Hiring new employees is a cornerstone of business growth, sometimes it can seem like a daunting task to complete. Wether you just acquired a new franchise or are simply in the process of hiring new staff, training is time consuming, effortful and stressful since your business depends on getting your new cleaning staff trained! Ensuring that you have an effective (both with regard to time and money) training plan to get your cleaning staff up to speed is essential to your success. Follow these 10 tips on how to train cleaning staff, in conjunction with your training program, to relieve the stress of training!
Group Trainings
One of the most daunting parts about training is realizing how often you’ll have to provide trainings if you do them one-on-one. Group training sessions are more efficient from a time and money perspective, and they are also a great way to see how candidates are able to handle themselves in a team.
Create and Foster Group Dynamic
Because cleaning crews are just that, crews, being able to help foster a professional group dynamic right from the get-go is very important. Furthermore, creating this team dynamic is a great way to help new recruits feel less alone and develop a rapport within the company a lot faster.
Explain, Explain, Explain
While you may know all the whys about why your commercial cleaning company does certain things, new employees will not. In order to get them on board with your policies and ways of doing things, it’s essential to explain to them WHY. If an employee doesn’t understand why something is important, then they may not consider it a priority and therefore the job may get neglected.
Checklists
Providing clear, concise and simple checklists is a great way to get new employees familiar with the janitorial routines. Checklists are easy to use and easy to understand, and furthermore can be used on the job! Checklists also drive home what needs to get done and in what order.
Anecdotal Support
People tend to learn better or understand situations better when they can relate them to a real-life situation. During training, it can be really beneficial to have current employees talk about specific times when they were engaging in different janitorial tasks so that the learning can be practical and concrete.
Interactive Learning
Just listening to someone read a paper can be quite redundant. Mix up your training sessions with some interactive learning. A great way to do this in bring in some of the tools and products that the employees will use on the job and let them test them out! Another form of interactive learning can be through giving the trainees some scenarios to work out and as a group they can share their ideas.
Quizzes
No, this isn’t school per se, but short quizzes can really help both the trainers and the trainees measure understanding and gage their knowledge and preparedness to get out on the job. The goal of the quizzes is success, so don’t try and trick the trainees!
Building Professional Relationships
Through training sessions, trainees can start to build professional relationships with fellow trainees and current employees. Many janitorial staff will leave their jobs because they feel unseen by the rest of the company. Especially when your company relies on having motivated and happy cleaning staff, it is essential that you take the time to get to know them.
Provide Employee Handbooks
If you really want your new trainees to succeed, you can’t expect them to remember everything by heart. Providing an employee handbook that outlines not only daily tasks, but company history, ethos, mission, conduct, procedures, and contact information is an important part in making them feel a part of the company. These handbooks also contain important information about policies that they may not have felt comfortable asking about, so it is essential in helping them stay informed.
Support and Feedback
In order to keep your training programs top-notch, it is vital to get feedback from the latest batch of trainees once they’ve spent a few weeks in the field. Providing them with an online feedback survey conveys that not only do you value their opinions, but that you also want to see how they’re getting on. Furthermore, this feedback is essential data for you and your company about how to keep improving.
Making the system work for both you and your newly hired employees is a win-win. Training doesn’t have to be this “scary” part of your company but rather it should be where you shine!