When it comes to the commercial janitorial industry, it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there. However, while competition is fierce, it’s often the labor force turnover within your own business can be the most exasperating!
This constant turnover means constant training of new staff. And just as you get new employees in a groove, inevitably, they disappear or transition to a new job… and training someone new begins again.
How Do You Get Quality Employees to Stay?
This is the Big Question.
Not only is this employee hire-train-lose cycle a drain on your precious time and resources, but it can also prevent your customers from receiving consistently quality cleaning services, which can lead to customer turnover, as well!
Daniel Hyman has seen this reality firsthand. He serves as the human resources director at Held’s Janitorial in Buffalo, N.Y., “This business is so competitive, it doesn’t take much to lose an account…When there are five other people out there knocking on the door, offering the same price you’re charging, maybe even cheaper, you’ve really got to prove your worth as a contractor.”
Employee Retention Through Recognition
One of the most effective methods for quality employee retention has been found in employee recognition. Intentionally recognizing a job well done motivates individuals to adjust their work habits and improve key behaviors, resulting in improved team morale, increased customer satisfaction and a boost to your bottom line.
Studies by Gallup, the Corporate Leadership Council, Towers Perrin and others, report that employee recognition is closely related to improvements in employee engagement both in their own work and in the goals of the organization itself! According to these studies, this increased employee engagement often results in:
- Improved job performance
- Increased business value
- Higher competitive advantages
- A positive cycle of ever-increasing employee engagement and motivation.
Knowing When to Recognize via Commercial Janitorial Software
While this sounds great (sign us up for more of that!), realize that an employee recognition program utilized as a means for rewarding outstanding performances and garnering employee loyalty must be tied to specific goals. This means that you must clearly communicate your organization’s goals and the priorities of your business.
One of the best ways for you to establish this structure of expectations and to track employee recognition-qualifying performances, is through your commercial janitorial software features, such as:
Clearly Communicating Scheduling:
We’ve all had to scramble to find someone to cover a no-show shift, and heard plethora of employee excuses for when something doesn’t get done (or get done well…). Using a cloud-based commercial janitorial software to create and share your employees’ detailed schedules provides a starting point for the conversation regarding your expectations and requirements.
This feature helps you see which employees are dependable – consistently arriving on-time and completing their assigned tasks in good time – which is a great quality to recognize!
Client Portal Feedback:
Most commercial janitorial software will provide a method for clients to offer direct feedback on their levels of satisfaction with how the tasks were done.
This is an essential feature, as it helps you address evident training issues, as well as recognize employees who are receiving high marks from your customers!
Inspections:
The inspections portal of your commercial janitorial software collects and organizes cleaning checklists, quality comments, and more. The purpose is to allow you to track the performances of employees and to ensure consistency across jobs.
Not only can ratings, notes and photos be sent to clients to show the quality of work done, but the information compiled in each employee’s inspections reports can also be used to support recognition and rewards for outstanding work!
Gain Ground with Janitorial Manager’s Commercial Janitorial Software
We know that it is truly difficult enough to track your employees’ performance, schedules and inspections on a day to day basis, let alone having the time to be able to recognize outstanding performances and improvements over time!
Janitorial Manager’s commercial janitorial software can become your right hand in cultivating that important opportunity.
Through employee performance recognition, you’ll be able to strengthen relationships and loyalty with your employees…resulting in less time spent in the employee hire-train-lose cycle, and more time enjoying your business.
Let Janitorial Manager help – Contact us today for a free demo!