Employee FIRST Culture

Any clean­ing and/or restora­tion busi­ness will under­stand the strug­gles when it comes to staff. Hir­ing, onboard­ing, train­ing, and retain­ing can seem like a nev­er end­ing task. It can also affect the prof­its and cash flow of a busi­ness. So how do we try to fix this?

The cul­ture with­in a busi­ness can severe­ly impact employ­ees, their pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, and the reten­tion rates. If your employ­ees are not hap­py, this often flows onto clients and can affect their expe­ri­ence. By invest­ing in your employ­ees, this can often make them feel appre­ci­at­ed and will pass that on through­out the busi­ness.

So where does the com­pa­ny cul­ture start? It is impor­tant that job adver­tise­ments are cre­at­ed to attract the right peo­ple and show­ing the oppor­tu­ni­ties with­in the com­pa­ny. Stream­lin­ing your inter­view process and focus­ing on cul­ture rather than their expe­ri­ence. Any new employ­ee will need to fol­low the sys­tems and pro­ce­dures that you have in place. They should go through train­ing as if they have nev­er worked in a sim­i­lar role any­way. When you find peo­ple with the right atti­tude, this can often be more impor­tant than their expe­ri­ence.

Once a staff mem­ber has been hired, you want to fol­low through with an onboard­ing process that ensures they under­stand the core val­ues and expec­ta­tions. This should be the focus of meet­ings and per­for­mance reviews. Issues and acknowl­edge­ments should be based around the com­pa­ny val­ues to ensure every­one is on the same page. Cul­ture is should be the heart of every­thing you do with­in your busi­ness.

Employ­ees can either be an invest­ment or a cost. When you invest in your team, the returns can be seen in the way employ­ees inter­act and work with clients. This can be done by focus­ing on devel­op­ing employ­ees, help­ing them grow, giv­ing them oppor­tu­ni­ties, and encour­ag­ing edu­ca­tion and deci­sion-mak­ing. You may want to sit down with employ­ees at their per­for­mance review and dis­cuss what their ulti­mate career goals are. This will give you the abil­i­ty to work out if they will be a long term or short term employ­ee. It can also show whether they are the right peo­ple for your busi­ness. Regard­less of what your com­pa­ny val­ues are, you need to ensure there is a way to mea­sure their per­for­mance and improve­ments. 

Some com­pa­nies in the clean­ing and restora­tion indus­try have found suc­cess in pro­vid­ing anony­mous, annu­al cul­ture sur­veys to employ­ees. This can give them the abil­i­ty to pro­vide hon­est feed­back focus­ing on the cul­ture, employ­ee hap­pi­ness, and job sat­is­fac­tion. Employ­ees have many options avail­able with­in the job mar­ket so you need to show why your employ­ees will want to stay. Mon­ey is not always every­thing to employ­ees if they are unhap­py with­in the com­pa­ny.

Three key strate­gies to cre­at­ing an employ­ee first cul­ture include:

1. Pri­ori­tis­ing the com­pa­ny cul­ture — make sure every­one with­in the com­pa­ny under­stands that cul­ture is the pri­or­i­ty. This includes man­age­ment teams.
2. Ensur­ing results are mea­sur­able — sur­veys, reten­tion rates, and oth­er quan­tifi­able sys­tems can be used to reg­u­lar­ly mea­sure this.
3. Devel­op empa­thy — to be a suc­cess­ful leader, you need to always be work­ing towards win­ning hearts and minds. This involves cre­at­ing real engage­ment with employ­ees so they know they are a pri­or­i­ty.

Some­times hav­ing a com­pa­ny cul­ture focus can mean elim­i­nat­ing tox­ic employ­ees. This can be dif­fi­cult if they are one of your top per­form­ers. In the long term, this can affect the com­pa­ny in many dif­fer­ent aspects includ­ing employ­ee reten­tion and prof­it mar­gins. In order to cre­ate a com­pa­ny that can grow and last through the ages then cul­ture has to be a pri­or­i­ty.

Build­ing a great com­pa­ny cul­ture can involve a lot of work to begin with and can take time to see results. How­ev­er, once the wheels are in motion it can keep many com­pa­ny aspects run­ning smoother than ever. Don’t give up if you want to get your com­pa­ny mov­ing in a more pro­duc­tive, employ­ee cen­tric direc­tion. The right cul­ture can pow­er itself and cre­ate ongo­ing suc­cess in your busi­ness.