Letting go of an employee is never easy and this goes with any type of business and that includes cleaning services. There are some things that you can do to prevent this, but if it really becomes necessary to let go of someone be sure that you take the necessary due process before terminating them.
Even before you begin hiring people for your cleaning services, be sure that you have your company policies and procedures well intact. You need to come up the proper procedures on how your business works and create an employees handbook detailing everything they need to know about your business. The handbook is to be given to your employees when you hire them. Advise them to study it well so that they are aware of your company policies and procedures and if there are any clarifications or questions to ask you as soon as possible to prevent any future problems.
Consult the Cleaning Business Handbook
Your employee handbook should be easy to read and understand. Discuss the contents of your handbook the fist day that they get to work. The handbook would be as detailed as possible with regard to the goals of your company and the methods that you plan to employ to reach these goal. Discuss your policy with attendance clearly as people often neglect this. Aside from attendance policies, you need to include work performance and ethics, personal conduct and how you plan to evaluate them in their performance. Decide on how often the evaluation will be. Remember not to just give your employees handbook to your staff but be certain you explain it to them as well, if you must, have them sign a form indicating that they have received the handbook and understood the contents of it. This will protect you and your company and at the same time gives your employees the guidelines of what they can and cannot do in your cleaning business.
After providing the handbook for your employees, it would be also beneficial for you and your employees to have a written documentation of what their job description will be. This job description will help you evaluate them and define the necessary skills and experience that you require from them in that specific position. Knowing their job description can show your employees that you want to treat everyone fairly and that you demand the same standard and output from everyone and you are not bias.
Keep Tab of Offenses and Violations
Another thing you need to consider having is documentation of behaviors that violate your company policies and procedures and what would be the consequences of doing so. You need to have forms would need to be filled out during violations. Be sure you have all the necessary and vital fields in the form such as the name, job position, date and location of the infraction and the recommended course of action to be taken. If there are any infractions these forms must be signed by both supervisor and the employee involved. You have to make sure you file this together with the employee’s record so that during evaluation it would be easy to see them.
Job performance evaluations should be done on a regular basis so that you can see if your employees are growing and improving. These evaluations is usually done after the first 30 days of employment then followed by after ninety days then usually every six months. Timely evaluations for your employees would not only be beneficial to your business but will advise them on the areas that they need to improve on and if they are doing their jobs correctly.
Now once you have all these laid out and an employee is not able to meet the standards of your company or has violated or has committed a terminable offense, you still need to do everything in process. Don’t just walk to them and say their fired. Every termination has to have grounds. You can’t terminate an individual just because your feel like it. Laws also protect employees from abusive employers and there is such as thing as wrongful termination.
This is the part where documentation is very critical. Be sure that if you are planning or going to terminate an employee you have all the documentation to support it in case they complain or want to know the specifics of their termination which most employees would want to know.
Cleaning Business Personnel Issues
The usual problems that cleaning companies often have to face with their staff are tardiness and absenteeism. Make certain that from the start of their employment you tell them about your policy on this and what would happen if there are any violations in this. Absences and tardiness may be excuse from time to time and you need to be informed if they are going to be so. When you issue a warning, make sure that you state the problem as clearly as possible and what will happen if nothing changed in his attendance. Be detailed as possible so that they are aware of the gravity of the offense. After having this talk with them and you have issued the necessary corrective action, have them sign a form that would indicate their action plan and that they have understood the policy and that further violation would escalate the corrective action.
There are certain offenses that would require you to give warning while others would immediately result to termination. Terminable offenses may include stealing, willful destruction of private and company property, etc. Have these terminable offenses listed on their employee handbooks that they should study well.
Keep them Informed
When there is a need to terminate an employee make sure all the paper work is ready. Start with a meeting with the employee in question detailing the reasons why you have been forced to take this action. Have the employee sign the necessary termination letter that explains the reasons and that he or she understands the letter. Make sure that the meeting is only between you and the employee with no other people around. Termination of an employee will restrict them from going to all unauthorized places in your place of work. There are to refrain from using your company name and would prevent them from accessing places of your business.
It is never easy to terminate an employee but its part of being a manager. You have to consider the welfare of your business and the people who work for you.
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