Some industries struggle with high turnover, and home cleaning is definitely one of them.

We have yet to meet a business manager or owner who likes high turnover. I can’t imagine the industry where this would be a good thing. From rodeo clowns to warehouse employees to cleaners, the more average experience your staff has, the more they will be able to outperform a company with high turnover.

In our industry, you’d rather have someone clean your home who has been successfully doing this for many months or years than someone who has been doing it for weeks for these reasons:

1. Experienced workers have cleaned many more houses without complaint, on average. They have made people happy time after time. They have cracked the code on how to attack a job and a particular house. The chance of them cleaning your house satisfactorily is much higher;
2. They know what doesn’t work. Most companies in this business have a feedback process wherein an unsatisfactory job will be written up, discussed, corrective action taken, processed, and reviewed. Any time you’ve been corrected, clearly and thoughtfully, on a mistake you’ve made, you’re less likely to make it again;
3. They’re dependable. If someone has successfully held any job for significant amount of time, they register as dependable. The chance of them showing up for work, doing a good job, following directions, and communicating with clients well is much higher;
4. Training costs are lower if you have less turnover. It takes a few months before a worker is up to speed and contributing at close-to-full levels. Our turnover rate has always been low compared to the industry. If you’re continually in training mode with half of your staff, then your percentage of employees who are near full quality/productivity will diminish. If turnover is too high, there is little chance you are building your company, and a greater chance you are imploding.

Do experienced cost more than inexperienced employees? Yes.

In our industry an experienced worker makes $1-3 more per hour than someone in their first months of work. So, say they may cost you $4 more per clean. That sounds expensive. But, when you look at a customer relationship longitudinally, it is pretty cheap. If they stay with your company longer, say three years instead of six months, the extra $4 per clean is pennies on the dollar, even in a low margin industry such as ours. Would you rather someone pay you $2 every two weeks for 12 weeks, or $1 every two weeks for 3 years? Experienced workers beget longer and stronger customer relationships and hence a better company.

Additionally, you can have a better company culture if you have many long-term employees on your staff. Newer employees consciously and unconsciously model their behavior after longer-term employees.

By having the experienced people as the core of your company, personnel problems are less likely to result, and you can build a positive culture to support you company performance and goals.

– The Tidy Maids