When you hire a cleaner, it can be a little daunting at first. After all, the job is all about getting all assigned work carried out not just efficiently, but to a particularly high standard, too.
Cleaning Professionals who are just getting started may wonder what things they need to know to ease into their cleaning career and fit in with your cleaning company. So here are our top six tips for training new cleaners that will give them the confidence to be a key team member.
Self-Awareness
Cleaning might seem like a particularly harmless job at first, but cleaners are the fifth most injured workforce in the country. Typical injuries range from slips, trips, and falls (usually due to wet or freshly buffed floors) to chemical irritation from spilled cleaning chemicals.
With this in mind, you’ll need to train your cleaners of the potential risks when they’re working in certain areas. Being more aware of the space they’re working in won’t just prevent them from incurring injuries but will also leave your cleaners better equipped to keep track of their work within a given space.
The best way to go about this is to train your cleaning staff to take a good look at the space around them before cleaning, and plan any necessary parts of the job in their head – for instance, asking themselves, in what direction should I mop the floor to prevent myself from slipping over?
Actively Research the Best Equipment and Techniques
Cleaners may think they keep a pretty clean home most of the time anyway, so they’re confident they can pull off a professional clean. However, when your cleaning company is being paid by a client, it’s not enough for the work to just be satisfactory.
In order to deliver the highest quality of clean possible, there needs to be added effort put into researching the best equipment and cleaning techniques for a range of different, commonly requested cleaning jobs. This will allow your new cleaner to feel better prepared for any upcoming cleaning job and leave them confident that their work is something your cleaning company and the client will be happy with!
New cleaners may not be aware that using the same products they might use in their own home isn’t necessarily good enough. They’ll need to be trained on when to use higher-quality, heavy-duty cleaning products and when a standard cleaner (baking soda, vinegar, etc.) might do a better job.
Planning and Taking Notes
Make sure your cleaners know exactly what your client expects of your company’s results before they start cleaning – and take notes.
When cleaning a large home or a non-residential building, there can often be so much to do that certain, less memorable jobs, fall by the wayside. Prevent this from happening by creating a checklist for new cleaners or having them keep notes of what cleaning jobs they need to do. In addition, have them check items off the list as they go along.
Not only will this allow your cleaners to stay on top of all their jobs, but they’ll be able to use the list to do a final walkthrough of their working area before leaving, ensuring they’ve carried out every cleaning job to a high standard.
Good Customer Service
Don’t forget that your client won’t just judge your cleaning company on the quality of your cleaning alone, but also on the overall service they’ve received – including the quality of customer interaction.
Ensure that your cleaning staff is always friendly, willing, and enthusiastic when they show up to a cleaning job. Make them feel comfortable enough to ask you questions if they are unsure about any of the tasks. Your clients would prefer that your cleaning staff is completely sure of the job requirements rather than showing up to an unclean space.
Remember that some of your clients will be letting your cleaning staff into their private homes to do work for them, so they should always aim to present themselves as approachable, as well as professional.
Checklists
We’ve already talked about the value of providing a checklist to your cleaners, but it can also be very helpful to make checklists to guide your cleaning staff through the beginning and end of their cleaning day.
You can provide your cleaners with a checklist of the equipment and products they need to take with them to your client’s home and refer to it before they leave for each shift. Your cleaning company could look very unprofessional if cleaners leave your client halfway through the shift to pick up a replacement for a missing product.
Train your cleaners to refer to the checklist before they leave to ensure they remember to take all the equipment and products with them – microfibre cloths, sponges, or gloves, for instance.
Checklists are incredibly helpful in most lines of work but are particularly helpful to your cleaners.
Empathy
When considering whether your cleaning staff has completed quality work, have them take a moment to look at their finished space and place themselves in the shoes of the client.
If they paid someone the company’s going rate and was presented with the standard of work, would they be satisfied? Would they feel the client has received good customer service and superior cleaning?
If your cleaning staff can answer with an honest yes, then they will know they’ve done a good job. However, if they feel any doubt whatsoever whilst answering this question, they will be empowered to pay that task more attention before considering the job complete.
When you train your Cleaning Professionals to be comfortable, calm, and customer-focused they will be surprised at how rewarding and lucrative a cleaning career can be. As a result, you have a well-trained cleaning staff that can grow with your cleaning company.
Keep all these tips in mind and before long, you should have an amazing staff of cleaning professionals.
