Ask a House Cleaner, The Challenges of Hiring Staff, Savvy Cleaner

The Challenges of Hiring Staff – House Cleaning

[vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_column_text]Challenges of Hiring Staff, Women Having Lunch Meeting“The challenges of hiring staff are hitting my house cleaning business pretty hard. I’m trying to grow my cleaning company and wonder what cleaning support services are available. What solutions do you have to deal with the challenges of hiring staff?”

Angela Brown, The House Cleaning Guru discusses the challenges of hiring staff on today’s Ask a House Cleaner.

Hiring challenges are a house cleaning FAQ and part of every cleaning and maid service business.

Today’s sponsors are Savvy Cleaner (house cleaning training.) House Cleaning 360 (a hub that partners house cleaners with homeowners.) My Cleaning Connection (a place full of cool cleaning information, products and stuff.) And Savvy Perks, Employee benefits for cleaning business owners the cleaning staff they hire.

Podcast Rss Spacer Savvy Cleaner

Listen: The Challenges of Hiring Staff – House Cleaning

YouTube Spacer Savvy Cleaner

Watch: The Challenges of Hiring Staff – House Cleaning


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.

Ask a House Cleaner DIY Question Spacer Savvy Cleaner

Question: The Challenges of Hiring Staff – House Cleaning

“There are so many challenges with hiring a staff – I don’t even know where to begin.”

Ask a House Cleaner Answer Spacer Savvy Cleaner

Answer: The Challenges of Hiring Staff for Your Cleaning Business

Challenges of Hiring Staff, Woman at Lunch Writing NotesThere are several challenges of hiring staff you will face as a cleaning business owner. Let’s look at some of them now.

  • The delegation of tasks is not one of your strengths.
  • You’ve become so skilled at cleaning your customers only want you.
  • You are excellent at cleaning but not at training.
  • Maybe you don’t know how or where to find the perfect employees.
  • You don’t know if you should hire employees or independent contractors.
  • Maybe you don’t know how much to pay employees or what benefits to offer.
  • You have too many referrals for your current schedule and you feel pushed to hire some help.
  • You’ve maxed out your earning profits against the time you have to clean and you want to expand but don’t know how.

Addressing these challenges of hiring a staff will reduce stress for your business.

Challenges of Hiring Staff – Unwillingness to Delegate

Challenges of Hiring Staff, Man With Palm to Head

I get it. It’s your business. Nobody can do it as well as you can, and that may be true. But if you are going to thrive in business you need to teach others to replace you. 

It’s called delegation and it should be your first item of business. 

  • Make a list of things you do on a daily basis to run your business. 
  • Rate those “to do’s” on a scale of 1-10.
  • Anything that is a 7, 8, 9 or 10 right now – keep for yourself. 
  • Delegate items 1-6.

We’ve got an entire training program at Savvy Cleaner on how to delegate. This is a course I recommend if you’re going to take your business to the next level. 

Cleaning & Managing are Two Different Skills

Challenges of Hiring Staff, Woman With Cleaning SuppliesHouse cleaning and managing employees are two different skills. It’s like being a basketball player and a football player. They’re two different sports. They’re two different sets of skills.

House cleaning and managing staff are two different skills. Just like basketball and baseball are both sports and they both involve a ball, they are as different as night and day. 

In house cleaning, although you might be an excellent house cleaner, you might be horrible at managing people. 

If you grow your business you will need to learn a new set of skills so you can outsource your cleaning. 

Part of managing your team is managing the expectations of your customers. 

Challenges of Hiring Staff – Employees Lie

Challenges of Hiring Staff, Woman PinocchioTo thrive in business, you need a sixth sense. We also call this a BS meter. It helps you see through employees lying to you. Your staff will call in sick when they have problems. And when they can’t get a job done, they’ll make up excuses and blame it on the customer. Dealing with this is part of your job.

Challenges of Hiring Staff Include a Satisfaction Guarantee

Challenges of Hiring Staff, Overwhelmed House CleanerWhen a customer calls you back because the work wasn’t done right, it costs you money. You have to go back and re-clean at your expense or give the customer’s money back. So, you may have to retrain from time to time. `

There is a lot that’s involved in managing a staff. In order for that to become lucrative, you have to budget in your own time. A lot of times as house cleaners we don’t pay ourselves for the extra things we do like managing people. If you were to hire a manager off the street to come in and manage the team that you hire, you would have to pay them a salary.

Challenges of Hiring Staff – You Have More Responsibilities

Challenges of Hiring Staff, Women Having MeetingYou’re going to need to take some time out of your cleaning schedule to read books and to go to classes. You will want to be a savvy business person able to manage and motivate the cleaning team you hire

If you ask the wrong questions in the hiring process, you’re going to hire the wrong person. 

Then two days, a week, three weeks down the road it’s going to smack you upside the head that you have hired the wrong person.  And you’re going to have all kinds of headaches and challenges. But you’ll have taken on new clients that now, you cannot sustain because you don’t have the help that you thought you hired. 

Sometimes it’s better to hire independent contractors vs. employees. But that is a decision your business will have to make.

The Challenges of Hiring Staff Include Time

Startup Struggles Clock and hourglass illustrate limited timeIt takes time to learn to recruit, hire, train, manage and motivate your team. Being a leader is a learned skill. And you can’t be cleaning while you do that. And if cleaning is how you make your living, you need to budget enough money in to pay your bills while you grow your business.

Business owners often pay themselves last. And you can’t stay in business that way. There’s no incentive whatsoever for you to hire people off the street and to put food on their tables and you can’t put food on your own.

The Challenges of Hiring a Staff Escalate Without a plan

Challenges of Hiring Staff, Man With BooksOne of the biggest problems with growth is growing without a plan. If you’re in growth mode, if you have a lot of business coming in, now is the time to stop and to learn, even before you hire new people.

Learn about the business side of hiring a staff. It’s two completely different sets of skills, and if you don’t learn the employee/staff part of the business, you won’t have a business. 

The Challenges of Hiring a Staff is Your Customers Only Want You

Challenges of Hiring Staff, Woman Pointing Only YouWithout a plan and proper training, your clients will only want you to clean their homes and not your new hires. And it’s tough to serve your clients and train new employees at the same time. 

If you can’t juggle it all, your existing customers will grow disenchanted with the fact that you’re scattered and spread so thin. And they will go elsewhere for service.

Wearing many hats is the hallmark of a small business owner, so you have to balance the growth so you don’t go crazy or burn out. 

These are just a few of the challenges of hiring a staff.

0 Savvy Cleaner Spacer Savvy CleanerDisclosure

During the shows we recommend services, sites, and products to help you improve your cleaning and grow your cleaning business. We have partnerships with these companies to provide you with discounts, and savings. By clicking on and buying from the links in the show notes, we may receive a commission which helps pay for the production costs of the show.

Support the show so we can continue to bring you free tips to improve your cleaning and help you grow your cleaning business.  THANK YOU!

About the Show

Learn how the show came to be, interesting facts about the show host, and other frequently asked questions about the show.

Resources For This Episode

Hiring for Attitude: A Revolutionary Approach to Recruiting and Selecting People with Both Tremendous Skills and Superb Attitude – https://amzn.to/2IWsQwl

96 Great Interview Questions to Ask Before You Hire – https://amzn.to/2LE9qya

Principles: Life and Work – https://amzn.to/2LFJnXr

Magnetic Hiring: Your Company’s Secret Weapon to Attracting Top Cyber Security Talent – https://amzn.to/2xmAPl2

How to Hire a Champion: Insider Secrets to Find, Select, and Keep Great Employees – https://amzn.to/2shKogt

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

Permissions To Share

You Have Our Permission To Share This Episode

Show Sponsor

Savvy Cleaner Training – House Cleaner Training and Certification

HouseCleaning360 – Referral database of the world’s most prominent home service providers and the homeowners they serve. 

My Cleaning Connection – Your hub for all things cleaning.

Savvy Perks – Employee benefits for your employees.[/vc_column_text][vc_facebook][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][product_category per_page=”16″ columns=”1″ orderby=”rand” order=”” category=”hiring”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Scroll to Top