3 Most Overlooked Areas When Training Cleaning Workers

Contributed by Johnny Pallares is the owner of DLR Commercial Cleaning

One of the most important aspects of running a commercial cleaning business is establishing a training program. A good training program will ensure your team can successfully hire new people to be effective cleaners, as well as ensure you are hiring supervisors that can bring the best out of your employees. Most importantly, a good training program helps limit turnover and will improve your bottom line by ensuring you have a skilled and large enough workforce to take on more jobs.  

However, you only reap the benefits of a good training program if you execute a good training program. Unfortunately, there are a lot of areas that people consistently overlook when training new employees.  

Here are three of the most overlooked areas when training people to do commercial cleaning:

1. Focus on efficiency over details
In my experience, many people who have experience doing custodial work started out in residential cleaning. Residential cleaners are great hires because they know the amount of detail necessary to successfully clean someone’s home. However, that keen eye for detail can drastically slow down your job completion time.  

Residential cleaning is very detail-oriented, meaning you are focusing on everything from the floorboards to the most obscure corners of the walls. This is great for cleaning someone’s home, but a large commercial space requires a much more efficient cleaning method. In the workplace, the focus will always be disinfecting. It is important you train new employees to focus on efficiently disinfecting touchpoints, work areas and restrooms.

Commercial cleaning training should be more focused on efficiency and speed versus detail. It is easier to deep clean a custom home with a few tables and a few trashcans, as opposed to cleaning an entire office with multiple desks, trashcans and restrooms. Giving a commercial space the same deep clean you give a house means your team simply won’t have the time to clean everything and still be able to take on an adequate number of jobs.

2. Establish different training programs for each commercial industry
Not all commercial cleaning is the same and each industry requires different standards. It is important that you create training programs for each industry you do commercial cleaning work in. A commercial office space, a school, and a dental office are all different and require different cleaning techniques. Your training programs should refect that.

If you sign a new dental client, then it is important to train your employees on healthcare and dental clinic-specific OSHA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention standards and best practices.

This training should not be just for new employees. It is important you retrain supervisors and other long-term employees to ensure they are still able to maintain proper standards. Retraining should occur four times a year or whenever you receive a new contract from an industry your company has not worked in before.  

Before conducting a training session, get feedback from your clients in that industry to get an idea of what your team is doing well and what they may be doing wrong.

3. Preach cross-contamination prevention
With COVID-19 and other airborne illnesses being so prevalent in today’s workforce prevention of cross-contamination is more important than ever. Training your employees on proper cleaning practices will help reduce the risk of contracting an illness or exposing your team or your client’s employees to harmful chemicals.

You need to train your team on all aspects of cross-contamination prevention. This means your team can remove dust and bacteria and not just spread it around. A properly trained team also knows how to separate and label your cleaning equipment and chemicals. Lastly, your team should implement systems such as color-coding your towels and rags, so you are not using the same equipment to clean a dirty toilet as you are to wipe down a work desk.

Teach your team to communicate with each other so they can let each other know when someone is not following cross-contamination prevention protocols.

Training is one of the best ways to grow and maintain an efficient workforce. However, those benefits only come if you are able to establish the right training program. Train your team to clean with efficiency, create different training programs to match each commercial industry, and preach cross-contamination prevention. Don’t’ overlook these steps and your team will be properly trained to keep commercial spaces clean and healthy.

Johnny Pallares is the owner of DLR Commercial Cleaning in Phoenix Arizona. The commercial cleaning company provides professional cleaning services to over 500 clients across the Greater Phoenix Area.