Hiring and Staffing Video

Is Your Janitorial Business Accidentally Punishing Your Best Cleaners

What You’ll Learn

Talk with cleaners about the hours that work for them
Identify what is best for each person
Avoid assigning extra shifts when hours are high

Short Summary

Good cleaners are hard to replace in a janitorial company. Many companies keep giving the top cleaner more shifts at night. Good help often says yes, even when hours feel too high. The hours pile up until it is too much. A small part-time role can turn into a big night shift job. Then the cleaner quits and says they don’t need to clean right now. Stop this by talking with cleaners about hours that work for them. Respect what is best for each person and hold back on more shifts.

Frequently Asked Questions

How can a company tell when hours are too high?

Watch for cleaners taking on more and more shifts. Ask if the hours still work.

What if the best cleaner keeps saying yes to more shifts?

A yes does not always mean the hours are okay. The owner should ask what works for them and try not to pile on more.

Is it okay to keep a cleaner part-time?

Yes, if that is what the cleaner wants. Part-time hours can keep the cleaner longer.

What if a shift must be covered tonight?

When you can, fight the urge to keep piling extra shifts on your best cleaner.

How often should the owner talk with cleaners about hours?

Talk when hours change. Talk when more shifts get offered.

Full Transcript

Well, hi there. Welcome back. Dan again from CleanGuru.

Are you accidentally punishing the best workers, the best cleaners in your company? Are you accidentally giving your best cleaners too much work, too many hours? I think you probably know what I’m talking about.

Boy, is that tempting, isn’t it? It’s so hard to really find good help. And when you find someone that’s good, you say, “Would you mind taking this shift? Would you mind taking that shift?” A lot of times, a good person is not only good at cleaning, they’re also cooperative and they want to help. So they say yes and yes. They don’t want to disappoint you.

All of a sudden, what maybe turned into, for them, a part-time job is now pushing it. They may even have a daytime job. Now we’re pushing them a lot of hours in their nighttime job. And suddenly we’re surprised when they leave and they go, “Well, yeah, it’s nothing to do with you. I’m sorry. I’m going to make a change. I don’t need to be cleaning right now.”

Where, if we would have just held off on so many hours, it might have been a good part, a good fit in their life, but we pushed it too far.

So, what’s the answer, really? Probably just talking to people, really being aware of what would be best for them, and then trying to honor that and acknowledge that. And try to fight the temptation, when we can, of just piling on and giving more and more work to them, which ends up being, maybe sometimes, too much work, right?

Till next time, remember: you can do this. You really can.