So, you just started your own cleaning business and your clients are so happy and you’ve gotten so many referrals that your business is growing exponentially and you need to hire more cleaners? Finding good cleaning staff is one of the biggest challenges in the cleaning industry, let alone hiring a new cleaning team. There are a lot of factors that you have to consider, like will the cleaners do well? Do they know how to clean? Can they be trusted?
Don’t worry, though, because we prepared a handy guide for you on how you can find the best cleaners to hire.
List the tasks and traits of your future employee
Before you start the process of hiring employees, remember that your future employees are your business’ greatest asset. Your future employees are your investments and will be one of your greatest help towards reaching your business goals.
With that being said, start off by making a list of the tasks that you will delegate to your future employees. It will help both you and your future employees if you would provide them with a comprehensive scope of work listing what exactly their duties are at certain work hours at a certain rate. Doing this will avoid confusion and conflicts in the future.
You might also want to make a list of the traits you’re looking for in a cleaner. It may be hard to find someone who works just like you do, but you can at least find someone who has good work ethic and integrity, which are very important traits to look for in a cleaner. And although it’s tempting to hire employees even without a lot of experience, especially if your schedule is starting to fill up, think of the long-term consequences before you do it. Yes, you may be able to get someone immediately, but it would save you more time and money that you would spend on training if you would find and hire employees with previous cleaning experience.
You should also be looking for staff that is not just hardworking, but also independent. In the cleaning industry, it’s not always that the cleaners will be working as a team in one location. Almost all of the time, they will be working on their own. So, it would be great if it’s clear between you and your future employees if they would be able to do their tasks and if they would still be comfortable working without supervision.
While you may not know a person’s integrity and commitment to the job at first glance, or on your first meeting, you can at least focus on the person’s attitude during the interview. Look for “that” friendly attitude, and assess the genuineness of their responses. Every individual is different, but you’ll feel it when a person can be trusted.
Hiring the right individual can take time
Again, the hiring process to get the right people is not easy. If you happen to have already hired the best employee, you cannot expect the next candidate to be just the same as no two people are alike. Every time, hiring the best people takes time and requires patience.
Since you’ve already created a list of the traits that you’d look for in a cleaner, you somehow have created your ideal employee. With the said list being used in a job post, for example, you’d attract candidates that you are most likely to hire. You can write your hiring ad with “Looking for self-motivated, hardworking, and independent individual to clean residential homes,” or “Looking for the perfect cleaner who knows how to clean various floors”. Use the persona you created on your list within your job posts so you can find the right people.
Although there’s no assurance that all the people who responded to the hiring ad you posted are your “ideal” ones, you can at least filter them during the interview until you find the best ones. That’s why it’s very important that you run a good interview and ask relevant questions to reveal the candidate’s attitude. To give you an idea of the most effective interview questions that you can ask the candidates, you may want to read what we listed here.
Another great way to find the right candidates is to ask for referrals from your current employees. Doing this saves not only your time but it also somehow ensures that these referrals are people that can be trusted. You may just offer some incentive or referral bonus for each hire so your current employees will get motivated to find the best ones to refer.
Legal and organization after hiring a new employee
After the hiring process, and you have finally found the employees you’re looking for, the next step would be to make everything legal and organized.
First and foremost, you would have to provide your new employee's Contracts of Employment containing all the employment terms and conditions. You will also be providing them with your company’s updated employee handbook that contains information about your cleaning company policies and procedures. Our article about creating the best employee handbook will give you some tips on the important policies you should include in your company’s handbook.
Secondly, as a business owner, you’re required by law to register your new employees within 20 days after the hiring date. It doesn’t matter whether your new hire only worked for a day or has been terminated even before you’re able to report them; you still must report each of your new employees.
Lastly, but definitely one of the most important steps, you will need to make sure that your Worker’s Compensation insurance is updated. To do this, you would have to give your insurance agent a call to let them know about your new employees. Your insurance agent would then update your policy and make the necessary changes.
After you’ve completed all the paperwork and legal matters, you will now have to set up a time for new hire training. It doesn’t have to be intensive because you will be hiring experienced cleaners, but the training should be very clear about their scope of work and what you expect from them.
The cleaning industry focuses on various aspects – it’s diverse. There’s a cleaning business that specializes in floors only, there are some that do post-construction cleaning, or the company that only does residential cleaning, while some can clean big commercial buildings. Because of this, it’s always best to be very careful in choosing your cleaning team. Don’t rush. Take the time to evaluate your future best employees.
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