Hiring Best Practices: From Recruitment to Evaluation

A hardworking, dedicated, and reliable team is the backbone of any cleaning and restoration business. Building a team with these qualities takes time, commitment, and training, which is why staff retention is absolutely essential for long-term prosperity and sustainability. Without a steady staff contingent, it becomes difficult to deliver excellent service consistently. This could negatively affect customer satisfaction, which might cause them to look elsewhere for cleaning services.

One of the major challenges cleaning and restoration businesses face is that they’re notorious for high staff-turnover rates. This is often related to the nature of the work and associated pay rates. So, when your company is lucky enough to recruit a hardworking, reliable individual, it’s essential that you implement strategies that effectively target staff retention.

Today, we’re looking at the best ways to retain cleaning staff. Employee retention isn’t a once-off task that you can start and finish in a day or a week; it’s an ongoing process that also requires input from the business. Staff retention strategies should begin from the minute an employee gets recruited and be maintained throughout their time of employment.

Keep reading to learn tips on boosting employee retention in your business.

Develop a well-structured recruitment process

Retaining your cleaning staff starts even before they’re hired. It’s important to conduct comprehensive research on potential candidates and their qualifications to ensure they’re a good fit for your cleaning and/or restoration company.

One of the most important aspects of recruitment is conducting a thorough background check. Contact former employers to verify the resumes of prospective employees. Checking references and history will give you a good idea of whether a potential hire will be a good fit and can go the distance.

According to an article by Society for Human Resource Management, when the recruitment process is rushed, you’re more likely to neglect vital components of hiring, which increases the chance of making a bad hire. Bad hires are more likely to leave a company. You might even feel inclined to terminate their contract if their capacity is not aligned with the demands of the job. 

Invest in onboarding

 Once you’ve completed your recruitment process and have selected the individuals you believe will stick with your company, you must next invest in your onboarding processes.

A well-structured onboarding process should consist of intensive training and briefing on your company’s policies and procedures. An open discussion about your new cleaning staff’s responsibilities and their rights is essential too.

Investing in your cleaning and restoration company’s onboarding process increases the chances of successfully preparing and integrating new staff members. Doing so bolsters retention in the long run. This ultimately helps your business become more stable, sustainable, and successful.

Implement rewards and recognition

If you want to prioritize employee retention, it’s vital that you work toward enhancing staff engagement—from recruitment through evaluation. This entails bolstering your cleaning staff’s feelings of motivation and job satisfaction. In turn, this leads to greater productivity at work.

According to job website Indeed, one of the best ways to do this is by offering rewards and recognition to deserving staff members.

There are many ways to recognize and reward hard work and talent. You could implement recognition initiatives whereby you have an employee of the month. Or you could offer a gift or bonus pay when an individual reaches a significant milestone in their employment. Whatever your choice, it’s important to align these tokens of appreciation with the overarching goals and values of your cleaning and restoration company.

Prioritize organization

In the cleaning industry, scheduling is key. Employees need to know where they need to be and when, and there shouldn’t be any confusion about working times or schedules. Effectively coordinating and communicating with a large team working in different locations on disjointed schedules is challenging. But it’s a challenge that you need to meet to keep staff happy.

To ensure workers don’t get confused, you need to use an organization system suited to your cleaning and/or restoration company. This will ensure that your services can operate smoothly and efficiently.

An organization system includes clear scheduling, resource availability, timely payments, and the management of interpersonal workplace relationships and conflicts. A well-run business is likely to retain its best staff, as employees can work more efficiently in an environment that prioritizes clarity and structure. 

Increase rates when feasible

 Poor pay is one of the most significant factors contributing to high turnover rates for cleaning and restoration companies. Therefore, it’s important to acknowledge that improving retention may quite simply be a matter of increasing your staff’s hourly rate.

If you want to retain talented and reliable staff, it’s certainly worth appropriately compensating them for their valuable time. Of course, this will depend on your turnover and budget, but even a small raise can encourage staff loyalty and reduce churn.

Conduct regular and comprehensive evaluations

 Employee retention can be maintained through a process of frequent and in-depth evaluation. An evaluation is a valuable opportunity to monitor staff performance, provide feedback, and note opportunities for growth or reward.

Evaluations should encompass open and honest conversations with your cleaning staff. During this time, you can discuss their personal needs and concerns while also communicating how these can align with the company’s objectives. This process demonstrates that you’re invested in their job satisfaction and encourages staff to continue working for you.

The retention of cleaning staff is a vital yet challenging consideration for any cleaning and/or restoration business. From recruiting to management and evaluation, it’s important to implement a holistic approach that aligns employee well-being with your company goals. When you show your cleaning staff that you’re invested in their job satisfaction and growth, they’re more likely to feel invested in the growth and long-term success of the company.

Implement the strategies mentioned to bolster the retention of your cleaning staff. Doing so is one of the most effective ways to ensure you can provide high-quality services to your customers while keeping your staff happy and your business growing.