ISSA Director of Government affairs states “Make hiring easier with training”

John Nothdurft, Director, suggested focusing on retention.  “Retention is critical now.  Make the position less of a job and more of a career.”  

I do not profess to have the expertise of a John Nothdurft but I do agree retention, from the first day on, is key to having a staff of 60 like I had when I left my cleaning service in 2008.  If you have not heard of, or taken, the Professional House Cleaning Program (sponsored by ISSA), which I have, I recommend you click here  https://arcsi.org/phc/   and take a look at it.  It is the perfect and professional way to keep your cleaners engaged, and working for you, while simultaneously alleviating a lot of costly errors cleaners make using the wrong product, tool or action when performing their duties.

That leaves just one question.  What do you do about the first day?   How do you present the perfect and professional first day house cleaning training?  Or maybe we need to back up one step.  For many companies attrition happens between the interview and the applicant actually showing up for their first day of work.  OUCH!

What happened?  Most companies do a great and professional job of interviewing.  Some hire on the spot and slide right into on-boarding so that they do not need to do it the first day of work.  Some owners think it is even more info that will get the applicant to show up the first day.  If you pay them for on-boarding it certainly won’t hurt!  We need some win/wins to bring them in that first day.  If you do not want to take a chance on-boarding them because you still have to pay them even if they do not show up for the first day of work. You have also wasted a lot of  time,

I suggest sending them home with a link to House Cleaners Training.  They will get paid for watching it upon successful completion of the test as soon as they get to the office the next day.  If they prefer to wait until the next day to complete their initial training, that is fine, or they can earn some money before they even get to the office on their first day by studying the Lessons to the course you assign them.  For some this will seem like easy money and they will complete the on-line training the night before and come in the next day because they have money coming.  Now you have a trainee standing in your office ready to go to work who already knows your process, products, tools and actions for cleaning a bathroom, kitchen or how to dust. 

I recommend you have them watch only one area and then train that area their first day of work.  Giving them an opportunity to learn just one area gives them a chance to pick up some speed with a full day of experience in that one area.  Focused training is always more successful. On-line training means you do not need to teach them everything the first day because you do not want to bring them in the office to watch videos more than once.  That is costly and time consuming. Now they can watch the videos at home the evening before you want them to clean the next area.

At home training will also save so much time.  After on-boarding the HR info and completing forms you can get right out to the first home and start the field training. 

If you are still ‘dark age training’ by having your trainee watch someone clean and then they watch the trainee clean there is no longer a need for your trainee to watch anyone clean. They have already watched a professional cleaner clean while completing the lessons. They have also learned YOUR products, tools and actions so no need to show them that either. 

The process for cleaning is generic and used at every company interested in efficiency; top to bottom in one direction around a room.  You will save a lot of training time if they can get right to cleaning and you can watch them.  And why not?  They know the process, or where to start and what to do next.  They’ve learned your products and tools in Lesson 3 in the on-line manual, as long as you have edited the manual and kept it up to date.  It’s just like teaching someone to use software.  This trainee has been taught everything they need to know.  It is time to get their fingers on that keyboard.  It might even be a mistake to have them watch anyone else who might confuse them by doing things ‘their way’. 

Which brings up a very important point and possible issue.  Be sure the person doing the watching while training (trainer) has studied the training materials and knows the process, products and tools and well as the trainee.  It is then as simple as watching the employee and only asking “What did you miss?” AFTER they miss it.  After all, you or your trainer will not be there to ask them what they missed forever so why tell them now?  Ask them so they get in the habit of following the process and not missing anything.

If you are like many offices today, everything is so professional except the actual house cleaning training process, I recommend you consider upgrading.  You upgrade everything else, why not the actual house cleaning training process which could be the most important thing you do at your company.  Who knows?  Perhaps it will even help to build a bridge between the interview and the new hire actually showing up for the first day of work.   

You might ask “Where do I even start writing my own on-line house cleaning training system?”  I recommend you start by taking the easy road and visiting www.housecleaningtraining.com and use a prepackaged professional house cleaning training kit that you can edit and make your own.

Thanks for your time and I look forwarding to chatting with you at housecleanerstraining.com