Engage Your Cleaning Team with Pre-shift Meetings
Business owners are always looking for ways to engage their cleaning team because they know that engaged employees tend to stay longer with the company. But some of these same owners are concerned about the additional time and cost involved. After all, if they're not cleaning, they're not adding to the bottom line, right?
That's backwards thinking. If engaging your team helps to keep them around longer, you're saving way more money in hiring and training costs!
They Key to Pre-Shift Meetings is to Keep Them Interactive and Short
How short? That depends on how often you have the meetings, but never make them more than 10 minutes long. In fact, if you can do it in 5 minutes, that's just enough time to get them excited and ready for the day.
Why so short? Well besides the obvious answer of payroll savings, there is also research that supports the fact that your employees will retain the information longer if they don't have to remember a long list of topics. So resist the temptation of giving them a laundry list of all the things they should or shouldn't be doing when cleaning homes.
Instead, pick one small topic and go into more depth on that topic. Pets, for example. What is your pet policy on keeping them in crates or locked in a separate room to keep them out of harm's way? What if the pet has to go outside? Have a discussion with your team on their experiences and get their input. Employees want to know that their opinion matters and that you're listening.
How often? If you're just getting started with this I don't recommend you hold the meeting every day. That puts a lot or pressure on you to make sure you are ready with the topic of the day.
Go ahead and start with twice weekly meetings (some people refer to them as “5-Minute Huddles”). Do this for a few weeks and gauge your employees' engagement. If they love the meetings, consider doing them 3 days a week.
What about office staff? Be sure to get them involved too. There may be topics they can lead regarding client feedback or complaints, time keeping and documentation topics. Plus, they are probably the ones answering the phones so the more they learn about what happens out in the field, the more experienced they become at answering client and prospect questions.
Rules for Conducting Pre-Shift Meetings
- Start on time and end on time.
- Make sure all employees are present, have someone on the team (team leader or office personnel) log anyone that is consistently late.
- Greet each employee with a smile and be upbeat and positive during the meeting.
- Spend 1 minute or less updating them on anything of importance that is happening in the company. If there is no company news, then recognize an employee for exemplary work, or share a positive customer review.
- Introduce the main topic and solicit discussion.
- If you are going to do a training meeting, such as how to properly put on and take off PPE (personal protective equipment), have a team leader or experienced employee do the demonstration. Let them be the teacher instead of you always taking that role.
Note: if you get others involved in teaching during the meetings, plan for this up front with them so they're prepared and not being put on the spot without warning. - Always end the meeting on a positive note. Thank them for their service and send them on their way.
These are just a few suggestions for conducting your pre-shift meetings. As you do more of them, ask for input from the team on topics they'd like to discuss or get more training on.
As the owner, the more you can engage with your employees on a personal level, the more they will respect you and your company. Many cleaning business owners that do these on a regular basis find that the employees who have been consistently late, start showing up to work on time. And many employees start referring the business to friends and acquaintances as a great place to work. Over time it becomes a win-win for all!
