Episode 125

Crisis Management

Does leading your cleaning company through crisis may seem like a weekly event?

In world of commercial cleaning, chaos doesn’t schedule an appointment. It shows up all at once. This episode deals with a client situation that involved a chain of events that lead to the loss of a very substantial account.

We start with a scenario: The the dog’s barking, baby’s crying, the pot on the stove is boiling over. Which one do you attend to first? Before you answer this understand something.

Crisis Management Thinking

This scenario is a training exercise in crisis-management thinking. All of those demands are important. And each can pull you off course because they draw on different parts of your thought process. STOP AND THINK! In my opinion, the next action in this scenario is not action, but asking two questions.

Question 1: What else is happening now?

Question 2: How can I avoid this situation in the future?

Crisis Answer #1: “The house is on fire!”

Remember that in the first part of the story, attending to the barking dog, the crying baby or the boiling-over pot was just a choice. There was no wrong answer. Until you receive the information that the house is on fire. With that knowledge you can now better choose your priorities.

A Crisis Every Week

If you’re in the commercial cleaning industry and read that, you might think, “That’s what an average Tuesday night my business.” I understand your answer. Having lived through those crisis and chaotic situations makes you expect them. While we can’t change human nature, we can prepare for it. Once you’re prepare for one type of crisis, the next one won’t derail your business.

The Crisis of Negativity

We work in a high-turnover, low-praise industry. No one calls to compliment the beautifully tied trash bag or the perfectly reset lobby. Customers tend to call when something is broken, late, or missed. And for my Consulting clients, these calls and texts usually arrive after hours. If you’re an owner, you already know that “Reliability” is your flagship-product, and crisis management is part of your job description.

Floaters are the extra help you rely on to cover call-outs and no-shows.

The Barking Dog

This client had a key team member quit an hour before their shift. No notice or warning. Have you experienced that and grown cold to it? It’s inconvenient. It’s better than a no-call, no-show, but it’s just another day. That’s the barking dog.

The Crying Baby

At almost the same moment, a key employee had a life-altering emergency and couldn’t work. If you heard that person’s story you would have sympathized. You would have told your frontline cleaner you understood and you were glad they were uninjured. The two of you would have discussed that a few days off to get things settled is understandable. At the same time you would also understand that this cleaner worked on two client-sites that were scheduled to be cleaned tonight. That’s the crying baby.

The Boiling-Over Pot

One of my client’s area managers stepped in. That manager had to really hustle that night. She was covering the work of two people across three locations while trying to keep the rest of the night from unraveling. But there was an underlying issue that had been slowly developing for some time. That area manager was concerned about a front line cleaner who was under-performing at an account. Simple enough. That customer was large and already complaining about what was being missed at their location. That’s the pot boiling over.

The House is On Fire

In order to cover that, the owner (my client) had to scramble. To take care of that customer, he needed a single key from one of the team who was out. Without that key, there was no way to access the site. And while all the other crisis issues were completed “well-enough” that night, this one failed. A large client who was already on the edge wanted no story of grief and cancelled service. That put my client’s company in financial jeopardy. That’s the house on fire.

A Crisis Isn’t Scheduled. It’s Managed

Here’s what I’ve learned, both from running operations at scale and coaching cleaning company owners. These apply whether your company is 2, 20, 50 or 2000+ employees. The only way through nights like this is to plan for them before they happen.

• Overstaff on purpose. Budget for floaters and troubleshooters is a must. You already have the hours in your call-in history. Track your daily call-in totals and build that coverage into your model. It feels expensive until you compare it to the loss of your biggest account.
• Build a hiring pipeline. Your HR team must be interviewing every week, not just when you “need someone.” Maintain a bench of cleared candidates you can activate in hours, not weeks.
• Use per-diem roles as a talent incubator. Per-diem staff prepare you for volatility and let you spot your next lead or area manager. One of my best managers started per-diem with zero guaranteed hours.
• Cross-train and rotate. Floaters working multiple buildings and client sites become your future supervisors. Those who are inclined to these roles see patterns, standards, and client nuances across sites. Learn to identify them!
• Solve the key problem. Most clients give you one key. Establish a clear key control system with labeling, lockboxes, or digital access. This will ensure you aren’t driving across town at 8:30 p.m. to start a job that was scheduled to start at 8:00.
• Create an hour-before, hour-after playbook. The 90 minutes before and after shift start are your “New York Stock Exchange” window. Define who trades coverage, who escalates performance concerns, and who communicates with clients. Gain and produce clarity.
• Protect the manager role. If an area manager must clean, I suggest you decide on priorities in advance. Which management duties should be paused? Who backfills communication and quality checks that night? That Manager should not attempt to manage and clean across three sites. That last decision will determine whether your company produces or avoids additional situations that can lose clients and billings.

Clarity Is The Antidote For Chaos

Most importantly, choose people for your “extra help” roles that you want to grow. Early in my career, I was the troubleshooter, the floater. That role became my training ground for leadership. That role forced me to learn buildings, clients, and crisis communication.

Stress is Part of The Job

We can’t eliminate stress in this industry. But we can out-plan chaos. The companies that retain accounts grow steadily. They work hard when its time and sleep better when its time. Build redundancy, pipelines, and protocols into the bones of their operation for true stability. This is the hard work and it’s not luck. That’s leadership.

If you own a cleaning company and want hands-on coaching to build systems contact me here. Having floaters, per-diem pipelines, key control, shift playbooks, and leadership development are just a dream until you take action. I know how to do this and how to teach you to do it. Reach out and I’ll help you engineer reliability so nights like these don’t cost you clients, cash flow, or your sanity.

 

This Week’s Podcast transcript can be downloaded here for free.