Are You Ready To Hire Your First Supervisor For Your Cleaning Business? (Part One)
Knowing when you are ready to promote or hire your first supervisor can be a huge step for a cleaning business owner. How do I know if I need to promote or hire a supervisor? Am I taking on more than I can afford financially? Will the supervisor be a “working” supervisor, or merely handle accounts and crews? Where do I find a great supervisor? How much do I pay? What exactly will the supervisor's duties? These are all questions that come into play.
Let's start with the "when" part of our question. When is it time to bring on your first supervisor? Here are some signs that the time is right:
- you are personally becoming frazzled more quickly and cannot seem to keep up with the demands of your business
- you find customer complaints on the rise
- you are turning down business because of staffing or scheduling issues
- you have accounts spread over a wide geographic area
- you find less and less time to grow your business
- you are spending a good part of your day putting out fires
Now may be the time to bring on someone to help you manage the business. Often business owners feel threatened or feel that they don't want to give up any control of their business activities. Unfortunately, this thinking may keep the business owner from reaching his/her business and financial goals. It is a “small picture” kind of mentality that hampers company growth. It is like looking at your company through a peep hole instead of through a wide angle lens.
Bringing on that first supervisor can provide a sense of relief that is only known when you find someone to help share the burden of growing your company. The first order of business after you have decided that you need supervisory help is to determine the exact role of the supervisor and the duties he/she will perform.
Here are some common duties for beginning supervisors in the janitorial/cleaning industry:
- assist in the training of new employees
- visit accounts to assure that quality standards are met
- review account contracts or menu of services to insure that obligations to client are met
* for commercial companies, assure special projects and contract requirements are met
* for residential companies, assure employees are following the specified menu; deep clean,
maintenance clean or special cleans - assist with scheduling and planning workloads
- serve as the liaison between the company and employees
- make certain employees have the proper training, equipment, supplies and knowledge necessary to perform their work adequately
- participate in company employee motivational programs
- assist in employee evaluations
- assist in account coverage when necessary
- field customer concerns or complaints and resolve quickly
- communicate issues to company owner
- inspire other employees and help them achieve success
In the Part Two, we'll talk about how to find a supervisor and whether you should hire from within.
Sharon L. Cowan is the former President and CEO of a multimillion dollar regional commercial and residential cleaning company. She has a passion for helping fellow business owners reach their potential and realize their dreams. Sharon is a popular speaker and workshop leader. She has been a guest speaker and seminar leader for BSCAI and ARCSI and twice won marketing awards from the BSCAI. Sharon holds workshops throughout the country teaching cleaning business owners how to maximize profits and grow their businesses. Sharon can be reached at 772-563-7320 or www.cleaningbusinessconsultinggroup.com
This is a comprehensive series of 7 videos for training janitorial supervisors. There is over 2.5 hours of content here and they will never remember it all if you try to do it all at once. Break it up and do a little each week over time, or schedule it out over a couple months.
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