How to Manage a Cleaning Team (so it takes up less of your time)…
If you’re a cleaning business owner, I’m sure you’ve wondered how to manage a cleaning team more effectively, so that it takes up less of your time… right?
It’s one of the most common things I hear from time poor cleaning business owners. Instead of focusing on winning new accounts, they’re often spending countless hours every day, managing staff and dealing with issues that stop them from growing their business.
It’s enough to make you scream…
Or, they have team members who are just the wrong fit. But they keep them on out of either misplaced loyalty, or fear of what will happen if they move the ineffective staff out of their business.
It’s enough to make you scream…
However, if you have team members who just aren’t ‘cutting it’, you need to show leadership to the rest of your team, and make the necessary changes. Interestingly, recent studies have shown that over the past decade, many organisations have been investing in developing their leadership rather than developing management skills.
(A cleaning business owner needs both of these skills. If you feel like you’re lacking in these areas, investing in cleaning business coaching, will be a great way to shorten your learning curve..)
Management skills are those ‘one on one’ relationships between cleaning business owners (or managers) and the people in their team.
Having strong management skills, leads to a strong business. It’s as simple as that. So what do strong managers do differently to everyone else?
They communicate. Really well, and, have the difficult conversations when they need to.
Managing and leading a cleaning team is much easier when everyone understands their role. In other words, they understand the expectations of you, their manager, and the customers’ expectations.
And they work together as a team. Working in alignment, rather than individually because good management shares the vision for the business. Company alignment to a clear (shared) purpose is the biggest motivator you can create as a leader seeking to achieve scalable growth in your cleaning business. Once your team buys into the vision that you have co-created with them, it will be easier for you to delegate and focus on growth, because you won’t need to micro-manage all of the details, because your team will take responsibility and ownership.
Good employees, share that vision, because they helped create it. They helped create the purpose (your why), the values (the how), and the mission (what you’re striving for).
Good employees, share that vision, because they helped create it. They helped create the purpose (your why), the values (the how), and the mission (what you’re striving for).
So, effective cleaning team leadership and management, is all about the shared purpose of the business, and the conversations you have with your team. Having great communication – what you say, and how you say it, is paramount.
Within a cleaning business there are so many different conversations we are having each day. Conversations around ideas, delegating tasks, feedback from colleagues and clients, and the conversations that happen in our meetings.
To help you have better conversations here are the keys to success:
- A good conversation is two-way. It involves speaking and listening, and it’s imperative that everyone takes part in the conversation and is heard.
- Secondly, be clear on what the conversation is about, and what the objective/s of the conversation are: “Today, we’re going to discuss the feedback we received from Mrs Smith, and how we can fix our process to ensure that never happens in the future” .
- Be respectful and open. It’s ok to be vulnerable with your team, it helps them to understand your position, and build trust..
- Finally, be mindful. Try to focus on building the relationship and encouraging new thinking. If a team member comes up with a great idea, thank them for their input, and encourage more: “That’s a fantastic idea Jane, how do you think we could incorporate that into our service offering”….
