Insights and Advice

Q: How can I better communicate with workers who are in multiple buildings and on different shifts?

First off, congratulations for even worrying about keeping in close contact with your staff. Many managers forget that communication breakdowns destroy moral. If you are going to institute a department-wide change, make sure all employees hear about it at the same time or in the same way. Always handle large issues that will have a major impact face-to-face. You can schedule the same meeting with each crew during each shift — and in one day.

For smaller changes, try attaching a notice to each paycheck — the one thing every employee pays attention to. Or start an employee hotline.

If you have a department newsletter that staff doesn’t seem to read, try mailing it to their homes.

Q: Do you have to have labels on all secondary containers?

OSHA’s Hazard Communication Standard, Title 29, section 1910.1200, requires all secondary containers to have proper labels and MSDS sheets for what they contain. The exception: when a secondary container is in the direct supervision of a worker using that chemical, and the entire contents are used during the work shift. But you still must have an MSDS sheet accessible for whatever that bottle contains.

Q: How do you calculate employee turnover?

Turnover rates are used to help identify inefficiencies in specific operations areas. To ensure accuracy, managers must track turnover for individual job descriptions; entry-level turnover is a different issue than supervisory turnover.

Once, you brake out specific job descriptions, track turnover on a monthly basis. This is necessary because annual figures won’t help gauge when job vacancies affect seasonal duties, such as crunch time during the first few weeks of a new school year or a holiday rush.

To determine this monthly figure, divide the number of workers lost that month by the number of workers employed for that month. Some managers argue that if they already are down a few positions and then lose more workers, they should divide by the total number of workers needed to get the job done. But this skews the true figures for that time-frame.

Then create a spreadsheet containing monthly turnover rates. Also useful is averaging those months to gain quarterly or seasonal rates, and then overall annual rates. The more comprehensive the numbers, the more useful they are in addressing staffing concerns and justifying budget requests.

If you’re looking for an industry average for comparison, many people say annual turnover is as high as 300 percent for cleaning employees, but the actual industry figure is closer to 70 percent.