An Investment In Your Cleaning Business Employees Is An Investment In Your Cleaning Business
In this week’s podcast Mike talks to Laura Kujawa, of Perfection Commercial Services, about the importance of enhancing the experience of you cleaning business employees. Mike talks about three things you can do to invest in your employees’ success, and therefor invest in your business’s success.

Laura has built her company around the core value of “People First.” She tries to “always do the right thing,” and believes in investing in her employees.

KEY QUESTION: Why Is It So Important To Focus On Cleaning Business Employees?
Many business owners believe in focusing on the customer first. After all, they are the ones footing the bill. However, Laura offers a unique perspective that inevitably has caused her great success. When you focus on your employees first you create growth quickly. Happy employees provide great and motivated services, which in turn will cause happy customers.

With growth comes change. As a small business owner it can be easy to simply treat customers as a commodity. You can be the face of the company and speak with every customer individually. However, as you grow you will need your employees to spread your message for you. You need to create a great atmosphere and culture for your cleaning business employees to flourish in.

KEY POINT: Create a great community and culture for your employees
In order to create happy employees you’ll need to focus on the employee experience. Don’t fall for the short game of simply paying them more. If you treat your people like they are just a set of hands, it won’t matter how much money you throw their way.

Cleaning business employees are performing hard work for low pay. They’ve probably had many other minimum wage jobs where they were treated like a commodity. You can bring them the unique experience of feeling valued. A positive, fun work environment is vital to long lasting relationships.

ADDED BONUS: This great culture may not be the right fit for everyone. Some potential employees will see a happy and supportive community and want no part of it. This is a GOOD thing. It helps you weed out those who will be fully on board, and those who just want to collect a paycheck.

KEY POINT: Eliminate Anxiety By Allowing Customers To Make Mistakes
Part of creating a great cleaning business employee experience is allowing your employees to make mistakes. The reality of this business is that the product you provide is people. Therefore, there’s an element of error you can’t escape.

Make sure your employees know that you understand mistakes happen. Have a system in place where they can come and talk to you about any issues. Transparency and honesty should be a part of your culture and core values. This gives employees the freedom to grow and learn without anxiety of being fired at their first fault.

KEY POINT: Be consistent
If you tell your employees that mistakes are inevitable, and that you will show grace, you must follow through. Once you set a core value of transparency and honesty, you need to be able to back that up with consistency.

Choosing core values simply because they sound good will never work. You have to walk your talk. When an employee makes an error, own that experience and walk through it with them. This process will trickle down from you to your managers, and to every aspect of the company. A community of honesty and transparency is sure to succeed.

When you invest in your cleaning business employees you in invest in your business.

Before closing out, Laura shares her genius in the…