Recruiting Millennials To Contract Cleaning Through Internships

While Millennials may not think of cleaning as a career choice, BSCs can certainly attract young professionals as long as they put the industry into context. Explain the benefits these young workers stand to achieve right away. Millennials don’t want to wait.

With the country and industry in the midst of the Baby Boomer retirement, now is the opportune time to talk to staff members and create a succession plan. Recruit new, younger members into the company by participating in career fairs at local high schools and colleges. BSCs can also put together an internship program to give young professionals a taste of the industry.

ISSA members can take advantage of new internship support materials from the association. The Internship Toolkit features human resource and statutory compensation information, as well as sample forms and templates building service contractors can use to launch their internship program. There are also helpful guidelines for finding, interviewing, hiring and training candidates.

In addition, the ISSA Foundation has created an Internship Grant program to help companies fund full-time internship positions for college juniors. ISSA members are eligible to receive 50 percent of the verified compensation or up to a maximum of $3,000 annually. Nine grants will be awarded in 2014, and if successful, the program will be offered annually.

“When you go to college, you don’t really say, ‘I want to join the cleaning and maintenance industry,’ so this is a way to draw young people into our industry,” says Tracy Weber, ISSA Foundation manager.