Running a cleaning business can be stressful, but community service offers you the chance to take a mental break, grow your network, and raise employee retention at the same time.
Podcast Transcription
About This Guest:
Jill Kellermeyer-Kegler
Director of Business Development - Janitorial Manager
Jill Kellermeyer-Kegler is the Director of Business Development for Janitorial Manager. She joined the company early in 2019 and has become an important part of helping our company grow.
Jill is not only great at her job, but she’s ingrained herself in the Toledo-Area community and a familiar face. She’s done this by volunteering her time and energy outside of her professional career to help people and get involved locally. The effect is not just becoming more well-known but a boost to Jill’s mental health and readiness to work.
Community Involvement
Community involvement may not be your first thought when thinking about employee retention or business growth for your cleaning company, but it has a much larger impact than you realize.
Community Involvement can be anything from engaging with other small businesses to do community services and becoming part of organizations like Habitat for Humanity and United Way, much like Jill does. We’ve also seen leaders benefit from getting involved with Rotary and their local Chambers.
Improved Employee Engagement and Retention
A large benefit of getting involved as a business unit is the overall effect it can have on your employees.
As a leader and business owner, you may be hesitant to ask your employees to join you for an event outside of work or even better, invite them to volunteer for something non-work related while they’re on the clock, but it’s important to break up the work.
One day where production dips because everyone is out building a house in the community or cleaning up a community is worth the payoff because it can be just the break an employee needs to come back with renewed motivation to work.
Higher motivation to engage the company as a whole and improved team dynamic can result from a handful of days a year spent out doing volunteer service locally.
The Need for a Break
Work and home life can become taxing very quickly for anyone, but especially for those trying to balance multiple things at once like leaders.
It’s great to believe that we can simply take a break when we need to but for those of us that are used to being busy all the time, this is easier said than done. Volunteering can simulate a mental break and cut into the regular routine of things without introducing guilt to our much-needed reprieve.
We often feel guilty taking a break for ourselves if we know others are still working and that’s completely normal, but you still deserve to take time off or change things up for a bit.