Ready to hire a manager for your cleaning company?
Episode 172 Doug Cunningham Clean It
Janitorial management is an exciting step in growing your cleaning company- when done right…

In today’s blog/ podcast, Mike talks with a return guest. Doug Cunningham owner of Clean It. Doug wants to know how to transition from doing everything himself to a janitorial management employee.

RESOURCE ALERT- Click HERE for Doug’s previous podcast on Employee Retention
Doug has had janitorial management in place before but recently lost a key employee. Since then he has been managing the company himself and is ready to transition out again. Often owners don’t realize how difficult janitorial management can be. This can lead to a couple of negative responses:

Promoting someone that is not qualified
Hiring someone because they are available
Not creating enough systems to support your new manager
Not giving enough training to your new manager
When it comes to tasks we don’t like to do, it is so tempting to hire the first warm body. We tend to throw the big complicated mess at them and run. More often than not this sets them up to fail. Either you get frustrated with their lack of progress and end up doing the job with them or for them or they get fed up and quit.

BONUS LOVIN: Check out this free video on Janitorial management and Hiring Managers
Imagine inviting someone over to help you hang Christmas lights. If all the lights from last year are in a tangled mess in boxes all over your garage, you may have just lost a helper. When all the lights are organized and packed neatly with nails and clips to hang them from in place, not only will they be more willing to help, they will do a better job for you.

KEY POINT: Make it easy for janitorial management staff to succeed
When you ask someone who is less qualified than you to untangle a mess that you yourself, you are setting you and your business up for failure.

MORE Bonus Lovin: Check out this podcast on Employee Attraction
The key is to do the job yourself and understand the job completely. Write down the frustrating and difficult parts. When possible create systems and solutions for those parts and teach your janitorial management team how to follow the systems instead of expecting them to create the systems for you.

It is a longer and more difficult strategy up front, but will save you time and headache in the future.

Once you have worked out the kinks and created a system, the next step is training. Of course you need to make the investment in training your janitorial management team on the systems you create, but you also want to consider training on products you use like scheduling software, accounting process, etc.

The last piece in the puzzle is a VERY CLEAR job description. Do the job yourself and write down every single thing that person needs to do. Once you have a list make sure to include the resources they will need to do their job. A fun way to do this is through video. Cheap to make and much more interactive/ likely to be consumed than a long boring job description.

When hiring janitorial management make sure you match personality to what they will be doing. The person that is going to thrive in a selling environment might not be good in a scheduling environment. A cleaner might not be the best manager.

Janitorial Management Hiring Recap
Do the job
Write down what you do
Create a Job Description
Identify personality traits that will succeed at that job
As always, Mike ends the show by inviting his guest to share their expertise in the…