Preparing Owners for No-Call No-Shows

Episode 92

No-call No-shows are a unique challenge in the world of business. In the cleaning industry, we routinely encounter situations that test our resilience and management skills. But the No-call No-show scenario is probably the most frequent. As someone who has navigated this industry for decades, I find this issue both frustrating and perplexing. For my consulting clients, this offers a unique opportunity to strengthen operational strategies.

You Can Laugh or Cry about No-call No-shows

As we dissect the anatomy of a no-call, no-show situation we get clarity. In essence, this occurs when an employee fails to show up for their scheduled work. In fairness, that could happen to anyone for simple and innocent reasons. But when a No-call No-show occurs for self-directed front-line cleaners, it can spell either challenge or chaos. Without notifying their employer, an office or an entire building can be missed. Understandably, this leaves the team scrambling to fill the gap.

No-call No-show Chaos

The unpredictability of a no-call, no-show can be the bane of any business owner. It disrupts the workflow, affects service delivery, and can potentially harm client relationships. In my experience, every cleaning business owner has faced this dilemma. It’s really a rite of passage in our industry. The key is how we manage these occurrences and mitigate their impact. Anger is understandable. Be careful how you communicate the situation and your opinion about it to the employees responsible.

Protecting Your Team from Single or a Series of Disrespect

If you’ve taken the time to do this early with your clients, they’ll understand you are addressing inappropriate behavior. This process requires gathering details and, sometimes, conducting investigations to ensure a respectful and supportive work environment. Many companies now have surveillance systems that aid in identifying such incidents, emphasizing the importance of accountability and transparency. Often, these are “one-off” events. When addressed in a calm and business-like manner, good relations are restored. In the event a series of disrespect occurs, the client may see similar infractions elsewhere within their own workspace.

The typical no-call, no-show scenario is stressful no matter how it occurs. Imagine thinking all your bases are covered, only to realize that one of your reliable employees, hasn’t checked in. Your attempts to reach him go unanswered. You wonder if your employee is OK. Is there some chance he or she was involved in an accident on their way to work. You call and text but receive no response. Now you’re left with no choice but to cover his shift yourself. As the owner or manager, you’ve already put in a full day. But this client is important and these situations often at odd hours. The No-call No-show demands quick thinking and effective problem-solving skills.

You can Plan for a No-Call No Show

Neither you nor I can remove the stress created by a No-call No-show. But since we know it CAN occur, we can make plans for it. The evolution of technology has somewhat eased the burden, allowing us to track employee locations through geo-fencing and other software solutions. However, it wasn’t always this way. Back in the day, without cell phones, one had to physically visit the site to confirm attendance. Despite technological advancements, the frequency of no-call, no-shows seem to have increased. While there are any number of reasons why, I’ll leave that to the HR professionals who study workplace psychology and other socio-economic factors.

To tackle this issue, having a robust contingency plan is crucial. This might involve maintaining a pool of floaters or troubleshooters who can step in at a moment’s notice. Additionally, fostering a culture of responsibility and open communication with your team can significantly reduce the occurrence of no-call, no-shows. It’s important to share with your team that the best way to remain employed is to help the company keep their customers happy. That’s not a threat. It’s a reality that many entry-level employees don’t immediately grasp.

Taking Responsibility for No-call No-shows

Moreover, when such incidents do happen, it’s vital to maintain transparency with clients. Now, this may rub a couple people the wrong way. Bear with me. You may be in a foul-mood when it’s time to contact your client. You may be feeling guilty or angry. And here’s the part that you might not like or agree with. Telling your customer the truth doesn’t mean you have to tell them everything.

The front-line cleaner serving their account might have been suddenly ill. They might be in the hospital. Or, they might have gone out and partied too hard the day before their shift and they’re hung over. It’s your job as the owner or manager to take responsibility and be mature. Communicate what the client needs to know. Promptly inform them of the situation and your corrective actions to preserve trust. Even those clients who represent small accounts appreciate that you’re on top of the situation.

Consulting for Your Business Growth

Ultimately, dealing with no-call, no-shows is about preparedness, adaptability, and maintaining strong lines of communication. While it’s a challenging aspect of running a cleaning business, it’s also an opportunity to refine your operations. Enhancing this aspect of your commercial cleaning company process will help you deliver greater service. When you’re ready to apply these principles and need to know how to make them and your company successful, contact me here.

 

This Week’s Podcast transcript can be found below.

 

00:07 Ray
Joel, I understand the cleaning industry deals with a lot of negative perception. The assumption is that somebody’s cleaning because they’re not that smart. They’re not that talented, they lack certain skills in other areas.

00:20 Joel
Or they can’t speak the language.

00:22 Ray
They don’t speak the language. But for many who have arrived here, are here legally, and are working in the industry, part of it is because low barrier to entry.

00:31 Joel
It’s an easy job for people to take on. It’s an entry-level position. There’s entry-level positions in a lot of different industries. If you look at restaurants, dishwashers are the entry-level position within them. (For) janitorial and custodial contracting companies, the frontline employee is the entry-level position. Doing the daily cleaning, maybe not the floor’s carpet, it takes a little bit more skill. But the entry-level is being able to empty trash, clean restrooms, sweep, mop, vacuum, dust. So yes, it doesn’t require a lot of education in the form of you need to speak the language. You teach people to do the work. Yes, language can be a barrier. But in today’s day and age, there are so many tools that are out there to help aid in that. And there are so many different languages spoken. When I go around to different facilities to train everything from Spanish to Swahili to Russian. Ukrainian, I know. Ukrainian, There are a lot of different dialects that are out there, even within the Spanish dialect. There’s several.

01:35 Ray
You had just described to me that in the middle of a training session, an owner was sharing a story, and that was about how one of their employees had been told something really awful.

01:45 Joel
Unfortunately, yes, it happens often. As we talked, people are looking down upon people in this industry. And maybe they can’t necessarily speak the language, but most of them understand it. Look, I’m not fluent in Spanish. Most of my company is Spanish-speaking. I don’t speak it very well, but I understand it very well. I can almost liken it to that situation where people are saying something and they don’t think I understand it, and I do. This guy in the training was telling us a story about how his employee had overheard something to the effect that, “Why don’t you all go back to your own country?” That’s the ultimate insult.

02:22 Ray
Since everyone here in the States came from someplace else, we’re not talking about anything else. What we really are talking about is respect.

02:31 Joel
Respect. We need to treat everybody like a human being. Oftentimes, it’s not. It still comes down to, what does that person do? As a business owner, this gentleman, what do I do? How do I defend my staff when they want to all up and quit and walk out? It was nothing that I did. And keep a customer. Similar to another podcast we did, it’s that delicate conversation you have to have with a client. You have to call them up. You have to tell them what happened. If you can get dates, times, if there’s room numbers or it happened in the gym area in this place. Or it happened in the medical area of this place, even it could be as generic as that, it helps. Because in today’s day and ages, most companies have some surveillance going on within their company so that if they can narrow in on a time frame, they can at least see the people that would have to be talked to. If it was you and I in a hallway that happened to be identified as the two individuals, then we’re going to be interviewed and say, “Hey, this was the situation. What do you know about this? Oh, well, I heard this. I heard that. It was said by this person. It was said by that person.”

03:42 Joel
But a full-blown investigation does have to happen. Because laws have changed in a lot of states, and it’s considered a hostile workplace. And we’re not allowed to do that. As an employer, we’re even charged with how our clients treat our employees. Now, we can’t train our customers. But we’re held to a higher level that we still have to protect our employees from that type of environment. So, standing up and talking to the client and getting to an investigation, finding out the truth is the most important.

04:16 Ray
Okay. In advising your customer. Maybe the inside team leader, because they might have been employees, say they could be employees, or the cleaning company owner, the shift manager, whoever that person in a leadership role who received the story. They don’t really want to invest the time into this, but now they have to.

04:35 Joel
They have to. It might even be a good time. I mean, when you’re calling somebody like myself, who’s an outside consultant. More trained on how to handle this, maybe the cleaning consultant can step in. Or better yet, if you have a human resources consultant, similar to a company that I push all the time because my own company is Herman Parson from See HR & Recruiting, who is skilled at this and has all the letters of the alphabet after his name for all the different certifications he has. Let’s face it, most cleaning companies can’t afford the types of certifications to have individuals with that when they’re the small to mid-size company. Maybe as they grow, they can. But you might want somebody who’s more skilled at this and have that business owner sit alongside that consultant who’s guiding this investigation and talking to all parties that are involved, both with the customer as well as your own staff.

05:27 Ray
More likely to have a solid employee handbook with them as well.

05:30 Joel
Correct.

05:31 Ray
Joel, it’s a lot to take in.

05:33 Joel
Owning a business is not for the faint of heart. (No.) We deal with a lot of topics, and a lot of people do not realize the many hats that we have to wear. And the types of situations that we have to deal with, as well as trying to keep a very harmonious company and our clients happy and our own staff happy. Because when you can keep staff happy, everybody wins.

06:01 Ray
Joel, thanks for fighting the good fight, man. Appreciate you.

[00:06:06 Joel
Thank you.