Is Your Janitorial Business Accidentally Punishing Your Best Cleaners
What You’ll Learn
- Meet with cleaners about the hours that work
- 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 load builds and the cleaner gets tired very fast. A small part-time role can turn into a big night shift job. The cleaner may quit and say cleaning is not needed 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 shifts each week. 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 and set a clear limit.
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?
Call other cleaners first. Leave the top cleaner alone when hours are high.
How often should the owner talk with cleaners about hours?
Talk when hours change. Talk when more shifts get offered.
Transcript
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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.
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