Swept Blog

If you’ve hired cleaners in the past or are doing so now, you know it can be a time-consuming and even frustrating process. Some people will express interest in the job but not provide enough information to even merit following up, while others will fill out an entire application form but then not show up to the interview. If you’re new to the industry and are thinking about hiring your first few cleaners, it may feel overwhelming. What questions should you ask them? What paperwork do they need to fill out? Having ran a cleaning company ourselves, we know it isn’t easy.

Training can be time-consuming and costly, but it’s also crucial to the success of your business. After all, your cleaners are the most important people on your customer service team! To help you ensure your training program is as effective yet efficient as possible, here are 12 tips to help you save time and money while delivering quality training.

Turnover happens. Every business that relies on staff to deliver their service or product understands the vast amount of time, energy and money wasted when a member of your team leaves. Turnover is specifically costly in the janitorial Industry. Olan Hyde, Director of Operations at Office Pride, estimates that losing a cleaner costs his franchisees approximately $2,000, all costs considered (advertising, screening, interviewing, training, etc.) $2,000 lost on ONE cleaner!

At Swept we talk about employee retention in the cleaning industry a lot. Because 1, constant employee turnover almost always has a negative impact on customer satisfaction… and 2, we’ve surveyed janitorial business owners and found that keeping cleaners is one of the biggest challenge the industry faces. Employee turnover rates in the janitorial industry average between 75% and 375% each year. So even though we’ve written articles about how to improve cleaner retention, we feel like there is more to be said on the topic. We want to get to the root of the problem and understand: What actually causes high turnover in the janitorial industry?