Due to the nature of the cleaning business it can be hard to keep good employees. Your good employees may be lured away by competitors, leave for a "regular" 8 to 5 job, or leave to take a job in another field that pays more. Good employees and employees that can be promoted to supervisory positions can be difficult to find and retain. The following are some tips that can help you keep those good employees on board.

- Develop talent. Pay attention to your employees and look for ones that have leadership qualities and show that they are creative when it comes to solving problems. These are the employees you want to train to be supervisors. Give them added responsibilities and when the time is right promote them into positions that supervise others.

- Communicate frequently with your employees. Never take your employees for granted. Ask for their ideas or suggestions for improving the way tasks are performed in your company. Talk to your employees and show an interest in their lives - ask about their families and hobbies - it shows that you care about them not just as an employee, but as a person.

- Show your appreciation. Thank your employees for their hard work and let them know you appreciate their dedication. Everyone likes a pat on the back once in awhile.

- Learn to delegate. You can test key staff by giving them more authority and responsibilities. This will also help you to identify which members of your staff have the qualities of a good supervisor.

- Provide direction as well as feedback. Make sure that each employee knows what you expect of him or her. Let your employees know how you'll evaluate their performance. When you evaluate your employees provide feedback that will help them to improve their job performance.

- Offer training and educational opportunities. Find training sessions and seminars for your employees, or create your own. Look for training not only on cleaning, but in management and business areas as well.

- Offer competitive wages. As your business grows, you want to be sure that you have dependable and well trained employees to handle the workload. Develop a plan early on for compensating your employees and decide how you will move the most motivated employees up on your pay scale.

Keeping good employees is a challenge in any business, but can be even more difficult in the cleaning field. You can increase your chances of keeping your employees by remembering the above tips. Make your employees feel like they are an integral and important part of your cleaning business and they will be more likely to stay and help your business grow.

Copyright 2006 The Janitorial Store

Steve Hanson

Steve Hanson, President of TheJanitorialStore.com, has over 20 years of experience as a building service contractor. His first company was located in Boise, Idaho. In 2002 he sold the business and relocated to Minnesota where he started a new commercial cleaning company and a janitorial supplies distributor company.

Steve always had the desire to begin an online community for building service contractors. So much of what is available in this industry is for much larger janitorial companies -- there aren't many places online for people who are just getting started, or people who already have a small, successful cleaning business, but would like to take their business to the next level. So in 2005 he started TheJanitorialStore.com.

TheJanitorialStore.com is a community for owners of small commercial cleaning companies that is designed to allow subscribers to ask questions, participate in tele-seminars, find training programs designed for the smaller company, share their knowledge in telephone and online discussion forums, read new articles every week, and much more.