The Cleaning Business Hiring Guide

Hiring employees can seem like a nerve-wracking process, but it doesn't have to be. We break the process down into four basic steps: (1) Planning; (2) Recruiting; (3) Interviewing; and (4) Completing the Hire. Here are some tips for each phase of the process

Plan to Staff Your Business

Depending on how you launch your cleaning business, you (as the owner) may be the sole employee, gathering new clients and travelling to locations to do the actual cleaning. It can easily take months to get to this level of sales volume. When you have enough clients to expand, you’ll probably start hiring additional cleaners. It’s important to staff the right number of people so that you can comfortably complete all orders on the customer’s schedules.

Hiring the right people is supremely important for the success of your cleaning business. The right cleaners will do great work and form relationships with the clients, building trust and polishing your brand’s image. All of this leads to word-of-mouth referrals which are invaluable in the cleaning services industry. A great rule of thumb is to only hire someone if you’d trust them in your own home.

You’ll want to establish a cleaning standard for your employees to follow, this ensures that a consistent level of service is maintained day-to-day and employee-to-employee. For all of your new hires, you’ll want to go through some level of training on this standard. Even experienced cleaners will need to know the cleaners and methods you’ve specified should be used in particular rooms or on particular appliances and fixtures.

Develop a Recruiting Strategy

You can recruit cleaners through usual channels like online job boards or community flyers. Consider also posting Craigslist ads or joining local job-search groups on Facebook to attract a variety of talent. Colleges or universities can offer a large pool of young, energetic workers.

Hiring friends or family has both good and bad points: there is more trust, but your personal relationship can suffer in the pursuit of a good professional relationship. Before hiring them, consider whether or not you’d hire that person based solely on their qualifications. Visualize having a difficult conversation with them, perhaps telling them that they need to improve the quality or speed of their work. Are you confident that you can maintain your personal relationship with them?

Interview with Confidence

If you take your time during the planning and recruiting phases of the process, you will likely end up with many qualified candidates.

Nonetheless, it is natural for a new business owner to be a bit anxious the first time hiring employees. Don’t forget that the interview is just a chance to get to know an applicant and to give them an opportunity to learn more about the role and the business. Also, it might help to remember that they are probably even more nervous than you are!

Throughout the interview process, it may help to keep in mind that most cleaning businesses look for employees who are:

• Dependable, independent workers
• Strong work ethic
• Physically fit (cleaning is a labor intensive task)

Here are some sample interview questions that will help you learn more about the character of your interviewees:

• Why do you want this job? (look for long-term commitment)
• Are you comfortable cleaning someone else’s bathroom?
• What cleaning experience do you have?
• Would you rather be thorough or fast when cleaning? (People who are thorough will get faster as they learn)

Be Familiar with Hiring Laws

After selecting a job candidate, there are certain steps you will need to follow to complete the hiring process. Check out our Hiring Compliance Checklist for a step-by-step guide to the legal aspects of hiring employees.

One of the most important steps is to classify your new hire as an employee or an independent contractor. Become familiar with IRS guidelines on this matter, as there are serious consequences for misclassifying an employee as an independent contractor.

Once you have a growing team of employees, it's time to set up your payroll. Using a payroll service provider saves you time for running your business, and also helps ensure that you comply with important federal requirements such as employee tax withholding.

To help our readers save money and grow their business, we negotiated a 20% discount for you with payroll provider ADP, the most popular small business provider in the country.