According to a recent survey from Procter & Gamble Professional, the revolving door of employees has been a frustration across the janitorial industry for years!

“Turnover is systematically high within all service industries, commercial cleaning in particular,” says Jim Peduto, managing partner at cleaning industry consultancy the American Institute for Cleaning Services (AICS). “If you look at surveys of what’s important to people in the cleaning industry, turnover is always in the top five.”

It seems that as soon as you gain a quality individual and successfully train him or her to do the job well, they move on or just simply disappear.


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The Struggle of Janitorial Employee Retention

In the janitorial industry, employee turnover averages about 200%! As a business owner, this staggering statistic doesn’t only impact your sanity level. It affects virtually every level of your cleaning operation, including:

  • Sub-par service delivery from less-then-enthusiastic temporary employees.
  • Increased onboarding time and administrative expenses related to recruiting, interviewing reference checking, drug screening, criminal background checks, etc.
  • Learning curve issues for new hires – damaged equipment, supply overuse, extra time establishing a rhythm…
  • Dissatisfied customers who notice the inconsistency of faces coming into their place of business or see tasks missed or poorly executed.

These problems create extra costs that either you must absorb, or you must pass on to your clients… thus decreasing the competitive value of what you can offer!

Finding the Missing Pieces

While steep employee turnover could simply be attributed to the general trend in the service industry – which typically requires less skill and offers lower wages – there are still cleaning companies that beat the odds and maintain a strong team of quality employees without breaking the bank.

How do they do it?

The commercial cleaning companies who are the most successful at employee retention – and thus maintaining higher profits and client satisfaction – are incorporating a quality janitorial management software, such as Janitorial Manager, into their everyday operations.

You may think that you can juggle all the functions of a successful cleaning company on your own, and you may be achieving in many areas. But perhaps there are components missing from your efforts:

  • You may be attracting quality people for the job, but are you consistently able to keep up with providing adequate tools and supplies to equip them to succeed?

Janitorial Manager software would support your efforts by:

    • Tracking the costs of cleaning supplies to identify inconsistencies that could indicate theft, misuse of chemicals, or simply poor training on accurate quantities to mix for tasks
    • Helping you respond quicker via real-time notices from employees when needed tools or -machinery is unavailable or damaged.
  • You may have a large team of dedicated staff, but are you managing their time and assignments effectively through intentional scheduling and communication systems?

Janitorial Manager software would support your efforts by:

    • Smoothly coordinating employees’ schedules on a single scheduling screen, thus saving you the time and hassle of struggling with tracking employees’ availabilities.
    • Showing the number of hours being worked by each employee so that you can avoid overtime pay and worker burnout.
    • Automating customer work order requests so that you can assign them directly to available staff members and track their progress towards completion.
  • You may have an inspections team that provides feedback to management on the work being done, but are those reports being utilized to improve training where needed?

Janitorial Manager software would support your efforts by:

    • Customizing inspections checklists for each customer.
    • Making inspections reports automatically available in real-time on any computer or mobile device for prompt review. React to issues promptly, rather than allowing them to continue unnoticed long-term!
    • Creating intuitive reports on inspections results so you can quickly see where errors are occurring and can provide additional training or corrections as needed.
  • You may provide competitive wages, but are you offering ample “‘atta boys!” and appreciation for work well done?

Janitorial Manager software would support your efforts by:

    • Making it easy to recognize consistency in punctual logins, regularly high inspections marks, etc. so that you can provide appropriate rewards and credit where it’s due and when it’s due.
    • Tracking specific goals that your team can work towards together, or providing actionable information for annual reviews.

Shut the Door on Employee Turnover

When you consider the costs of constantly having to hunt and hire new talent, you quickly discover that it’s an expensive process… especially when it is necessary to do multiple times a year! However, by implementing an affordable commercial cleaning software, like Janitorial Manager, you can start redirecting the dollars you spend chasing new hires, towards building a more successful cleaning business.

You know that maintaining long-term employees brings serious value to your business, so give the Janitorial Manager team a call to schedule a FREE DEMO to see how this software can help you get – and keep – them!

Serve Your Clients More Effectively!

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