The cleaning industry continues to be challenged by labour shortages and a declining workforce. Research shows that 61 per cent of janitorial companies list labour shortages as something holding them back from business growth. In addition, traditionally high employee turnover (about 200 per cent annually) makes staffing issues even more complicated, as employers try to service clients and scale the business.

What can cleaning company owners do to try and maximize labour? There are several factors to consider:

• Focus on your hiring practices. Are you encouraging employees to apply? Being transparent with your hiring? Prequalifying candidates? The better fit you find, the more likely you are to reduce turnover and build a long-term team.
• Once you’ve hired, focus on retention. Begin with superior onboarding that gets staff started on the right foot. Next, create a company culture where staff want to stay, with competitive wages, schedule flexibility, and work-life balance. Happy employees are productive, loyal employees, so focus on making work a place they want to be.
• Create training protocols that allow staff to move up the ladder if they want to and become even more skilled at their jobs. Motivation and recognition encourage long-time employment and loyalty.
• Use software to schedule efficiently. Analyze the data to set clear expectations and measure results so you can adjust, allocate, and budget staffing accordingly.
• Standardize processes with checklists and protocols that make it simple for teams to follow. This helps streamline operations, allowing team members to get to work as soon as they arrive.
• Elevate your tools and equipment to make it easier and faster for your teams to complete their work. Stay on top of trends, maximize automation, and ask staff for feedback on simplifying processes and improving efficiency. This serves two purposes: you find out what your staff really need, and you include them in the decision-making process which helps them stay engaged.
• Focus on growing existing accounts. This approach saves you the time and energy it takes to seek out so many new clients and also means your teams can save travel time going from one site to the next. Increasing revenues from existing clients can help you save time and better allocate labour.

Cleaners are working hard to build their businesses, maximize margins, and provide exceptional service to their customers. Creating a strategy to better manage your labour by training, retaining, and streamlining operations can help commercial cleaners reach those goals.