So your cleaning business is up and running with new clients coming in every week. That calls for expansion, which translates to recruiting new employees. While it may seem like a simple task, it’s quite complicated, considering you need to look for people who reflect your company’s mission.
Everything from drafting notification for a job opening to in-person interviews needs to take place in a perfect manner if you want to end up with a reliable team. But how do you ensure a smooth hiring process?
Fortunately for you, we discuss the nitty-gritty of the hiring process for a cleaning service in this guide.
What You'll
Learn..
Below you’ll find 5 simple to follow steps that ‘walk’ you through the Hiring Employees for Cleaning Business (with no experience or special skills required).
How to Write a Job Ad for a Cleaning Business?
Often, cleaning business owners don’t write professional ads and end up getting applications from good-for-nothing people who are only looking for a quick gig.
Instead, you should spend sufficient time on the job posting step, ensuring the job description and requirements and up to mark.
Start by writing an attractive job title. It’s the first thing people see in job postings. After that, make sure you clearly mention what is expected of the employee.
Write a precise job description and include any specific requirements, such as knowing how to use a commercial vacuum cleaner. Also, write the expected salary and benefits you’re offering.
If you’re a relatively younger company, you may not be giving any medical benefits to your employees. But you can compensate for this by offering other perks, like vacation days and sick leaves.
Add a call to action at the end of your job advertisement, such as ‘email us here’ or ‘call now’ to encourage people to apply instantly. Here are some things to specify on your job post:
Where to Advertise a Cleaning Job?
Today, you can count on more than just flyers to advertise cleaning jobs. While job boards and newspaper classifieds are still a great way to reach out to potential employees, there are some other places to advertise jobs too:
Your Website
One of the best places to advertise jobs is your cleaning website, especially if you already have a substantial clientele that regularly visits your website. Create a ‘careers’ page on your website and post jobs there whenever you need a new employee.
LinkedIn is to businesses what Instagram is to influencers. Not only can you network with related individuals in the cleaning industry but also find self motivated and dedicated professionals willing to join your business.
Online Job Boards
Advertise your cleaning job on online job boards, such as Indeed, if you want to reach a number of people at once.
Since the platform is free, many people use it to find jobs, and you’ll definitely find someone worth your company.
Social Media Pages
If you run a successful cleaning business, chances are your social media presence is already grand. So, leverage your followers to advertise the cleaning jobs. Make sure you write exactly what you’re looking for since social media captions have a limited word count.
Or, you can add the link to your website’s career page to your social media bios and stories.
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What Traits Should You Look For In Employees?
Much like any other business, the cleaning industry also has several requirements. As a business owner, you need to make your cleaning company meet the industrial standards through the competence of its employees.
Here are some traits the employees for a cleaning business must have:
Friendliness
A cleaner goes into other people’s homes - their personal spaces. Therefore, it’s important for every cleaning company employee to be friendly and polite to clients.
Make sure you’re choosing employees who don’t lose their temper on petty things and have a rational approach to confusion and misunderstandings.
Problem-solving Abilities
Even when working as a team, the chances are that every employee will have to deal with one room or one task. So, a cleaning company employee must have problem-solving skills to resolve minor issues on their own instead of calling up the manager for tiny inconveniences.
For instance, if the house has too many nooks and crannies and the appropriate cleaning head is missing in the vacuum cleaner, your employee must know how to deal with the matter at hand.
Trustworthiness
Again, when you go into someone’s house, the clients are trusting you with their valuable possessions.
So, you cannot have one of your staff members stealing something from the client’s house because that will put an unwashable stain on your reputation as a cleaning business.
Make sure you include specific measures to the hiring process that determine the trustworthiness of an applicant. For instance, you can ask for referrals or even conduct a background check if you have to.
Prior Cleaning Experience
Has the applicant worked in a cleaning company before? While previous cleaning experience is not mandatory, it definitely helps remove the hassle of you having to teach the new employees everything from scratch.
Applicants with previous cleaning experience will also have a better idea of what is expected of them. Alternatively, you can opt for someone who has done a physically demanding job before.
Commitment
The cleaning industry is not the most glamorous. On top of that, the work is physically demanding and requires attention to detail. So, it’s important to hire committed individuals if you want to establish a positive company culture.
Overview of the Hiring Process
Commercial cleaning companies build their team by hiring employees who are fit for the job. To ensure this, your hiring process must be streamlined and smooth.
Some of the steps involved in hiring cleaners include reviewing applications, getting back to people, interviewing them, conducting background checks, calling shortlisted individuals for a second interview, and talking to them about salaries.
Here’s how to perform all these steps efficiently:
Reviewing Applications
Since it’s the first step of hiring employers, you need to make sure you’re doing everything right. It’s likely you may get so many applications that it’s hard to go through all of them properly.
So, you should set a sufficient amount of time for reviewing applications, such as 30 days. Create the following piles for the applications:
Interviewing Applicants
Call the people whose applications you put in the ‘very interested’ pile. You can choose to have in-person interviews or talk to them on the phone.
Plan the questions for the interview beforehand. Here are some ideas:
Apart from these, you can also ask other questions to determine what the cleaner will do in certain situations. For instance, ask them what they’ll do if they find something valuable belonging to the client while cleaning? Or, what would they do if they had to troubleshoot a cleaning machine?
Background Checking
When you hire employees, it’s essential to know their history. However, you don’t have to do this for every application you receive. Instead, shortlist a couple of applicants and run background checks on them.
Although background checks are common in the cleaning industry, you still need the applicants’ consent. But that’s not a problem since you can download the form online. Then, use the services of a background checking website to make your job easier and stress-free.
Checking References
References are a great way to learn about a candidate’s attitude and previous performance, especially if experienced cleaners have applied for the job. Once you have shortlisted several candidates, check their references and ask their previous employer about their performance.
Here are some questions to ask the references listed on the applicant’s resume:
Job Offer
After confirming your choice, call the candidates once again and offer them the job. During this discussion, you should tell them the perks you offer, health benefits (if any), and their salaries.
However, don’t be too quick to step out of your budget. Instead, you can set a probationary period and offer a raise once you have seen the employee’s performance during this time.
Training
Once you’ve got your new employees on board, start the training session. Make sure they know about specific instructions for certain clients. For instance, if one of your clients is a school, you may have guidelines about using particular cleaning products.
the Complete Cleaning Business Starter Kit
Get our FREE Comprehensive Start-Up guide, complete with a checklist, business card template, pricing calculator and Invoice template.
How To Make Your Employees Stay?
Congratulations, you finally have new hires on the team. But it doesn’t end here. Many companies find it hard to retain employees, and you’ll be surprised to know that most workers don’t leave their jobs due to hopes of getting better money elsewhere.
Instead, they leave due to the lack of incentives and poor managerial skills of their supervisors or other superiors. If you want to make your employees stay, offer them incentives, such as:
More importantly, establish a positive working culture to ensure your employees are happy at their jobs. Be a great boss who listens to employee feedback and makes improvements in the workplace accordingly.
Also, make your employees feel valued since they’re an asset to your company. If your employees receive encouragement and positive reinforcement, they will surely give their best to work.
Conclusion
The cleaning industry is quite diverse, with some businesses offering residential services while others offer post-construction cleaning services. Every cleaning business will require its potential employees to have certain skills.
Therefore, when you’re hiring new employees, you should keep your company’s specific requirements in consideration. Besides helping you pick the right people for the job, it will also allow you to create a team that doesn’t require extensive training.
The bottom line is not to rush your decision and take your time in evaluating everything from applications and interviews to references.
