Hiring Cleaners: How to Find Workers and Grow Your Cleaning Business
Itâs hard to find good employees for your cleaning business. And when you do, it can be even more challenging to keep them.
Donât worry, itâs not just you. According to cleaning industry expert Katie Pearse (Glisten Academy), staffing is by far the toughest part of running a housecleaning business.
But itâs worthwhile when you succeed. Youâre creating careers for hardworking cleaners, helping your clients, and growing your business in the process.
Hereâs how to confidently find, hire, and retain new cleaners for your businessâalong with some tried-and-true advice from Katie to prove it works.
Everything you should know about how to hire cleaners:
Hiring cleaners: how to know itâs time
Itâs most likely time for you to start hiring employees if:
- Your schedule is consistently full, youâre waitlisting new clients, and thereâs enough work to keep another cleaner busy long-term
- The business is doing well financially and can handle the expense of an extra employee (including wages, taxes, and benefits)
- You have enough time to focus on hiring and properly training a new cleaner
- Hiring another cleaner will help you offer new services, like laundry or carpet cleaning
If any of those situations sound familiar, youâre ready to grow your team.
How to prepare for hiring cleaners
Before hiring cleaners, youâll need to complete several tasks to stay compliant with federal and state labor laws. Hereâs a quick overview of what your to-do list should include:
- Apply for an employer identification number (EIN) through the IRS
- Register with your state labor department
- Be ready to report the employeeâs information to your stateâs new hire reporting agency
- Get a payroll system in place to help you keep accurate records
- Get workersâ compensation insurance
- Write an employment contract or at-will agreement (and get a lawyer to look it over)
- Create an employee handbook, if you donât already have one
- Get a personal data form that your employee can fill out for payroll purposes
- Assemble an info package about disability, family leave, and other federal policies
- Create standard operating procedures for every task you do (hint: our house cleaning checklist can help you get started)
- Set up a workplace safety program
- If you have an office, put up the required federal posters about worker rights
- Order employee uniforms (or be ready to order when you get your new hiresâ preferred sizes)
How to pay your cleaning employees
Before you start looking for employees, you need to know how youâll be compensating them. This will be important information to include in your job posting!
Hereâs what to offer cleaners:
- Good cleaner salary well above minimum wage
- Paid breaks, meetings, and travel time
- Paid mileage (if theyâre using their personal vehicle on the job)
- Health benefits and insurance
- Bonuses and other incentives
- Scheduled raises
- Flexible working hours
- Paid holidays and vacation
- Uniform and cleaning supplies
Youâll also be able to attract better employees if you offer a positive culture and a business where cleaners want to work.
How much do cleaning services pay employees?
On average, cleaners in the United States make $12/hour. Wages range from roughly $21,427â34,752 per year.
Average pay per state is a good place to start, but make sure your employees are earning a fair hourly rate based on their work and experience.
How to hire cleaners in 6 steps
Youâre ready to grow your team and start hiring cleanersâbut how and where do you find them? To get the answers, watch Katie Pearseâs video about her hiring experience, then keep reading!
READ MORE: Successful cleaning business stories
1. Identify your ideal employee
First, figure out what type of people would do well in your business. College students? Parents re-entering the workforce after staying home with their kids? Professionals looking for part-time evening hours?
Whatever your ideal employee might be, make sure their lifestyle and job needs match up with the role youâre hiring for. This will give you a much better chance of finding the right fit for the job.
For example, maybe youâre looking for someone to handle midday cleaning. Your ideal cleaner could be a stay-at-home parent who only has a few hours to work while the kids are at school.
Pro Tip: Already have a team of cleaners but looking to hire more? Get more people just like your current workers with an employee referral program.
2. Write a house cleaner job description and posting
Job descriptions are an internal list of employee tasks and responsibilities. This sets expectations for your employee and helps you evaluate their performance.
When youâre writing a house cleaner job description, youâll need to answer questions like:
- Will the employee schedule new jobs, create quotes, or send invoices?
- Will they interact with customers, whether in person or by text or email?
- Do you need them to work specific days or hours?
- How many jobs will they need to complete each day?
- What cleaning duties will they be responsible for?
House cleaner job description example:
At Sparkling Cleaners, a house cleaner is responsible for:
- Completing tasks according to the provided cleaning checklists
- Managing a particular area of the clientâs home and ensuring a high level of quality
- Working with minimal supervision
- Assessing a clientâs home, prioritizing tasks, and using good judgment to customize the appointment per clientâs wishes
- Building positive relationships with clients by earning their trust and respect
- Complying with proper safety policies and procedures
- Transporting all equipment and supplies from each visit
- Collecting payments from clients when required
- Professionally addressing any complaints or issues and reporting to management
- Taking the initiative to delight our clients wherever possible
READ MORE: Employee hiring and engagement tips from 6 industry experts
A job posting, on the other hand, is shared online to market a job to potential applicants. It builds on the responsibilities laid out in your job description and should also include:
- Company overview
- Position summary
- Personality characteristics
- Job requirements (phone, driverâs license, their own car, previous physical labor or cleaning experience, clean criminal record)
- Hours (full-time, part-time, days, times)
- Compensation (wages, benefits, vacation, incentive, perks)
- Additional information candidates should know (background check, drug testing)
- A request for at least two references
- How they can apply (email, web form, through the posting)
Pro Tip: Make your job posting sound like the people you want to hire. For example, if you want your staff to be friendly and professional, make your posting friendly and professional, too.
Job posting example:
RESIDENTIAL CLEANER (PART-TIME)
Position summary:
This is a new position to provide extra flexibility and meet client demand. In this role, which reports to our crew lead, you will clean homes and build client relationships. This role is ideal if you have limited free daytime hours and are looking for fulfilling work!
Youâll find this position rewarding if you pride yourself on a job well done, work well with a team and on your own, and pay close attention to the details.
Responsibilities:
- Completing tasks according to the provided cleaning checklists
- Managing a particular area of the clientâs home and ensuring a high level of quality
- Working with minimal supervision
- Assessing a clientâs home, prioritizing tasks, and using good judgment to customize the appointment per clientâs wishes
- Building positive relationships with clients by earning their trust and respect
- Complying with proper safety policies and procedures
- Transporting all equipment and supplies from each visit
- Collecting payments from clients when required
- Professionally addressing any complaints or issues and reporting to management
- Taking the initiative to delight our clients wherever possible
Requirements:
- Cell phone
- Valid driverâs license
- Personal vehicle
- Clean criminal record
- Previous cleaning experience is an asset
Work hours: 10amâ2pm, Monday to Friday
Compensation: $16.00/hour + $0.50/hour performance incentive
Additional information:
- A criminal background check will be performed before hiring
- Two weeks of paid training will be provided upon hiring
How to apply:
Please send your resume, cover letter, and two professional references to [email protected] Weâll contact successful candidates to schedule an interview and on-the-job cleaning audition (paid at $12.00/hour).
About Sparkling Cleaners:
Since 2012, Sparkling Cleaners has made our clientsâ lives better through the simple power of a clean home. Our eight-person team offers professional house cleaning service, including specialty services such as deep cleaning, construction cleaning, laundry, and organization. We pride ourselves on our dedication to the wellbeing of both our clients and our employees.
3. Advertise the job
How do you market to cleaners? Simpleâyou already know what type of person youâre looking for, so find the places where they spend time. Then you just need to create a message that attracts and connects with them.
Hereâs how to reach and where to find employees for your cleaning business:
- A Careers page on your website (ideally with a job form for applicants to fill out!)
- Job boards like Indeed, Craigslist, Kijiji, Monster, Glassdoor, and ZipRecruiter
- Social media, including job and interest groups for your community
- Branded flyers and signs advertising the job
- Approaching hard workers at large businesses and inviting them to contact you for a job
- Referrals and recommendations from your clients, other employees, friends, and family
- Applicants who previously applied for a different position
- Past employees you want to hire again (or who might know someone worth hiring)
- Job fairs and career days
- Professional recruiters
READ MORE: Get expert hiring tips from Nick Huber (The Sweaty Startup)
Share your job posting on these platforms, and donât be afraid to put a little budget behind your efforts. After all, youâre paying to market to clientsâyou should be doing the same to attract cleaners.
You can try several platforms to see what works for your business. For Katie, the best results were with Kijiji.
We tried a few different things like Monster and Facebook, but it was always Kijiji that worked like a charm.
4. Interview candidates
As you start to receive and sort through applications, start making a shortlist of candidates youâd like to meet with.
These are the qualities that Katie and her partner looked for in their applicants when they first started hiring:
- Experience: You can lose time and money training people who are new to cleaning and might quit after a few months, according to Katie. You may need to hire people without experience, but try to look for those who doâespecially if they want to make a career out of it. They already know how to do the job and understand how hard it is!
- Independence: Look for applicants who show theyâre independent, motivated, and able to work without a supervisorâbut can still work as part of a team. âYou need people who like to work on their own, because you are working alone most of the time,â says Katie. âYou might have a partner, but youâre not working side by side.â
- Friendliness: Your cleaners are part of a team, so they should get along well with others. Theyâll often communicate with clients on your behalf, too, so they should be friendly and professional. In many ways, your cleaners are the face of your company, so they need to make a good impression and represent your brand appropriately.
- Commitment: Your employees need to show up every day, no ifs, ands, or buts. âYou have to be committed to serving your clientele,â says Katie. âIf you donât show up, nobody else can step in. I had staff with such high commitment that they would be upset if they got sick. They felt bad that their clients werenât going to get their houses cleaned.â
READ MORE: Attract employees with these expert hiring tips
When you have your shortlist, book an interview with each candidate, ask questions, and get to know them. This will tell you if theyâre likely to be a valuable member of your team.
Pro Tip: You might find it useful to have group job interviews and auditions. This can cut down on no-shows and wasted time. You can also see how your candidates get along with each other and work together.
5. Hold paid auditions
Some cleaning companies hold paid on-the-job auditions. This involves taking candidates along with current employees to help tackle real cleaning jobs while theyâre being closely supervised.
Hereâs Katieâs experience with auditions:
I pay them for the audition but explain they had to pass the audition to become an employee.
I say, âThe manager will tell you what to do; just do your best.â You have to know how your cleaners clean. Thereâs no point going through the hiring process with someone if they canât clean or donât show potential to learn.
Pay closer attention to attitude than technique during the audition. Maybe a candidate takes longer to vacuum, but theyâre paying attention to the details and theyâre open to learning how to do better.
At the end of the audition, share constructive feedback so the candidate knows what they did well. You can pay them by check or e-transfer, regardless of whether or not youâre hiring them.
6. Hire the successful candidate
Depending on how interviews and auditions go, you may end up with one or more candidates who would do well on the job.
Youâll recognize a great employee right away, so trust your instincts. Make them an offer in writing, get their signature, and start filling out the paperwork for their first day.
If your candidates are only so-so, though, donât hire oneâyou may end up firing them and finding yourself back where you started.
READ MORE: Kristen Hadeedâs 5-minute team-building activities
Retaining your cleaning employees
Katie and her partner built a core group of eight cleaners who stayed with the company for years. But to get there, over 200 employees came and went, often lasting only a few months.
In the early years of Katieâs business, the churn of staff coming and going was a constant grind. She finally figured out that money wasnât the best motivator.
In later years we were paying almost double what we paid in the first years.
But the same amount of people didnât make it through training and ended up leaving. It didnât improve our retention at all.
Fortunately, Katie found three other factors that did motivate staff to stay:
- Benefits: When Katieâs company put a health benefits program in place, it changed everything. âPeople started looking at our company as a place for a career,â says Katie. âWe couldnât afford 100%, but we asked for the best package possible and paid 50%. Staff had health care, vision, dental. It showed that we cared.â
- Autonomy: Katie trusted her staff to be in charge and make their own decisions, which gave them pride in their jobs. She says, âYouâve got to have your staff be your representatives. I was always huge on empowering them and giving them all the tools they needed to make decisions. They never had to run things through me.â
- Connection: The cleaners who connect with clients and care about helping them are far more likely to stick around. Katie recommends looking for this trait during the hiring process and encouraging staff to develop it. âYou genuinely have to care about your clientele, and you have to be committed to serving them,â she says.
READ MORE: Learn how to get more clients for your cleaning business
Hiring and retaining employees takes a lot of time and effort, and sometimes it can feel like an uphill struggle. Youâre experiencing growing painsâand thatâs completely normal!
Keep at it and donât give up. Before you know it, your cleaning business will have a dedicated, hardworking team of cleaners who care about your clients just as much as you do.