Controlling Employee Turnover in the Residential Cleaning Business

The topic of employee turnover is probably the longest-standing challenge in our industry. There are many factors contributing to turnover in our industry, but it all starts with the employee selection process itself. Unfortunately, few small business owners have any traininig in human resource issues and this lack of knowledge leads to owner frustration and dissapointment.



Cleaning homes is certainly not brain surgery, but what many owners don't understand is that most applicants aren't good candidates for tenure on the job.  In most cases, employment candidates are selected based on gut feeling rather than by an objective series of events that helps to remove the guesswork from the process. Our http://www.housecleaningbiz101.com/ program spends a great deal of time teaching owners professional human resource methods - with a huge emphasis on the employee selection process.

If you're concerned about employee turnover, you should be. Typically in this industry, the turnover rate is between 300% and 400%. Since it generally takes about 90 days to get a new hire up to speed, with a 400% turnover rate this means that you just get the average employee trained and then they're gone. On the other hand, there are owners who have employees who have been with then for five and ten years --- some even longer. This requires the knowledge and skills to retain them, not just to select the ones most likely to succeed.


If you do well in selecting the best candidates, the next step in retention is to ensure they're properly trained. They need to be well compensated. Theny need to be well managed and motivated to succeed on the job. You need to provide a comfortable and pleasant work environment. You need to be a leader, not a "boss." These are all skills which can be and need to be learned in order to build a successful work force which will generate the kind of revenues you need and deserve in this industry.

To see a situation where the owner has an employee-retention record that would be envied by companies in industries supposedly far more stable than the cleaning business, check out the video at http://www.bucketsnbows.com/meet_our_staff.htm .  Debbie Sardone is a shining example of leadership in our industry.