7 Common Mistakes to Avoid While Giving Feedback to Cleaning Staff

feedback-to-cleaning-staff

7 Common Mistakes to Avoid While Giving Feedback to Cleaning Staff

In the cleaning industry most of the work is done remotely, hence it’s difficult for the cleaning owner to give feedback to his cleaning staff without being present at the workplace.

If you are unable to give a proper feedback to your frontline staff, then they might think that their efforts are being overlooked.

Giving a good constructive feedback is one of the most cost-effective ways to boost employee’s productivity and it also lowers the risk of employee turnover.

In a survey, it was found that only 58% of the managers think that they give enough feedback to their staff at work.

If you as a cleaning company owner set some time aside to focus on the challenges faced by your cleaning staff at work and help them through it, then your staff would think that you care for their personal and professional development.

It will only increase their loyalty and engagement towards your company. But, you should be careful in giving negative feedback because it may stress out your employee.

Hence, here are 7 common mistakes a Cleaning company owner should avoid while giving feedback to its staff:

1. Doing All The Talking

2. Threatening the Authority to your Cleaning Staff

3. You become a foe rather than being a friend

4. Making them feel vulnerable

5. Not knowing the facts

6. Giving too much or very little feedback

7. Not Following Up

1. Doing All The Talking

Feedback to Cleaning Staff

As a cleaning company owner, you should be cautious while giving the feedback to your employees.

You need to put yourself in their shoes first and understand how would you like to get the feedback?

Would you like to have your boss just say what he wanted or would you prefer to have an opportunity to explain the circumstances?

Your employees would think that you are open to them if you take your time and listen to them patiently. Your main goal should be to try understanding the problem of your cleaning staff and what you can do to help them out.

Therefore, next time when you give feedback to your employees, let them do most of the talking.

Provide them the opportunity to reflect on what they could do differently next time and also offer them the support, advice or additional help and resource which can improve their productivity.

2. Threatening the Authority to your Cleaning Staff

Feedback to Cleaning Staff

While giving advice to your cleaning staff, your cleaning staff should not feel that you are threatening or imposing power to them.

For example, let’s assume that you have to give feedback to your supervisor or manager about the way they handled the situation with a client. In this type of scenario, it might feel like that you are threatening their authority.

To avoid speaking them down, encourage them to give feedback on themselves by asking:

    What is the main concern of the problem?

    What do you think is the cause of the problem?

    What are the steps needed to improve the situation?

    What is your recommendation to address these situations in future?

3. You become a foe rather than being a friend

Feedback to Cleaning Staff

When you are giving a feedback to someone, don’t become their foe instead try to become a friend and give advice which will help them to increase their productivity at work.

If you are a cleaning company owner and working remotely, then try to become encourage friendship between the manager and the cleaner.

Make a better relationship with your cleaning staff so that when you give them feedback it should look like you are giving an advice to a friend and not as the owner of the company.

For example, use statements like this – When I was in your place, I struggle with that too. Next time you should try this, as it helped me, it would help you as well.

4. Making them feel vulnerable

Feedback to Cleaning Staff

If your staff is not aware that they are doing something wrong, then a feedback can surprise or unsettle them further.

In the worst case scenario, it can make your staff feel more vulnerable which will eventually lead to the fear of getting demoted or losing the job.

In order to avoid this, focus on the outcome and what they can do to improve them, instead of pointing out their mistakes regularly.

You need to establish a clear expectation at the beginning so that if you need any reference you can refer back to the conversation where you discussed the cleaning company goal outcome.

5. Not knowing the facts

Feedback to Cleaning Staff

There would be very fewer issues which you and your staff would run on regular basis. Therefore, you need to remember that each situation is different from each other.

This can make it very tricky to be consistent.

You need to give fair feedback to all of them because your cleaners might evaluate the fairness of your feedback on the basis of each feedback you gave each one of them.

Hence, you need to give feedback only based on facts and always try to avoid assumptions and generalizations as much as you can.

6. Giving too much or very little feedback

Feedback to Cleaning Staff

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Many surveys and experts have found out that giving too much feedback can overwhelm the person and harm their ability to change according to the needs.

Unless there is an urgent issue, you need to sit down with your cleaning staff on monthly basis and give constructive feedback.

This allows a good way to focus on the habits you want to change, rather than focusing on a particular event.

It will help you to uncover other larger issues, which you were not aware of and hence improve the performance and productivity eventually.

7. Not Following Up

Feedback to Cleaning Staff

It’s important to give constructive feedback to your employees but if you fail to follow up, then the impact of the feedback would not be huge.

Like any other good plan, if there is only talk and no action, then nothing will be achieved. By following up, shows your genuine interest in your staff in overcoming their challenges and problems.

As the owner, it’s your responsibility to make sure that your team feels supported at all times. When you give your first feedback to your staff, you should ask them if it is ok with them if you follow up.

It should sound something like this – I will check back with you the next month to see if the things are working out good. Would that help you?

Conclusion

By being open to give and receive feedback at all levels shows that you care for your cleaning staff and want them to be successful.

It helps to open the communication between you and your staff so that the team can work together and face the problems together. It fosters trust and increases the engagement and productivity of the team.

Often employees leave their jobs because of the unsolved issues and the owner is not aware of it.

Encouraging the flow of feedback can help resolve the issue sooner and retain your staff.

The hardest part of the conversation is starting and we hope these strategies would help you to make your feedback conversations more constructive.

Do you have any other suggestions or used these strategies before? Do let us know below in the comments.