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When Cleaning Employees Break the Law

Cleaning is the industry of our consulting clients. As a cleaning company employer, you responsibility is to your employees AND your clients.
22 Oct 2024

Breaking the Law

When Cleaning Employees Break the Law

Episode 49


Under no circumstances is breaking the law acceptable in our work. Cleaning is our profession and the chosen industry for our consulting clients. At DOC’s Facilities Consulting and DOC’s Facilities Solutions, we have a sense of humor about the day-to-day dirt and grime. Keep in mind though that our focus is “Cleaning for Health”.

With that as our guiding principle we advise, lead and educate our consulting and training clients on best practices. When cleaning company owners and managers understand the value they bring to THEIR clients and workplaces, it changes them. They become better cleaners; Better professionals; And more focused owners. They no longer accept mediocrity, and they certainly do not accept the lesser values that are sometimes overlooked in the janitorial services industry.

This podcast deals with a client whose employees broke the law.

 

Frankly, our heart goes out to this consulting client.

This customer encountered more than the usual push-back from a disgruntled employee. After falsifying start times and getting themselves fired, they damaged the keys. These particular keys carried a greater threat of legal action due to the industry and facility that was housed there. The employees were informed of their responsibility in holding these keys. No one wants to involve law enforcement when hiring employees. On the selfish side, it costs time and frustration. On the more generous side, a good employer wants the best for their employees. The latter is the position we find most often among cleaning company owners.

 

You might not get rich as a cleaner. But…

For many front-line cleaners, you might not get rich doing this job. However, you CAN advance and make a good living. Certifications and classes that increase your knowledge also increase your value to employers and clients. Be diligent. Be honest. Work hard and let your boss or manager know what your working-goals are.

For owners the same applies and having your employees well trained and ready to support your customers will promote your business.

 

When You’re ready to advance your Janitorial Services Business

Moving forward with your building services and commercial cleaning business takes a lot of effort, knowledge and the right connections. Bringing that together often requires at least 2 of 3 things

1. Decades in the Commercial Cleaning industry
2. Luck
3. A great coach

Get your cleaning company focused by contacting DOC’s Facilities.

Ray

Joel, I know that we often chuckle about “When employees do dumb things”. Stressing again, employees are not dumb. Most people do not show up. It work to damage things or do a bad job.

Joel

They do not.

 

Ray

This one’s more serious, though.

Joel

This is a very serious topic and not necessarily things I like to deal with. But they are out there.  And that’s part of what being a consultant and being there for my clients is, is to be that sounding board and, Hey, what direction do I go? And how do I fix this or remedy this type of thing? So there was a client that reached out to me. He told me that they had a team of individuals at a building that they were going to be letting go. The individuals, like most people that are going to get let go, most people know when they’re going to get let go. They didn’t want to leave, and they weren’t going to leave peacefully. They made it so difficult on this particular owner by calling in after the start of the shift.

 

Ray

When you say calling in?

Joel

They called out sick initially for this client. It became so much more after the fact, Because the owner is like, Well, you understand that you have the only keys, and if you don’t show up. We can’t get this done. And when are you going to show up? And they’re like, We have things to do, and we don’t know when we’re going to be there. The push came to shove between the owner and the technicians in the field, and it didn’t end well. The individuals decided that they were going be vindictive, make it the owner’s problem, instead of maybe not showed up at all that particular night and made sure that the owner had the keys to be able to do things. But no, they wanted to make it personal.

 

Ray

For those who are listening in who might not be in cleaning, I understand that challenges on getting people to show up for those who choose to be problematic?

Joel

Oh, it’s so fun. I don’t mean that as really being fun. It’s fun as it is an extreme challenge, and it’s something that has to be dealt with almost on a daily basis. Needless to say, they decided that they were going to alter the keys to make them useless.

 

Ray

So when you say alter the keys, are we talking physical door keys here?

 

Joel

Yes, in some cases. These were financial institutions. So, some of them are key locks with a regular standard key that we mostly know, but they’re specialized for these types of buildings, with “do not duplicate” things like that on them. Things like taking them off other key rings and putting them on other key rings; Tack welding them so that they couldn’t be taken off of other key rings; As well as demagnetizing the key cards by introducing a magnet and not allowing the cards to be able to be read so that nobody could get into the facility.

 

Ray

So I understand by financial institution, savings, loan, banking, credit union. (We could go there.) Okay, somewhere in there. They have somehow altered or damaged the keys to that type of facility. Okay.

 

Joel

Which is a big no-no. It would be a big no-no with any industry. But when you mess with an institution that’s FDIC regulated, you are committing a crime. (Oh, Lordy.) You’re probably committing a crime with the other institutions, even if it was your corner grocery. (I get that ) because you’re damaging and altering something. But once you alter things that are a security access into a financial institution, it is going above and beyond.

 

Ray

Holy crap. So, what did you advise the owner with?

Joel

I asked them if they contacted the customer. I asked them if they talked to the customer about the need to call the feds, the police. We don’t know who needs to be… because this is above and beyond. So, I spoke to the client, and I asked them, did they talk to their customer? I asked them if they tried to contact the individuals that had done this. I asked them had they contacted the authorities, whether it be the police, the FBI, I don’t know, and law enforcement. Because you’re altering keys. That’s not very smart. Some type of a crime had been committed. Let them figure out what has to be done. The client said, yes, that they had done all that, that they couldn’t get a hold of the individuals. I said, “At least you made the attempt”. They had a good relationship with this particular customer. Because they were able to alert them so quickly, at the very beginning of the shift, it made a big difference rather than calling them a day or two later. (Sure, I get that.) Because it happened, but they were able to get a hold of their client shortly after they got the call saying, “We were not coming in tonight.”

The individual was able to meet them at the building and realize that no security had been breached, things like that, which was huge because what do you do if it was a day or two later? You don’t know if there was a breach of money.

 

Ray

Oh, that’s a big mess right there.

 

Joel

I told the owner they did well by making sure they told the customer early on. One of the things that we went over was, what was their onboarding process? What is their key control process? Do they have sign offs? Do they have key logs of when keys are signed out and to who any identifiable information on keys, key cards, key fobs, so that it shows and it can track, just like there’s an evidence trail and making sure.

 

Ray

Well, especially in regard to keys or something like that. You do have a chain of custody.

 

Joel

You have a chain of custody, so you know who had them, what dates, what times. They did have all that stuff with the people’s records and things like that, which has made it a lot easier for them going forward.

 

Ray

So they kept good documentation on that.

 

Joel

They kept great documentation, which is not often seen because companies, as they grow, it’s like, “Oh, my hairs on fire. My hair’s on fire. Oh, my hair, just take these, take that.” They had all their ducks in a row. So, the end result for them It’s been a very positive experience, but it’s a very serious matter. So many people think that those keys that when they are given to them, and by them, I mean, the frontline employees for these cleaning companies, they somehow think that those keys have now become their keys, and that’s their building. When in fact, we are a guest in clients’ buildings when we take keys anywhere. So if I was cleaning the White House, when we were given keys to the domain, we are now responsible for any breaches in security for the White House. Those things are serious.

 

Ray

For the cleaning company owner who’s listening in, we both know that frontline staff are a blessing and a challenge. Simply because they have lives and thoughts of their own. We want them to be individuals. But when you are looking for someone who has been in the trenches and who can advise you on smart business choices prior to there being a problem, contact Joel, Docs Facilities Consulting. Thank you, Joel.

 

Joel

You’re welcome, Ray.

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