A JOB WORTH DOING - A CONTRACTOR’S BLOG C&M
The value of a good HR strategy Lee Andrews, CEO of DOC Cleaning, reports. IT has never been easy to retain
happening in the company. Then
good staff in cleaning. For reasons
there are little things like printing
we know only too well, cleaning
‘happy birthday’ on someone’s
is not the job of choice for many
payslip, or just organising a night
people, often being perceived as
out. At a strategic level, there’s the
an occupation of last resort. The
importance of delivering training,
larger your cleaning company
and on a softer level showing a bit
becomes, so does the problem
of understanding when someone
of recruiting and retaining staff,
can’t make their shift, rather than
meaning that sooner or
‘marking their card’, so to speak.
later you need a plan to
Of course, these
manage the issue.
initiatives don’t just
An awful lot is said about creating
happen by themselves and I’m well aware
a culture that makes
that not every cleaning
people want to
contractor has the
stay, but in cleaning that’s much easier said
resource to fund an HR person, even on a part-time
than done. Not least because
basis. That being the case, the job
whatever initiatives you decide
of generating and implementing
upon, it means pushing them
such ideas will inevitably fall to a
right the way down to potentially
combination of operations staff and
hundreds of frontline staff who
your admin team, both of whom
work remotely and often alone.
are hard pressed enough doing
So what is the ‘silver bullet’ activity that creates a retention
their day jobs. However, two things
culture, the initiative that’s going to
are happening to make a
solve your retention problems? Well
comprehensive staff engagement
of course there’s no single activity,
strategy more easily achievable.
no ‘silver bullet’, but as the CEO of
One is the fact that just about all
an airline going through hard times
cleaning staff have a smartphone,
once said: ‘I can’t change one thing
whilst the second is the
by 1000%, but I can change 1000
emergence of employee portals
things by 1%’ - and I think that’s
that integrate with company
the approach we can realistically
management and payroll
take as cleaning contractors. It’s
software. This combination
the combination of things you do
is now making it possible to
that makes staff feel your company
communicate cost-effectively with
is one they’d like to stick with,
an entire workforce and make
rather than move to another job for
information available in a secure
£0.50p/hour more on their pay rate.
way that remote staff can access
The culture-building activities
in their own time. Again, it’s a
I most often hear about, some of
case of longstanding issues we
which work well for us at DOC,
have faced as an industry being
all focus around inclusiveness.
solved by simple technology. With
Typical examples are setting
or without HR, contractors can
up feedback forums for staff,
show staff they care about their
acknowledging and rewarding
welfare and we really can talk
good performance, handing out
seriously about that culture of
long service awards and letting
thoughtfulness and retention.
everyone know about good things
WWW.DOCCLEANING.CO.UK
WWW.CLEANINGMAG.COM
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JUNE 2019 21 13/05/2019 08:48:50