3 Easy Steps to Avoid the Experience Curve in the Cleaning Industry
Every company has a learning curve, but what is an “experience curve”?
Typically, in established organizations the learning curve can be steep, the cleaning industry however has an experience curve to worry about. This is mostly because most frontline employees are shared employees from past contracts. For those that do not know, most large contracts require too large of a workforce draw, so instead of having a large bunch of people on the bench, trained and ready to go to the next big client, most cleaning companies hire the previous employees back. Although this is typical, it is not always the best choice.
When hiring past employees, in the guise of “we are the nice new company coming in, stay with us,” organizations struggle to retrain workers on new, and proprietary knowledge, since work cannot stop, and the company is short staffed to begin with.
This has been my experience…
So, the understanding is that the cleaning company promises to take over the contract, staff to the fullest, train staff, and deal with startup product change outs. These are all time-consuming activities that should not exist side by side. When that happens items and details are missing, and experienced project manager or integration manager (or even an aspiring new manager) should be a part of the process. The traditional model for cleaning industry contract takeover follows the same pattern for each company.
Get the contract based on qualifications and cost, spend time on building staff and product changeouts, start the maintenance on contract, push towards renewal times, worry about renewals, retain contract with a basic raising of contract cost based on CPI probably. This may be a positive for the client or may be a time to lose a client. In most cases the clients are fearful the quality will drop after the signing of the new contract. Then there is the promise of more staff. An interesting article from the LOHP (Labor Occupational Health Program, University of California) that workloads have increased while conditions have remained.
“From the outset, janitors raised explicit workload and workload increases over time as key concerns tied to worker health and safety. In response to a request to estimate to what degree their workload had changed since they began working as janitors, over a third of participants said their workload had increased by 1.5, 28% estimated it had doubled, and 21% stated it had more than doubled.”
This trend is something I have seen personally as repetitive absenteeism the workload is at constant elevated levels. Upper management, at times, seem to be unaware or purposely avoid the situation as labor constraints are the largest cost to cleaning companies. This trend is prevalent in major companies performing in the same markets. For the new companies trying to disrupt the elder companies change will have to happen. There is a fear that eventually the new entrant will become the standard old players in the industry.
But what about the 3 Easy Steps to Avoid the Experience Curve in the Cleaning Industry?
We are getting to that. All the above points to an industry that is barely moving the needle on innovative changes in the needed areas. Instead, they are hoping for the technology world to create better tools that will save time. Chemicals that will save money. Instead of spending time managing the biggest part of their business, their leadership.
The three…
1. From our industry friend, Mike Sawchuk, “Ensure Basics – provide effective/proper onboarding” (Sawchuk, 2022). This applies to managers also. Not having a firm description of what the job entails will be a disaster waiting to happen. Unclear goals for new managers or changing duties on the fly causing confusion from the start. Be careful with this situation.
2. Having a clear picture of the duties to complete the Scope of Work (SOW) is critical. Reviewing the Request for Proposal (RFP) and then arbitrarily assigning a price for service because you feel you will get the job is a setting for failure. This is the reason most companies are worried about the end of the contract and the hope of renewal. The reason for the worry is because deep down it is known that the contract details have not really met.
3. Be careful of conflicting leadership messaging. As an example, placing a leader in a position you are entitling that person to give direction and make decisions. Any time a senior leader gives direction around the middle manager you devalue the relationship between frontline staff and that manager. Others see this too and see that leader in a devalued lens. Unfortunately, this has compounding effects as others who may be thinking about becoming a leader. The potential leader will, even subconsciously, worry if that will happen to them.
To wrap up this dissection, we need to discuss the “ugly mirror.” The “ugly mirror,” as Laurie Schultz mentions in HBR article The Leap to Leader (Bryant, 2023). Casting a blind eye to the ugly in the situation would mean everyone is drinking the proverbial cool aid. It is one thing to think you are invincible but that needs to be in reason. The ugly mirror is a way to cast a real lens over the situation. That usually entails discussions on KPI’s and accountability.
References
Bryant, A. (2023, July-August). The Leap to Leader. Retrieved from Harvard Business Review: https://hbr.org/2023/07/the-leap-to-leader
Sawchuk, M. (2022, August 19). Invset in Leadership. Retrieved from CMM Online: https://cmmonline.com/articles/invest-in-leadership
Teran, S., & Dommelen-Gonzalez, E. (2017). Excessive Workload in the Janitorial Industry. Labor Occupational Health Program - University of California, Berkley, 3. Retrieved from chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.dir.ca.gov/chswc/Reports/2017/Janitor_Report_LOHP_3-10-17.pdf
