://cleanoptix.co.uk">CleanOptix</a>
</figcaption>
</figure>It is where a contract becomes deliverable or does not. A specification requiring more work than the model funds will be delivered short, and the shortfall appears as audit failures months later.
It has to account for absence, holiday and turnover. A model with no cover assumption breaks the first time someone is off sick, which is within the first fortnight.
Periodic work needs its own hours. Folding it into the daily allocation means it gets done instead of the daily round rather than as well as it.
In practice
A contract staffed on paper by one person covering two buildings.
The travel between them is not in the hours. Neither is the time to collect and return keys, or the lift that only runs on a fob held in the other building.
A labour model that counts only cleaning time is a model that is short every single shift, and the shortfall is taken out of the work rather than out of the price.
It shows as declining scores and rising turnover, read separately.
What goes wrong in practice
- No cover allowance, so any absence produces a service failure.
- Periodic work with no hours of its own.
- Model never reconciled with actual hours worked after mobilisation.