If you’re a commercial cleaning company owner or manager, you have a variety of concerns to think about. These include things like sourcing eco-friendly products, investing in modern cleaning tools, and differentiating your business from its competitors.
Another matter that you need to pay careful attention to is keeping your best employees. Even if you’re only working with fewer than a dozen people, you must make an effort to retain the most competent ones in your payroll.
In fact, it can even be argued that smaller organisations should work harder at retention. This is because recruitment can cost a lot of time and money, which smaller establishments may not have too much of.
Below, we discuss the importance of keeping the best staff in your cleaning company and how you can go about it.
Why Staff Retention Is Important
While it’s important for any company to hire the right people, it’s equally or perhaps even more crucial to retain them. There are many reasons behind this, including but not limited to the following:
Reduced Recruitment Costs
It’s more expensive to hire new people than to develop a programme to retain them. Beyond the price of posting on job boards and running ads, there’s also the lost opportunity cost in terms of productivity. Aside from having a period where you’re short on workers, there’s also the time needed for onboarding and training.
If you work on keeping the best people in your staff, you’ll save a lot more company resources. You can also focus on other business matters, such as developing new services.
Efficiency and Productivity
The longer an employee has been with a company, the more efficient and productive they tend to be. This is because they’ve had more time to develop their skills and are already familiar with the company’s processes. What’s more, tenured employees are more invested in the success of the business and are thus more driven to perform well.
Higher Profitability
When you consider the savings you make on recruitment costs, together with the improved productivity of your people, it’s easy to see the increase in the profitability that can be directly delivered by employee retention.
Higher Morale
When your best employees leave, for whatever reason, it can have a negative impact on the rest of your staff’s morale. At best, they’ll feel a little sad; at worst, they may feel like they aren’t valued. A high employee churn rate isn’t a good sign and this can affect not just how your company is perceived by the public, but also how your employees feel about working for you.
On the other hand, a high retention rate means your employees are more engaged and that they’re finding more good reasons to stay. This boosts morale and also encourages your employees to stay on.
Better Customer Experience
Loyal employees are happy employees. Ultimately, this can spillover to customers who feel more satisfied with the quality of work produced by your staff. In a service-oriented business like cleaning, customer experience and satisfaction are some of the most fundamental performance indicators of success.
Last but certainly not least, keeping your best staff in your ranks is good for company culture. With high retention rates, your employees are more engaged and they feel more valued. They will also resonate more with your values, mission, and vision.
How Do You Retain Top Employees?
Now that you know how important it is to retain your best staff in your cleaning company, the next thing you have to do is to work towards that goal. If you don’t have a retention programme yet, it’s about time you develop one. Here are some tips and ideas on how to retain your top employees, specifically for cleaning companies:
Proper Compensation and Benefits
People work for a living and that’s a fact. Sure, they’re passionate about what they do but they also have to bring food to the table. As such, one of the best ways to ensure that your best staff stay with your company is that you give them a salary that’s commensurate with the work they do.
It’s also important to remember that “compensation” isn’t just about money. You should also think of other forms of compensation like bonuses, health care plans, and paid parental leaves, just to name a few.
Onboarding New Employees
No matter the size of your cleaning company, it’s important to welcome new employees with a proper onboarding process that includes an introduction to the company culture. More than learning about what they’re responsible for and who they’re working with, new employees want to know how they can grow in their workplace.
Proper Training
Ensuring that your people are properly equipped to do their job well is a good way to inspire their loyalty. Some good subjects for learning and further training of cleaning company employees include working at heights, latest cleaning techniques and technologies, as well as soft skills like communication.
Communicate
Adopt an open office policy when it comes to feedback and suggestions. By knowing your employees’ pain points and studying them, you can make necessary adjustments to make things better. You should also make it a point to regularly talk to your employees about their performance and what you can do to help them achieve their goals.
Reward Good Performance
Speaking of performance, make sure to recognise your people when they go above and beyond their duty. You don’t even have to be extravagant. For example, you can send a company-wide email commending a person’s job well done and then give them a small cash bonus or other form of incentive. The key is to let your people know that they’re appreciated and that no good deed goes unrewarded.
Promote Work-Life Balance
Lastly, make sure that your employees are physically, mentally, and emotionally fit by promoting work-life balance. Encourage vacations to de-stress and provide wellness offerings like covering a part of their gym fees. The key is to emphasise that there’s life outside of work to prevent burnout.
The bottomline here is that you need to invest in your cleaning company’s employees. This way, they will stay with you for a long time and you can work together seamlessly for mutual success!