Training your cleaning staff for your janitorial company is necessary for your business to be successful. It is important to develop a thorough training program.
Once you hire someone, they become an extension of your business. They represent your brand. Do you feel proud for them to represent what you worked so hard to develop? Do they feel proud?
By training your cleaning staff and developing processes, your business will run smoothly, and your employees will probably excel at their jobs. Developing a good training program will help them succeed.
A good training program has many benefits. It helps to improve your employee’s performance, their satisfaction, and ensures consistency. It also addresses weaknesses and may help reduce employee turnover. A great training program is developed using your specific products and addresses your needs. If you purchase an online training program, ensure you tailor it to what you want for your cleaning service.
Here are some tips to help you train your cleaning staff:
Determine Your Cleaning Processes
It is important that your employees know your expectations for cleaning standards. What type of cleaning solutions does your company offer? What type of businesses would you like to attract? Do your employees follow the same methods when cleaning?
Plan to develop processes for each job. Write down the steps you take when cleaning each area. You may have to write different ones for different businesses but developing processes will ensure consistency.
Once you have developed a standard for cleaning it is important to determine everyone is following those steps.
Are there processes that aren’t working? Ensure you listen to feedback from your employees. Something may change from a client’s expectations or your employee may have found a process. Regardless, make any changes to your process pages so that other employees will know what to do in the future.
Develop a Process Book and Develop Checklists
Once you have written your processes down, develop a binder with instructions in the book. This ensures your employees know what is expected from the moment they come on board to begin working.
They should also have cleaning checklist to use when they are new as well, and they will be correctly trained to follow all steps. You may find you have specific process books for each client or checklists that may be different. Once written, they will be easier to maintain as clients or events change.
Research Best Practices for Training Your Cleaning Staff
There are many training materials available online. Research what other companies are doing as well. They may also have processes written so you do not have to write training tips from scratch.
Some companies also offer training materials and courses such as Spartan Chemical or Cleaning Masterclass. Research these or others to see if they may work for your business. You may be able to tailor them to fit your business needs.
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Create an Employee Handbook
Your employee handbook can define your expectations and be the backbone of your business. It should be clear and consistent so that there will be no misunderstandings.
Your handbook should be changed frequently as updates occur. Ensure you include any state laws and legal policies in your employee handbook as well. This will help you save time and will help your employees know your expectations.
Train on Your Customer Service Standards
Your cleaning staff is also the face the customer sees. If there is a question, they are most likely going to ask your cleaning person when they arrive. By training your staff, ensure they know the top answers to questions. They should be polite and know how to offer great customer service.
Building a loyal customer base will be easy if you offer a great customer experience. Ensure you get to know your client’s expectations. Also, they may like something done a certain way or some areas more sanitized. Your cleaners should follow their directions and your processes may need to be changed based upon their expectations. Not every client will be the same. Collect customer surveys from all your clients and develop strategies based upon those results.
Train every employee on how to handle client complaints properly. They should also be able to offer solutions to problems without contacting you for every issue.
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Hold Group Training Sessions
Your employees need to know why you do something that may not make sense to them. For example, Allan Dalangin owns Gecko Solutions Inc. They clean medical facilities and he had to learn to sanitize differently than a regular office building. For example, he learned how to sterilize carpets and protect them with a treatment that cleans viruses and germs on contact.
Sometimes your employees need to know this type of information and the “why” of the need for something to be a certain way. Whether your janitorial company specializes in a specific area or if you use standardized cleaning supplies and methods, it is important that your employees know why you are using a certain product or method. Make sure they know they can ask questions and make suggestions to make cleaning better. You want your clients to trust you and know you have high expectations on cleaning and sanitizing. Stress to your employees how important proper techniques are to ensure they are meeting everyone’s needs.
Also, walk through the processes with them when they begin to clean a facility. Use the developed checklist to show them how to do each process item. If something doesn’t need to be on the checklist, take it off.
Visit Your Employees at the Job Site Often
Sometimes employees also become complacent and start to shortcut processes or work. Hold annual or semi-annual training sessions to determine they are following the processes. Make surprise visits onsite as well. Let them know at the beginning when they are hired that you will be doing this to ensure they are always following procedures. Are they following the checklists you developed?
If you have an app like ezClocker for your janitorial staff, you will always know when your employees are at the job site and when they clock in and out. The time clock app makes it easy to monitor your employees’ hours and you can verify they clocked in at the right location.
More Tips on Training Your Cleaning Staff
At some point in your career, you were probably shown a few things and then expected to deliver great results. You may have felt overwhelmed and unsure if you were meeting expectations. Ensure you don’t do that with your staff. You also want them to like their jobs and care about your company. By investing in them, you are showing them you care that they do well.
When you train your staff well and they know your expectations, you will create more time for yourself. At first, developing your training program and processes may seem overwhelming. Involve your top cleaners to help as well. Your best people may appreciate the extra hours to help develop the processes. Once you have your systems and processes in place, the job will become more automated.
Training your cleaning staff completely will help them become more successful. It will also help them learn how to use chemicals safely for themselves and your clients. You want to ensure your business has a great reputation and training with precise procedures will ensure that happens.
