Hi Guys
I am new, just joined a little while ago.
I wanted to say Hi and introduce myself. I am a mother of 2 children that set up a cleaning business in 2004 after having my first child so that I could be with him during the day instead of returning to my job in Customer Services/Purchasing and spending all my hard earnt cash on child care.
I have kept it small so that I could earn my normal wage without doing a 9 to 5 job and cleaned a nursery that my friend opened, which gave me the opportunity to start this business and then won contracts for 3 more offices in the evenings. 1 office we have been cleaning since day 1 and the other 2 offices for the last 3 years. I have had two other office contracts but lost them after being undercut by other companies. I have since heard that 1 of the offices are not getting on with their new cleaners as they are not cleaning properly, but that's what happens when you try to save money and take on 'cheap' contractors. Don't get me wrong, it's about the price too but not if you can't afford to employ good cleaners!
During the first year and after taking on too much for myself to do alone I started employing people and when I fell pregnant with my second child I stopped doing the manual work and just did the admin from home. I have done this since 2005. This has worked really well until now. My daughter started school in September and just as I felt ready to start advertising for contracts in the next bigger town, I had first 1, then 2 and now 3 cleaners leave
. They worked for me for 6, 5 and 3 years and were all mum's like myself and now that their children are at school they have returned to their careers and have day jobs. Can't blame them for that and I am very grateful for having the same team for all these years.
I have been advertising for new staff since November, I am covering a lot of the hours myself, I have one new lady who started in November and has been great but finding it really hard to get the last new cleaner started. I have had 2 separate people who I have interviewed and started training who have then given up after a couple of evenings saying it's too much work. It's 3 small offices and the nursery for 3 hours per night, so hardly too much! I think it's the nursery that puts them off because it is 1.5 hours of solid floor work and furniture moving and you do break a bit of a sweat! It's filthy every day as there are over 150 children in there each day and the food, paint, sand, dried pasta etc gets everywhere.
I have a lad interested who I am seeing tomorrow, but he is 19 with no experience of work before, which makes me wonder if it will work but I am happy to interview him and find out more about him. I am just a little nervous employing someone with no experience at all, and I asked him if he had just left college etc but he said no and that this will be his first job and wants to get on the ladder. The ad's in the Job Centre don't seem to be bringing much interest and I am advertising in our local schools and post office etc.
I wanted to join this forum to get advice and ideas from people as it's very hard getting help from other contractors in this area being competition. I only came across this forum after googling for hourly rates for cleaning. I want to make sure I am offering the right hourly rate in case it's this that's putting people off.
I am in awe at some of the other members on here that obviously run very large successful companies and would love over time to get advice and tips from you all. This is a lucrative business when done right and my business plan was to keep it small til now and I want to work on growing the business so I am sure this forum will help with that!
I hope to chat with you all soon.
Sharon
