Episode 139 – Dealing With Cleaning Staff
Tired of Drama With Your Cleaning Staff?
Have you ever had a cleaning staff member who was a great cleaner so you gave them a little more responsibility? Have you ever had that cleaner get drunk with power and start acting like a cleaning terrorist?
This is exactly the situation that Mike coaches Gina Eilerman with Swept Away Cleaning on in today’s blog/ podcast.
They Easy Way
Let’s face it. YOU are the owner. Anytime you have cleaning staff that are making your life hard or miserable, you can simply call them into your office and tell them their services are no longer required.
Sadly, the easy way is rarely the right way. You as the owner are responsible for everything you have created in your cleaning company and with your cleaning staff. If someone is acting out of bounds it is generally because you didn’t set them up for success and didn’t step in and say something when things started to go off the rails.
Also, if you have been in the cleaning business and dealing with cleaning staff for any amount of time, you are already aware how difficult it can be to find and keep good cleaning staff. Soooo, you might want to hold off on firing as your first response. This brings us to…
The Hard Way
You still want to have a conversation with the employee about the problem. But now you are going to start with acknowledging you have let the team down by not leading well.
This will take a lot of the pressure off of them and lower their defenses. Now you can talk about the duties you hired them for as well as what they should and should NOT be doing.
This is a great opportunity to put their responsibilities in writing and keep this from happening again. If they respond negatively- it might be time to free them up to pursue other opportunities. If they are eager to learn and change to better serve the company, that is a great sign that all of this extra work is worth it!
KEY POINT: Attitude is the difference between saving or firing an employee
If you already have their responsibilities in writing (i.e. a job description), have the job description with you when you have this conversation. Begin with apologizing for not keeping them on track and holding them accountable. Explain how that hurts the company.
This is your opportunity to check in with them. Make sure they are still a good fit for the position. Invite them to recommit to following your original agreement. Let them know that they ARE expected to do everything on that agreement and they are NOT expected (or allowed) to do things outside of that agreement.
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In Gina’s case the employee had been bossing others around and taking on responsibility that Gina had not given. Because of this Mike coaches her to address the situation publicly at their next company meeting/ gathering.
You don’t want to shame the employee, but you do want to acknowledge to them and the rest of the team that the bossiness is over. Show appreciation for their willingness to go above and beyond, but make it clear to the team that they are not in charge. Also be clear who is in charge and what the proper chain of command looks like.
MORE Cleaning Staff Lovin: CLICK HERE to discover how to make the right hire in the first place
Before we end check out Gina’s answers in the…