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5 Success Traits of Cleaning Employees

5 success traits of cleaning employees keep coming up when hiring house cleaners or maids. These success traits are the hallmark of a savvy cleaner and taught in our house cleaner training.

They are reliability, being a self-starter or problem solver, willing to learn or teachable and honesty.  Among the top 5 success traits of a successful maid service is the ability to follow company rules and be kind.

Angela Brown, The House Cleaning Guru gives cleaning advice in this and other cleaning videos to help you grow your cleaning company.

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Hey there, I’m Angela Brown, and this is Ask a House Cleaner. This is a show where you get to ask a house cleaning question, and I get to help you find an answer. You can find this and 400 other answered questions in this series on our YouTube channel.

“What are the five top things I should look for in a house cleaner that I’m about to hire?”

That’s a fun question because it involves people skills. There are about five things that are crucial to the success of your business when you hire people or staff.

1. Are They Reliable?

5 Success Traits of a Great House Cleaner, Trait 1The first thing to look for is reliability. Are you hiring someone that you can count on?

As you interview them, come up with questions that question their reliability. Have them share examples with you of different times they were reliable.

These are going to be stories like, “There was a snowstorm and instead of calling out, I found a way to get to work on time.” That gives them the opportunity to show reliability. There are ways that you can be safe but you can also be reliable.

Or Are They Looking for Excuses?

5 Success Traits of a Great House Cleaner, Car on Snowy RoadDon’t hire a person that’s looking for excuses or the back door to every challenge your business has. That is not the person you’re looking for.

You’re looking for somebody who’s reliable that you can count on.

This is super important for this reason. Your business depends on their reliability, and your customers need to be able to count on you as a company.

2. Are They Self Starters?

5 Success Traits of a Great House Cleaner, Trait 2You wouldn’t think being a self-starter would relate to cleaning, but it does.

If you’re a self-starter, you see things that need to be done and you just go and do them. You don’t wait for somebody to give you orders and tell you what to do.

Employees will have a lot of chances to use this skill. There will be many opportunities at every house where they have to make judgment calls.

Or Do They Sit Around Waiting for Instructions?

5 Success Traits of a Great House Cleaner, Woman Wiping CounterYou are not right for the house cleaning business if you sit around and wait for somebody to tell you what to do. If you need someone to micromanage you, this job is not for you.

But, if you can make judgment calls on your own, this might be something that you are great at! When you see something that needs to be done, you have to make a decision. Ask yourself, “Does this fit into my job category, and am I able to do it within my allotted time?” Or, “This doesn’t fit into what we’re doing today. I would love to come back with my boss and have her upsell that.”

A self-starter is going to be a person that gets themselves out of bed in the morning to get to work on time. They take the initiative to do things correctly and efficiently.

3. Are They Honest?

5 Success Traits of a Great House Cleaner, Trait 3Number three is honesty. Honesty is so important in the house cleaning business. It applies to so many parts of the business.

When you go to a customer’s house, it’s obvious that you want an honest person. You don’t want them stealing the client’s things. Another thing you don’t want them doing is lying to the client. You also don’t want them over-promising.  And you don’t want them saying bad things about your company.

You always want somebody that’s honest. You can’t afford to compromise on that.

Honesty Goes Backward

5 Success Traits of a Great House Cleaner, Women Chatting at LunchWhen you have an employee that is honest, they will come to you and tell you what else is going on in the company.

They won’t cover for their friends or be dishonest about other employees. They will respect you enough that they won’t want to create drama for your cleaning business.

They’re going to come and say, “Hey, I have a problem and here’s the problem.” They will paint an honest picture for you.

That allows you to resolve issues without a lot of conflict and drama.

4. Are They Willing to Learn?

5 Success Traits of a Great House Cleaner, Trait 4The desire to keep learning is huge in the house cleaning industry. This is because oftentimes, you’ll hire somebody that already has cleaning experience. So, they want to come in and say, “Well, I already know how to clean. Don’t teach me anything. I already figured it out.”

Maybe they did, but your business has its own way to clean that shows consistency to all your customers. You may have new methods that you encourage them to use. You may have new systems. Maybe you do a speed cleaning program as part of your business. Maybe you do a 38-point check system where you double-check all your work.

Who knows what your system is? Every system is different, but you need somebody that’s willing to learn that.

Customer Expectations

5 Success Traits of a Great House Cleaner, Woman on PhoneThen, if a customer comes to you and says, “Hey, this is not meeting my expectations. Is there a way that we can fix this?”

A person who is open to learning will say, “Sure. What can we do? How can we make that right?” It will serve them personally as well as your company.

Because they’re willing to learn, they can bring that information back to you. And then on a grand scale, you can make all those changes across the board within your company.

5. Are They Kind?

5 Success Traits of a Great House Cleaner, Trait 5That may not sound like a house cleaning characteristic. But it’s important to the success of your business.

House cleaning is a tough job, we put our bodies through a lot of physical demands and a lot of physical stress.

On top of that, we are people too. We have our own lives. Maybe we stayed up too late because our kids were sick. Maybe we have other things that we’re dealing with. So, we show up and we’re grumpy, or we’re having a bad day.

Then, we have to deal with a customer and we have to remember to be kind. It’s super important that you hire people who know how to be kind and can do it all the time.

Default to Kindness

5 Success Traits of a Great House Cleaner, Three Women Chatting at LunchEven co-workers get into little spats. They get upset with each other, and they have bad days. They have conflicts.

That’s okay. You may feel grumpy on the outside. But if you are a kind person, whatever the situation is, you default to kindness.

Whether you’re dealing with another employee, a client, or your boss, kindness is your default. And so, you will always stop and pause and say, “Hey, maybe I was wrong. Maybe I’m not, but maybe I was, but at this particular moment, I choose to be kind.” That’s the kind of person that you want to hire.

Those Are the Top 5!

Those are five success traits you can look for when you hire a new employee for your cleaning business.

You can teach somebody how to clean, but you cannot teach somebody these characteristics. This is inherent to who that person is. It’s part of their character, part of their makeup. This is who they are, and so those are the kinds of people that you’re looking for.

Until we meet again, leave the world a cleaner place than when you found it.

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Resources

The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace: Empowering Organizations by Encouraging People – https://amzn.to/2ld1Sqe

The Vibrant Workplace: Overcoming the Obstacles to Building a Culture of Appreciation – https://amzn.to/2HLYFH3

1501 Ways to Reward Employees – https://amzn.to/2JN4tlt

The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever – https://amzn.to/2t98Ccp

Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t – https://amzn.to/2HOtScy

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