Summary

Learn how to protect your business When Clients Steal Your Cleaning Staff. We'll cover prevention and reviewing with your customers.

When Clients Steal Your Cleaning Staff

Episode 73

When we discuss the situation of clients stealing your staff, things get messy. There are at least four competing interests in these situations. And even when everyone is working with good intentions we almost always make someone angry. Let’s consider who’s involved when clients “Steal your staff”. They are: Your Team Member; Your Customer Contact, The Original Employer (Your Company); You, The Owner

Competing Interests When Clients Steal Your Cleaning Staff

Your Team Member

The level of trust does change when we discuss what role this staff member holds. This is not an issue of the person’s value, but rather an issue of trust. The higher up the ladder-of-responsibility your staff member is, the more private information they hold. For now, let’s consider the most likely person for your client to steal. A Front-Line Cleaner.

Your front-line cleaner may be doing a fine job. If so, the client is pleased and wants to make them an offer for employment. You can’t blame the front-line cleaner for being tempted with more money or benefits if those are being offered. They often don’t understand the additional risk they’re accepting. Being employed for one role in a company leaves them open to being more easily fired.

Without that last piece of information, the front-line cleaner MIGHT think you’re trying to control their future earnings. You know that’s not your focus. YOU are looking to protect your company and the rest of your team, by extension.

Your commercial cleaning company has access to multiple jobs. So, if and when this client leaves, you probably have another client to plug your employee into. That allows your front-line cleaner to remain consistently employed by the same company.

 

Your Customer Contact

This person is probably looking to cut costs and ensure they get the same team members. All of that makes sense until there’s a problem. It’s YOUR job to make it clear to this client that you have protections in place. It’s also your job to communicate this in a way that they understand the risk of breaking that contract AND the value you bring to them by doing your job with your employee. Don’t be a jerk when the client tries to steal your staff. Take it as a compliment. Then remind them in a professional manner, of the contract and the value it holds for you both.

 

The Original Employer (Your Company)

When a client steals your staff, you’ve lost that account. After all, they hired a full-time cleaner who knows their facility. Your company is no longer needed. That means your investment in screening, hiring, training and outfitting that person is lost. The income from that account is also lost. All of that has a value to your commercial cleaning company.

 

You, The Owner

Bringing in staff, managing client issues and balancing payables and receivables is all part of your job. When a staff member gives notice, you’re reminded of what must happen next. It’s harder when they pull a “No Call – No Show”. Immediately the cost for doing business increases because another staff member or you will be assigned to cover that work. OR the profits simply decrease because an account is lost.

 

Operating Your Business When Clients Steal Your Staff

This becomes very complicated, very quickly. I work with cleaning company owners to regain balance and sanity. I know the stresses because I’ve lived them. As a Cleaning Consultant and Coach to Company owners, I have the experience and the scars to get you to the next level of profits. It’s not all about money. Contacting me will help you get beyond the. “oh $h!!!!!!###” stage and onto making good and reasonable choices for your future billings AND a better life.

 

 

This Week’s Podcast transcript can be found below.

 

 

Ray

Joel?

 

Joel

Yes, Ray.

 

Ray

We’ve seen material stolen. We’ve seen time stolen, but we’re going to talk about when clients steal your staff.

 

Joel

What? That would never happen in this industry, ever.

 

Ray

Love that person. Pick him up right now. How do we frame this for the cleaning company owner? They’re working hard to build their team, and this is probably the last thing they think about.

 

Joel

Particularly when you’re a startup company. And I can remember the early days of what I’ve done. I know stories from other companies I’ve worked with. Even the very first large company I worked with. The client ended up deciding We are going to get rid of the company that’s doing the work, and we’re going to hire the employees direct. And that obviously causes all kinds of issues with everything. One of the things that you need to do as a building service contractor, and so many startup companies start out this way is that they either just verbally give a price. I’ve seen companies and I’ve seen quotes come into clients that I work with that literally are written on a napkin or a piece of paper, Oh, this much weekly, this much monthly, whatever.

 

[00:01:14.17] – Ray

What is cleaning. We’re going to clean your space. What does that mean? We have an entire episode just on that.

 

[00:01:19.27] – Joel

Yes, we do. What you have to work into your contract, you have to have a whole section that talks about what is it going to be if they hire your employee. They do it in the staffing industries. Take somebody from a recruitment company and you bring them on as a temp, and then you hire them. There’s always a cost to that.

 

[00:01:39.13] – Ray

Sure. Effectively, it’s an HR sourcing fee at that point.

 

[00:01:43.07] – Joel

Correct.

 

Joel

So you end up having to, even though you’re a cleaning company, you have to protect yourself like you’re a staffing company. So not only do you have to figure out the cost of that individual that you’re losing, but all of the other costs they factor in. One of the things that I have in my contracts is not just a percentage of that person’s yearly wages. But I also have tied into it all of the onboarding costs that we have, the background checks, the drug checks, all of the training that they have gone through, whether it’s the bloodborne pathogen, whether it’s cleaning certifications that they take. Any of the New York State mandated things because I’m in New York State. So we include all those costs and we lay it right out and say, “This is what it would cost if you hire one of our employees”. Now, they can always say, “Oh, we didn’t!”

 

Joel

Well, we’re not stupid. When that person resigns from us, we lose the account, and then we go and find out that they’re still working there. It makes it pretty easy to realize that they hired our employee and that their start date coincides with the last day of working for our company.

 

Ray

My question there, Joel, is what is your recourse? You’ve lost the client. It’s not like you’re trying to crap all over the business community, but you are trying to hold someone accountable for an agreement that they signed. You’re not trying to ruin the future employment of a former employee. But the real responsibility is on your former customer, now their employer. What do you do with that?

 

Joel

It’s a very slippery slope. Where I’ve seen this happen with my own company over the course of time was when we had clients that were multiple locations. Where one client signed the original agreement, and then there was just an add on to the contract to include these other locations. And all of the individuals that worked at those locations didn’t with the original contract. It was just serviced under a master contract. (Okay.) So the said contact in Location B didn’t know that that clause happened. And they would talk to them. Plus, we have a culture in our company that we say that, “You work for us, not the client. We pay your pay, not the client. If the client approaches you to hire you, please let us know.”

 

Joel

So not every one of our employees would tell us because obviously, they’re trying to leverage their relationship with the person that they’ve worked closely with at that location to maybe get more money. But having it and having it reviewed by your business attorney is critical. Because you want the wording to be 100% right and be in your favor. And when other companies then have a master contract that they have a service contract that you want you to sign, you have to make sure that all the addendums that include your own proposal are included in it. Because a lot of them just put in your price and the scope of work, and they cut out everything else.

 

Joel

It’s like, No, I need to have all this in your master contract as an addendum so you don’t sign anything and just start it without making sure that you’re covering your rear end.

 

Ray

Sure. Let’s back this up as we talk to your customer, that new owner. First things first. Being very clear on your employment agreement with your staff; Having a well-documented, well-attorney reviewed service contract, which is probably standard for every account.

 

Joel

It should be standard. So many up and coming companies don’t, because the cost. And really, you are going to save yourself money by spending that $250 to $500 for the attorney to review it and say, “Okay, here’s your standard boiler plate. You can change these areas. The rest is fine.”

 

Ray

I’m going to make a shameless plug for your business attorney because she’s my business attorney, too.

 

Joel

Trisha CiFuentes?

 

Ray

That’s the one. She’s amazing! And she produces exceptional contracts and service agreements. And then clear review with your customer, especially if there are multiple locations that made daisy chain off of an individual contract.

 

Joel

When we had a situation happen to us, location B or C or D, insert whoever, try to hire our employee. I went back and I talked to the original contact and said, “I want you to be aware that this is going on. If this is what’s going to happen, this situation is not going to work for either of us”. He was oblivious, didn’t know that that was happening. When I called him, he says, Don’t you worry, you will get several emails apologizing for their conduct. And I will send them that part of the contract and say, “Do you really want to do this?? Having that good relationship also helps eliminate those issues when you have a very open and honest and transparent relationship with your clients. I know so many business owners out there, there’s been a big change in how businesses work with their clients, where they do try to be more transparent now than years before. And that is key, because when people want you to be successful, they want you to make money because they need you. And when they are pilfering from you, you can’t survive. Because your startup costs of bringing an employee on is astronomical between interviewing and all the things that you have to do, the uniforms, everything that you do on the front end for an employee. Plus we know how hard it is to find a new client.

 

Joel

Not just losing an employee, but you lose that client, and now you got to go find another client. Those costs just keep adding up, and that can put a company under very quickly.

 

Ray

As we bring this part to a close, those owners who think that, “I can’t afford an attorney right now”, other than reaching out to you to hopefully change their mind because they are about to hurt themselves. What else would you tell them?

 

Joel

Make sure that you actually have a written contract. That you do have it reviewed by an attorney, and that you don’t let clients write that out. Because it’s in your best interest. You don’t want to have to keep reinventing the wheel with finding new employees, finding new customers, and trying to build relationships that are important to the success of your company.

 

Ray

Great advice, Joel. Thank you.

 

Joel

You’re welcome.