Should you tell employees you’re new and show transparency in your cleaning business? Don’t fret, here are the keys to successful employee management as a new business owner.
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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.
Should You Let New Hires Know That You are New?
Should you let new hires know that you are a new cleaning business, or should you make them think you’ve been around for a while? There’s a house cleaner that called in and asked this question.
“My name is Stephanie, and my question is, should I disclose to my new hire candidates that I am a new business? I have been in the cleaning industry for many years, and I’m just venturing off to start my own business since March and I’m getting overwhelmed. So, I need some help. I am new to hiring, so I don’t think I know the correct questions to ask.
And I think that my candidates can kind of pick up on the fact that I’m new. And so, I don’t think they feel really comfortable with working for my business because of it. So, what advice do you have? Should I disclose to them that I’m a new company and that they’re going to be basically just growing with me and that we’re basically learning together without them losing respect for me?”
You Should Let Them Know You are New
I’m super excited about this question. And the answer is yes, as you’re hiring new people, let them know you’re a startup company.
Now, the reason you’re going to let them know is that if they think they’re coming into an established company and you have rules and regulations in place, and then a month down the road, you decide, “Oh, whoopsie, I made a mistake. I need to change that.” It’s going to feel like you’re ripping the rug out from underneath them because they’re thinking you already have the rules and regulations in place.
You Make a Lot of Changes as You Grow in the Beginning
So, you will be growing, and you’ll be making a lot of changes in the beginning. And so, one of the things that’s helpful is if you all grow together and you become partners in helping create the rules and regulations and incentives. The way that your business operates and the way that you treat your customers and all these things.
It’s going to give you a lot of opportunities to get feedback from them about what’s happening while they’re out in the field. It also allows you give your feedback based on what you know in the cleaning business, and then how you would like to apply what you’ve learned to your business moving forward.
We Have an Employee Handbook Training
Now, over at Savvy Cleaner Training, we have a training program that is called the Employee Handbook Training. And I highly recommend that you go through it. It walks every step of the way through the Employee Handbook and the standards in the cleaning industry for the rules and regulations of how a business should operate.
How many days off somebody should have, what happens if you’re late, what happens if you keep cleaning equipment overnight. It goes over all of those things. And then as a business owner, you get to decide you’re going to strike this policy or you’re going to add to that policy and change 14 days to 10 days or whatever.
You get to make the changes. But these are standards in the industry, and it will help guide you on what to do and how to treat your employees.
You Have to Learn About Discrimination as an Employer
Now, the reason I love this program is that if you’re brand spanking new to hiring and expanding your business, it’s going to give you a lot of insights on things that you can and cannot say in an interview. Just because of discrimination, because you want to make sure that you’re an equal opportunity employee.
You want to make sure that you are following those procedures from an employer standpoint. Then also for your employees, that they follow a certain series of rules and regulations. So, I love this course for that reason. You can check it out at SavvyCleaner.com
Once You Make Rules, Stick to Them
So, one of the things that I want to mention to you as you’re going through, there will be a lot of changes that you do make, but I want to have you pay attention to the fact that once you make a rule, you have to stick to it.
And so, this is where you said, are my employees going to feel weird? Or they’re not going to respect me the same because I’m new.
They’re not going to respect you if you make rules and then don’t follow through. And that’s the real thing I want to share with you today. You have to follow through.
It’s Like Being a New Parent
So, for example, you take a new parent. And so, they have this infant that’s super cute and cuddly and they have a lot of love for this child, but they don’t have strict rules in place. And so, as the kid starts to turn into a toddler and the parent is going from, “Oh, I’m so emotionally involved in this child,” to, “Ooh, I got to make rules and regulations.”
The longer they put off those rules and regulations, the more the child pushes and the more the child realizes there are no rules and regulations in place, I can get by with anything.
And then all of a sudden, you have kids throwing tantrums and yelling and screaming and all kinds of stuff because then they know they can get by with it. It is the same for employees.
Employees With No Rules Keep Pushing and Pushing
So, you have employees. And if there are no rules and regulations in place, or if you don’t write them up when they misbehave or they break the rules, then what happens is they just keep pushing and pushing. And before you know it, they will hijack your company and they will hold you hostage.
Then you will sit there saying, “What on earth have I done? I was only trying to be kind.”
You Have to Have a Firm Footing Day One
And so, I hate to say this, but you have to have a firm footing from day one. As you go into your business, you have to say, “These are our rules and regulations. There is no aberration from these, or there’s no deviance, or there’s no breaking away from them.”
You have to follow these rules and regulations because if you don’t, stuff starts to crumble and fall through the cracks. And it’s not just with your employees, but what you do in your business and the structure that you have. The rules that you follow transfer over into the way that they treat the customers.
And so, if you’re giving them leniency and you’re letting them break the rules, they’re going to turn around and they’re going to let your customers break the rules. And before you know it, you don’t have a business. All you have is chaos.
Rules and Regulations Help You Expand
And so, as you move into this new phase, I love the fact that you’re expanding. I am super excited for you, but I want you to get your rules and regulations in place, your company policies in place, know exactly what they are, know why you have them in place because you will have employees that will challenge you.
“Well, why do we do things this way?” And then you have to say, “This is the reason why. Because it streamlines this particular series of activities and it keeps this from happening and it prevents this from happening,” and so on.
You have to know the reasons why you have a rule and regulation in place. And then you have to know what the consequence is if that rule and regulation is broken. And then you have to follow through on it.
It Doesn’t Matter if You’re New
So to reinforce, it doesn’t matter if you’re new. We all started out new. Everybody starts out with business being new and everybody that hires for the first time starts out hiring for the first time.
So, this is not rocket science, but I do want you to pay attention to the fact that you are in charge. And I don’t want your employees, even though they’re new, to take advantage of you. So, I’m hoping that this conversation will lead you in the right direction.
Resources
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Leader Board: The DNA of High-Performance Teams – https://amzn.to/3qtNr1y
Solve Employee Problems Before They Start – https://amzn.to/37BQ9ta
Carrots and Sticks Don’t Work – https://amzn.to/3ooC0pX
101 Tough Conversations to Have with Employees – https://amzn.to/2VCzU9B
The 9 Faces of HR – https://amzn.to/39HCxzh
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