As a cleaning company business owner, do you experience daily frustrations with labor management? Issues with employee turnover seem to cause the most frustration, but cleaning companies also struggle with employee recruitment, scheduling changes, productivity and efficiency, and communication issues.
“Managing your labor and workforce is critical,” says Dryden Dennis, Aspire Enterprise Account Executive. “Cleaning is a service, and our product is the people who are cleaning the buildings. If you don't have the people to do that work, or you're having high turnover and need to constantly train, then it's not efficient, and it's hurting the business.”

In a recent webinar, Dennis shares tips and tricks for understanding your workforce, the link between employee and customer satisfaction, setting up your workforce for success, how to mitigate staffing challenges and turnover, and the benefits of using operational software.
Key challenges facing the cleaning industry

According to Aspire’s 2024 Commercial Cleaning Insights Report, the top three risks facing cleaning companies today are:
Employee staffing (61%)
Customer retention (56%)
Potential economic recession (43%)

61% of cleaning companies reported employee retention as their top problem, with an average 200% turnover for the previous year, according to the insights report. Low employee retention leads to other problems, such as service disruptions, increased costs, and lower service quality.

56% of respondents reported customer retention as their biggest risk to meeting business goals. The cleaning industry depends on happy, loyal customers to maintain profitability, achieve operational efficiency, and build a strong reputation.

43% of respondents expressed concerns about a potential economic recession looming on the horizon. High inflationary costs can result in fewer cleaning customers, pricing challenges, and cash flow impediments.
Aspire also asked cleaning companies about the types of software they use and how they apply the software to various areas of the business.
“If you look at where companies are investing their money, resources, and time, you'll see that recruiting and applicant tracking, employee training and certification, and employee notifications are the least-used softwares within the industry,” Dennis says.

Recruiting and applicant tracking, for instance, is essentially a sales process, Dennis says. You’re trying to sell new hires on the idea of working for your cleaning company, and applicants are trying to sell you on their cleaning skills and expertise.
“You need to have [software] systems in place to have a pipeline of applicants and manage those applicants well,” Dennis says. “If you want to retain your staff, you need to invest in your staff, invest in recruiting, and create those systems for that to happen.”
One way to mitigate employee turnover, Dennis says, is to understand your workforce. As Stephen Covey suggests in his book, “The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People,” understanding your workforce requires treating “your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers."
“Happy employees create those happy customers,” Dennis says.
Understanding your workforce
Managing cleaning crews is a tough job every day. But the more you understand your workforce, the easier it is to manage. Dennis breaks it down into four areas:
What does your workforce want?
Set expectations
Follow through
Communicate
1. What does your workforce want?

What do your employees want? Do they want to work part-time to supplement their retirement income? Do they need to work full-time to pay off student loans or save for a car? What are their goals or career path? And how can you help them accomplish their goals?
Once you understand their needs, ask why they want to work for your cleaning company. Why did they leave their previous employer? Was it due to low pay or lack of recognition? How will you be different from their previous employer?
2. Set expectations

Inevitably, cleaners will miss a shift, forget to empty a trash can, or just have an off day. Set the expectations for how those issues will be resolved and how they’ll be communicated to the office and your cleaning clients.
Conducting regular inspections and creating a process for communicating complaints sets clear expectations for your staff and can even help you identify areas for further training.
3. Follow through

“In cleaning, the biggest thing is to be consistent. You want your cleaners to be consistent and to do a good job every day, day in and day out,” Dennis says. “You have to sell your service every single time you're in the building cleaning, and you only have so many instances where the customer will continue to forgive you for messing up before they hire someone else.”
To help your crews be consistent, apply the same expectations to your managers. Set up processes for managers to check in on employees and don't move the goalposts. Unlike long-term cleaning clients who may change the scope of their services along the way, employees want to work for companies that follow through with consistent management.
4. Communicate

It’s easy to fire a cleaning company you never see. It’s also easy to resign from a cleaning company if you never see or build a relationship with your manager.
“It's important to build a relationship with your cleaners,” Dennis says. “Be seen during inspections by the crew. Set it up on your calendar once or twice a month to stop by in the evening, say hi to the crew, and maybe clean a toilet or two to help them get out 10 to 15 minutes early.”
Reach out after the inspection to give recognition to the crew or conduct annual reviews with your cleaners to show them how much you value them as employees.
“Cleaning is difficult. It's a very underappreciated job, and it often goes unseen,” Dennis says. “Usually, whenever an employee is talking to a manager, it's for a complaint, and usually when a customer is talking to management, it's because of the complaint. So, it's important for us to change that narrative a little bit, to be proactive in both customer service but also with our employees.”
Link between customer and employee satisfaction

It’s no coincidence that the two biggest risks cleaning companies face are customer retention and employee retention, Dennis says, because they’re most definitely related.