Employees: How to find them, screen them, hire them, train them, and keep them?

The ISSA/INTERCLEAN® show just ended in Chicago last week and as always it was a week full of learning, new products, and networking. The biggest news of the convention was that, by a vote of 66-1, ARCSI members attending the annual meeting approved the merger of ARCSI with ISSA. This merger will bring new resources and opportunities to our industry.


In both networking and the formal learning events, the hot topic was employees. How to find them, screen them, hire them, train them, and keep them. In fact, the general consensus of the cleaning companies was that finding clients is easy, finding cleaners is hard. ISSA in particular had a very informative session on trends in the employment marketplace. 

The movement for a $15.00 an hour minimum wage continues to gain traction. However this is just the start of the challenges.

Paid maternity leave is also quickly gaining popularity and is expected to become more and more commonplace.

Combined with the well-publicized rapidly increasing cost of medical insurance, this is expected to continue to drive up cost of employees.

Finally, the unemployment rate continues to drop, making each new hire more competitive than the last. For many cleaning companies that opened after 2008, this is the first tight labor market we have ever faced.

A successful cleaning company will need to refocus their marketing efforts on employee recruiting and to build out their culture and employee retention programs.​ Fortunately, Cleaning Business Builders has tons of resources to help you meet this challenge.

Our class on Recruiting and Hiring, delivered by American Maid founder/owner Liz Trotter, sets you up with the basic elements of the recruiting and hiring system used by successful and still-growing cleaning companies. The key is that this system goes beyond simply giving you a list but also provides guidance on how to evaluate candidates – what are good, mediocre, and bad answers to application and interview questions, for example. Click the button below to learn more.


Derek Christian has been involved in the cleaning industry for more than 20 years and is an owner or investor in several cleaning companies.  Derek founded My Maid Service which was later merged into Blue Skies Services and now he works with Castle Keepers in various marketing and sales Capacities.

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