Why This Healthcare Worker Ditched Her “Real Job” for Cleaning (And Never Looked Back)

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Introduction

Hello everyone, welcome back to the Filthy Rich Cleaners podcast. I’m your host, Stephanie from Serene Clean, and in today’s episode, I will be interviewing the lovely Hanna Sutton, who has been in my employment for millennia now. How many years? Going on five, or for sure? Between four and five years, give or take. And she has started as a cleaning tech, and has in the last year, been promoted to our quality assurance and field development specialist, which I’ve mentioned many times in the podcast, and what a game changer that has been for our quality, for our training. Really, it’s just revolutionized a lot of areas of the business. So we’re going to delve into Hanna’s position, as well as her journey, and why she’s stuck around here for so long.

Hanna’s Background and Transition to Cleaning

Stephanie: Do tell, you had a long career in health in general.

Hanna: So when I first moved to Black River, I started in sort of the bar industry, waitressing that sort of thing, and became the front of the house manager. And that was haunted there, right? It was definitely haunted. But that went through a few strings of different owners, and then I got pregnant. So he unfortunately did not like pregnant women, and the bigger I got, the more hours I got cut. So by the time I had a child, I really knew that I wasn’t coming back to a position of any kind. However, in the meantime, the bar closed.

But then after having the first child, I moved into the medical field, and actually started at the bottom in that world, in medical records. And within a year, I was upstairs working with the family practice and family doctors.

Stephanie: It was pretty crazy with no formal training.

Hanna: Yeah, they actually owned the facility, so that was the only reason I could jump in and learn on the job training. And they taught me everything. So I worked there, kind of filling in wherever, but mainly had a family practice doctor that I worked one on one with in his schedule, and then I had another child. So moving in from that, I transitioned over to the surgeons, and then worked with them, and then unfortunately, I could not let my care for my patients separate from the insurance and the managers and everything else of health care stop the action and care of the patient. And so I was actually in there for 16 years before I got out and found your company.

What Drew Hanna to Cleaning

Stephanie: What were you looking for? Obviously, this is so drastically different than what you were doing. What exactly were you searching for specifically that would be appealing for you in a job at that time?

Hanna: So my biggest worry was I wasn’t going to be able to care for people. That was my thing. I wanted to care for people who either needed the help or couldn’t do it. So that was one of the aspects. And then secondly, just being more in tune to my own family and their needs, and being able to be there for them. So just the flexibility of the schedule and the openness of communication and how we kind of jive as a family.

Stephanie: Did you look at other jobs, or did you interview elsewhere? Or was it one and done? We were just Mr. Right.

Hanna: Well, no, I actually fought to work for you.

Stephanie: She didn’t get a call back right away. Hard to get guys. In case you haven’t realized, Ashley V had to pursue us. Hanna had to pursue us. Don’t be desperate. They can smell it.

Hanna: I did have a couple other interviews. I actually interviewed at our Ho Chunk clinic, interviewed in the pharmacy.

The Pursuit and Hiring Process

Stephanie: So you applied as a cleaning tech here, and you pursued us. Why? So you must have done a group interview, right? You did that. What was that like?

Hanna: That was great, until it dawned on me who the other person was. I don’t even know, and I know of the person who was not anybody we should be putting in somebody else’s house or alone. So after going through the interview, I thought, “Well, geez, I was so worried about them hiring this other person than I was getting the job.” I don’t care if you don’t hire me, but don’t hire her. And so I left there feeling okay and almost like I had it, because this girl, I thought, didn’t have it. And so I thought I had nailed it. And that was two weeks later, and I hadn’t heard anything. I was like, “Shit.”

So I actually reached out, we were going to a hockey tournament. And I reached out, and Crystal was like, “Yeah, at this time, we’re not really looking to fill the position.” And I was like, “Oh, dude, that was just a straw.”

Stephanie: Oh my god, we almost missed out on you. What the hell.

Hanna: Three weeks later, I was like, “Are you sure you’re really not looking for somebody? I could really do this.” Were you looking for part time or full time?

Stephanie: Full time. And I’m assuming the reason that Crystal would have given that is if you were looking for full time, and we could not confidently make that happen necessarily, that oftentimes makes us hesitate. But clearly you wanted us.

The Stress of Job Searching

Hanna: Well, for me, it was a stretch of time that I didn’t really have a job. So stressful. For me, and I’ve never not had a job.

Stephanie: I literally can’t imagine you not working.

Hanna: For me on one hand, it was like, “Did I do the right thing?”

Stephanie: I mean, it wasn’t you. It was probably just our demand at that time, most likely. But I don’t remember any of this. I eventually made it like, “We’ll give her a shot.”

Hanna: So I would say it was about a month and a half. But then I finally reached back out and she was like, “Yeah, we can bring you on.” And so ever since then, it was Johnny on the spot. I love this place, just the appreciation of simply showing up and doing a great job. And when you get to go home, you just shut it off. Or if you take a day off, your jobs don’t pile up. It all gets taken care of, then you come back with a fresh slate. You really recharge.

Comparing Healthcare to Cleaning Work

Stephanie: Coming from a professional standpoint, which I’m sure a lot of you guys have experienced, your work is waiting for you when you get back, and it’s just this mountain. With cleaning, it’s like those jobs happen. If you take off, it gets covered, or whatever. So it’s just so different than that. You mentioned previously when we’ve talked about the level of stress and never feeling like you can turn work off, coming from a professional background. I think there’s probably a lot of imposter syndrome from owners’ perspectives of why would somebody with a professional background want to clean. Why would they want to lower themselves to that? As we all in the industry have been exposed to those stereotypes or that thought process, and it’s at the end of the day, people are burnt out. They’re burnt out at these jobs.

Hanna: It’s so funny, because after leaving the medical side, I always thought I had a real job and I was in a corporate world and having the benefits of health insurance and being able to take care of my family that way, but I could throw that away if I knew just the morals of appreciation.

Stephanie: If you’re sticking on a job because of the title, or maybe the societal pressure to not do something menial, but you hate your life every day, and you’re never appreciated. And that’s why I think a lot of the people coming from the healthcare industry, which Serene Clean is made up with so many people from the healthcare industry. It’s because you guys, one you know how to work your ass off, and you have been unappreciated and put through the ringer.

Hanna: I can’t tell you how many days I went to work just feeling like there’s a target on your back and you are gonna get written up for some sort of policy that you don’t even know. Write it up, because it’s your policy.

Building Trust in a New Workplace

Stephanie: Really feeling like you’re swimming against the current, or you can’t win, or people are out to get you.

Hanna: Out to get you. And the other thing is, it was so funny, the first time you asked me for my input, I was so hesitant. I was like, “I’m not telling her nothing. She’s gonna take this around, flip it and stab me in the back.” That’s how it used to go. But it was like, no, they’re sitting in the office and I’m out in the field. So how can we make this whole job better? Sometimes when you guys bring things up, I’m like, “Wait a minute.” Or, “This is how we need to think about it, from the outside aspect of the cleaners on site, versus just in the office.” So it’s so grateful to take that input.

Stephanie: That’s the hard part of going and working for somewhere. They all are going to say that they care about your work-life balance. They care about you, and it’s a great place to work. They’re trying to sell you. It’s just like cleaning services. Everybody says that they’re a quality cleaner, which means that word is meaningless. And that’s where it’s just the proof is in actions. And I think it takes some time, especially if you’ve been kind of traumatized by a workplace to trust that we are not going to be like that. And we’ve experienced that with many hires, actually, where they’re super guarded and they don’t trust that our intentions are pure. And they’ll act in very strange ways. But it’s the last place they have the baggage from. When’s the other shoe gonna drop? You’re trying to trick me. It’s very interesting. And so if you guys ever experience an employee who behaves that way and you’re trying to showcase difference, just give it time. It’s that consistency of showing them we’re not full of shit. This is actually what we are. We’re not just a bunch of bitches. I mean, I can be a bitch, but I try not to be.

Hanna: Even in the 16 years of the medical field, every meeting we had, it was they had unsurpassed benefits of the community, and they could, nobody else could offer us anything better. But yet, we’d walk out and we were beaten, told we’re a dime a dozen and could be replaced tomorrow.

Stephanie: Which is it?

Hanna: And thankfully that after I found you, I’ve now realized that they are not that. And I can make way more cleaning.

Financial Benefits and Career Growth

Stephanie: You started probably, what did you start at? I can’t remember.

Hanna: I want to say $14.

Stephanie: So you left and came to work for us for $14 an hour. That’s freaking crazy to me, but you knew if you showed up every day, and did damn good, you’re gonna make it.

And it’s interesting, as you’ve seen over the years, my biggest thing is I want my actions to make it easy for you guys to trust that I’m going to take care of you, not as a weird toxic parent, but as an employer caring for my flock of sheep. That’s how I see it. I’m very much “what can I do for you guys?” And if you just stick by me, I’m going to do right by you. And especially when it comes to the wages, the wages have changed so much since the beginning when I started, and that has to do with pricing. As we do price increases, instead of just pocketing that difference, that directly goes to wages going up.

Employee Benefits and Workplace Culture

Hanna: The benefits always asked us, “What makes our life easier? Or what benefits should we be offering?” And I think every time one of my suggestions has been added.

Stephanie: I remember specifically a couple years ago when we asked all of our techs, “What do they want us to do?” Because we were at a crossroads of, we can either increase the wages or we can add other benefits. And really, us in the office, we’re just speculating. We’re thinking they’re going to want higher wages. And then asking you guys, and zero of you saying anything about the wages, it was about other things we could make the workplace better. And we have. We’ve added so many different benefits. The last year was the year of benefits. I can’t afford to add any more benefits. No more benefits for anybody until I don’t even know when. But we’ve done plenty in the past year to make me feel very confident in our benefits package and very competitive and really showcasing that this is a career that you can do. And I think nobody thinks of cleaning as a career.

That really has been so many of our cleaning techs coming from the bullshit of it all, and saying, “You know what, I’m tired of it. I want to show up, do some physical labor, make good money. It’s really satisfying work. And then just go home.” So at the end of the day, if you can make it culturally attractive, I think that will make people who you would never, on paper, expect that you would be attracted to this work want to do this job. It’s just don’t assume about people. You don’t know where they’re coming from and what their experience is. Because for you, it’s a breath of fresh air to just show up and clean.

Avoiding Workplace Drama

Hanna: Well, and you don’t have all the other policies and people attacking you from every different direction. I could take care of my patients, but it was all the managerial stuff that you had to deal with. And just because this person was related to that person that got special privileges. It’s straight across the board here.

Stephanie: Just the cattiness of a workplace, and even serving definitely was like that too in a lot of ways. So it definitely is, I would say, no drama here is very important, honestly. We built our business to not allow for it. Why we run individual cleaners.

Hanna: So funny. Usually there’s three women at your job that you can’t work with, and just their mannerisms, they click their pen, they sniff their gum. I don’t care what it is, you don’t have any of that.

Stephanie: I am the pen clicker.

Hanna: It’s so funny. Every time I’m sitting next to Kate, I’m eating my lunch, and I’m just clicking.

Stephanie: And if we do have beef with one another, we’re putting each other in a corner, figuring it out by ourselves. No games. It’s really just the tone, or somebody was having a bad day. Talk about it, but we all sync up on our cycles, I feel like, and it’s just a shit show. Everybody’s just crazy at the same time. Everything’s rainbows after that.

And it’s interesting, because very rarely do we even have cleaners working together at all. So it just doesn’t allow for that. That’s why I know teams. People love teams. And I’m not saying teams don’t work, but the BS that we would have to deal with, shoving a bunch of women together cleaning, the problems we just avoid in the management that we have by doing that is great. And obviously you do run teams for first time cleans or move outs or whatever, or if it’s a really time sensitive thing, but then it’s kind of a delight to work with each other, because you’re not getting annoyed to see each other every day.

Hanna: We do make it fun.

Handling Workplace Conflicts

Stephanie: And if something happens, let us know. And then we facilitate a conversation. And I remember that happened a couple months ago, and Crystal went and sat down the two ladies, and they both cried and hugged each other, and they were so happy that we facilitated that connection. They actually realized that they had so much in common. And it was just that snappiness. We say things sometimes, or come across in a way that we don’t realize until after the fact. And so instead of just letting that simmer and all of a sudden you got two women who don’t like each other, when we take the reins and say, “No, we’re fixing this right now. We’re going to sit and talk it out. What did you mean by this? What do you think of that?” And I know it sounds like a lot of work, but that’s managing guys. That’s managing human beings. That’s life.

Hanna: They internalize for years and snap.

Stephanie: Exactly. And honestly, even just for you, you are in your role. So hopping back to just timeline wise, so you were full time cleaning tech for years, and then what, six months ago? We introduced this new role. And honestly, we knew that we wanted it, but we didn’t think you were gonna want it because of the hours or something. I can’t remember. But we had you in mind, but we opened it up and you applied for it. So what drew you to what your current role is, compared to being cleaning tech?

Transition to Quality Assurance Role

Hanna: For one, I think it was just moving up. You know, growing. I need to just continually grow. I knew that your intentions were good. I knew the company and the reasoning behind what we’re doing is in tune with my side of beliefs and morals and all of that. And I knew that we’re working as a team. I’m not a manager. I’m not really a supervisor, but that’s, I don’t care about the title. It was more getting everybody on the same page. Nobody’s getting lost in the transit. We’re all getting trained the same way. So talk about consistency.

Stephanie: Let’s just describe for the audience, what is your role and what are your responsibilities right now?

Hanna: So I would say mainly it’s honing in on that training process, just getting one specific person to train our new techs for a good week and making sure that they’re getting all the same things, consistency.

Stephanie: We were really struggling with consistency in training, because we would just have them tag along with any seasoned cleaner, including you. But they were just getting a lot of different mixed signals.

Hanna: Different ways. I don’t care. Yes, there’s 50 ways to skin a cat, and as long as the end result is the same, I don’t care how you get there. However, we do kind of have a strategy that we know works, and so we got to hone that in a little bit. But then secondly, just knowing that we could make it grow, we just never know what different clients’ houses are going to entail, what kind of weird things you’re going to encounter. Bodies are gonna happen. Doors are locked. You don’t have codes to get in. How do you handle that? Some of these girls are pretty young, so they don’t know how to follow, how to get to somewhere, follow the GPS to read an address.

Training Life Skills and Problem-Solving

Stephanie: You’re almost having to teach them life skills. And our best staff members are very, very young, and so it’s definitely not necessarily we make blanket statements ever about somebody’s age, and if they want to work that type of thing, but more so we have to teach them a lot of basic skills. And it’s not their fault. They’ve not been taught to troubleshoot.

Hanna: They have gone into houses where I have the sewer back up, and I’m standing there going, “Oh shit, it’s coming.” Getting towels and surrounded. “What do I do? Do I try and clean this shit up?” Because it’s literally paper towel and toilet paper and shit.

Stephanie: Clean this up? Oh geez, so those sorts of things you can’t really train, but there are certain things we can. There are consistent random things that we know cleaners are going to run into. And now we’ve just built those into the control homes, so that now they, instead of just telling them, “This is how you deal with being locked out. This is how you deal with if something is broken in a house,” we literally build those scenarios into the control homes, the managers’ houses and your home, and we visually, we run them through it, and that means they’re going to remember because they actually did the thing instead of just being told it.

Hanna: And even we have fake blood and fake poop.

Stephanie: It’s really lifelike. We think 90% of them do think it’s real.

Hanna: Because it’s right by the door and there’s no dogs home when we get there.

Stephanie: It’s fake. It’s from Amazon.

Hanna: But just having a conversation about those. What do you do? And the blood, same thing. Most people are like, “Oh yeah, I’m not touching it.”

Stephanie: Okay, you don’t. You don’t, because we don’t do biohazard cleanup. And so it’s good to run them through this in a controlled scenario, and prep them, and it really hones their problem solving skills. Because I would say just the hand holding is what’s really frustrating with cleaning techs, where they just have no ability to problem solve. And how do you facilitate that thought process? It’s difficult. Some people just are good at it. You are the MacGyver. You are Hanna MacGyver Sutton. You can figure anything out. And I would say the most successful cleaning techs can do that. They’re really the most successful people in life, you can walk in any scenario and problem solve. And literally, even before you were in your current role, that was literally when we were scheduling, was like, “Well, we don’t know what this is going to be like, send Hanna,” because we know she can handle it. Whereas other cleaners were like, “Oh no, they can’t handle the stress of it.”

Coaching Through Overwhelming Situations

Hanna: And that’s the other thing, is you just never know what kind of situation you’re gonna walk into. I mean, you could walk into a hoarder house. You could walk into a mansion that’s glistening from the time you walked in. “Why are we here?” Still do it. And they can be overwhelming.

Stephanie: It really can be, how do you coach, talking about the overwhelm, because a lot of people freak out and quit because they’re just overwhelmed. How do you coach our new hires through that?

Hanna: So I’m just gonna start with more of a kid room, stuff’s all over, teenage garbage, that sort of clothes all over. And I just tell them, you have to start with one thing. Pick up everything. Pick up the garbage. All the like items. Start there, the dirty clothes, put them in a pile. Once you have the dirty clothes and the garbage out of there, the obvious garbage, it really is.

Stephanie: It’s like sometimes we do this, sometimes we don’t. It’s a lot of times a time thing too. It’s do we have time to handle this clutter? Because otherwise, as a rule, we work around it. But then if we do have time and it’s approved, and this is where this may not apply to you guys, because you may have to work this in a different way, because we charge hourly. That means there is an approved number of hours to work off of. And if we’re going to run out of time and it’s super cluttered, they’re not getting any decluttering, or not even decluttering, they’re not getting any organization. We’re cleaning as much as we can, but if there is time, then we will do it, whereas if you’re charging flat rate. That’s where scope creep, you have to be really, really, really explicit with what you do and don’t do, because otherwise, what we’re talking about right now? How would you handle it? So you need to think about those things. But for us, it’s easy, it’s cut and dry, 10 hours, okay? Can I get all of this done, all of our normal stuff and extra organization, or getting rid of, picking stuff up and toys and things like that?

Handling Difficult Cleaning Situations

Hanna: Just getting back to a normal kind of, where do you start? And then once you have that done, I mean, you just have to, I mean, it depends on what’s really in there. Yesterday we had the toy room. So, I mean, this is a seven year old kid with every trinket, and every toy, 500 little pieces. And so it was just start with the kitchen stuff. All the food type items goes in the kitchen area, and just kind of all the artsy craftsy goes in another pile, and just kind of work your way around and move and do the best you can. I mean, I think when you’re in those type of situations, anything is helpful, and they’re just looking for, “How do I start?” Absolutely. Even more, as a mom, I think it’s easier for somebody else to come in and just let them get a jump start. We’re not getting rid of your clothes. I mean, if you want to sit down and do that with me, I’m happy to go through every piece of clothing, but it’s going to take way longer and organizing a closet in that type of way where we don’t do that spectrum of things.

The Melrose Apartment Story

Stephanie: This is the training aspect of her job, and it reminds me of, gosh, I just have to tell the story of that house in Melrose, the apartment, right? So this was one where I came in one day and you came in the next day. I think you came into it. I can’t remember. But anyway, so I was with one cleaning tech, and we walk in, and I luckily had had COVID.

Hanna: You couldn’t smell anything.

Stephanie: And that was perfect for this job, because you did not want to smell this. There was just overflowing cat poop and litter all over the place, dirty diapers. And so the landlord had evicted this family, and we came in to empty it out. And this is another one of those things of me asking you guys, “Do you want to do this?” Because I like to do that personally. So we’re in there, and the other cleaning tech, she just starts dry heaving at the smell, and I’m like, “Can you get it together?” It’s not that bad, but that’s because I probably couldn’t smell anything. But then you come in and we’re just chucking stuff away.

Hanna: You just never know what you’re going to find or the state or the condition it is, and most people are just so beside themselves or appalled at themselves that they let it get that far. The shame is crazy.

Stephanie: Well, I really like coaching our cleaning techs about that. That’s really, really important to us that we never make people feel ashamed and even slight corrections. What kind of corrections do you do on cleaning techs, on what they verbalize?

Teaching Professional Communication

Hanna: So, well, one, we always have to think that we’re being taped or recorded or something on camera, because 90% of the time there is something somewhere, but just not verbalizing, just don’t respond before you think. But even yesterday, at my house with my kids, I purposefully left it like that, just to show her, when she was explaining, I said, “Well, how’d it go?” And she hesitated, because I think she thought she was gonna offend me. And it was like, “No, it doesn’t look like this normally. I’m sure the toy room in our house is disastrous.” But just the way she, I said, “Well, how did it go? How hard did you have to work?” And she’s like, “Oh, I had to use some elbow grease.” And I said, “Okay, that’s a good way to phrase it.”

Stephanie: And even the words that we use, we tell them to use the word “buildup.” We use the word “buildup.” Not “disgusting.” We would never say that. We may think it. Point being is just they’ve shamed themselves enough, and for them to pick up the phone and call us was a monumental task, and so they’re already feeling so vulnerable, and they’re already hating on themselves. It takes one word for them to just be, just never trust again. Never trust a cleaner again. And that’s happened to so many people before. Actually, one of my podcast guests that’s live already, Brenna Sledge, who opened a cleaning service. She had that experience where it got around that the cleaner was shit talking basically. And so it’s just we never, ever want to, we want this to be positive in all aspects, not only in the actual results of the cleaning, but in the experience itself, to make them feel good. “I did something for myself. I deserve this. I deserve a clean home.” And if we’re going to do anything to make them feel worse, that’s the exact opposite of what we’re about. That’s not what we’re about. And definitely, I’ve had my moments where I’m like, “Oh my God.” But I would never say it.

Hanna: When it’s just, “Man, it’s gotta take a shitty situation to get there,” and really having that immediate empathy of, “It’s bad, that doesn’t just happen in a void.” Is there sickness, mental health, illnesses, just overwhelmed? They’re working two jobs. All of the things. It’s just yeah and so just really having a strong sense of empathy and that go, that can do attitude of tackling things. You just assess it, and you immediately go into “let’s do this” mode. And you just don’t really get overwhelmed. I feel like.

Problem-Solving and Training New Hires

Hanna: I try really not to, and that’s another thing I teach them is, most of the time when you’re walking in as a new tech, you never feel like you have enough time. No matter how much time you’re given, you never feel like you have enough. And even I was that way.

Stephanie: You’re the fastest cleaner that’s ever worked for us also, though.

Hanna: But even I was in that same boat, “Holy shit. You want me to do all of this in just four hours?” And it’s just really knowing what you can do in one swipe versus going back 50 times to complete each task. When you look at our checklist, it’s lengthy, and probably each room has eight to 10 tasks in it, and when you walk into a room, it’s overwhelming. It’s overwhelming. However, it’s just a mindset thing. We train our cleaners to start in wet rooms, per se, the kitchens and the bathrooms, and so that’s what I tell them. I want you to read through your notes, and if something’s not clear on exactly what they mean, or things we do or we don’t do, however, the situation might go, start in your bathroom. Start cleaning your bathroom. Just think about the questions and what are you questioning? Is it a concerning thing that needs to go to the homeowner, or is it something that another cleaner might know? And you’re just confused on what it really means. So just take the time, think about it for 20 minutes to a half an hour while you clean that bathroom. You know the things that need to be done in there, and then reassess the situation. Is it something you figured out? 90% of the time, by the time I’m done with that bathroom, I have figured it out, and I don’t need to reach out. But then on the flip side, if you do, we’re also open, it takes 30 seconds to raise the question. And most of the time somebody’s out there in the field.

Stephanie: And we really would just prefer them to problem solve as much as possible. But if something’s unclear, that’s potentially an admin issue, meaning our notes are not clear. If somebody, again the whole we don’t want people to be able to question what they’re supposed to do, and if they are, I mean, something is unclear. We are explaining something wrong. We don’t have the clearest notes, or we need to clarify with the client exactly what’s what’s happening. As obviously, you’ve been here for a long time, you’ve seen how the notes and ZenMaid have evolved to help reflect. And every day when Crystal’s like update your notes to reflect, if somebody else had to fill in for you, what do they need to know about the house expectations of the client? What are they expecting? And so making sure that we’re all on the same page, what we’re going to do is either what the client expects, or we can explain to them why it’s not going to be or meet their expectation.

Communication and Clear Expectations

Stephanie: And just making sure that it is a reasonable request on their part. And the biggest thing, and one of the things that we really always want to prevent, is that client tells us something in the office, and then that did not get translated correctly to the cleaner, and now we have a really pissed off, disappointed client because they told us what they wanted, we did not deliver because of our inability to communicate effectively to the cleaner, or the cleaners’ inability to understand which at the end of the day is still on us.

Hanna: Or on the flip side is everybody reads it different, and or takes it different. Exactly. It’s the same thing with our meeting minutes, we’re reading the same thing, but when we have our meetings on Monday, because we all meet together every Monday, we have a further discussion about it. So if you’re not present at those meetings, it goes down the translation pipeline, and the meeting minutes get sent out, and we’re all required to read them, but sometimes it just doesn’t make sense. “What are we really talking about? What do they really mean?”

Stephanie: And even that happened, I think yesterday with the cleaning where cleaning tech, the notes were, “make the bed if clean linens are available,” right? That’s the note. And that was put in and so, but we don’t wash laundry anymore at houses. The tech interpreted that as, “Oh, I need to wash the sheets.” But it was truly there was no clean linens, so don’t make the bed. So she interpreted that as, “I guess I need to wash the sheets.” And she’s sending us questions about the dryer, and we’re like, “Why are you doing laundry? What is going on here?” And it’s like, “Oh, it wasn’t clear.” And so here we are. And so just really, every time a situation like little things like that, happen all the time, you just constantly tweak and improve and get more clear on what the expectation is. So that that happens fewer and fewer, but it still happens.

Hanna: Well, because when we used to do laundry, that’s a hard one to flip off.

Stephanie: Yeah, no, we don’t do it. Exactly, but I mean, so that’s all training. And obviously we could talk about training for hours, and I know that that’s a big topic of interest for people, but for you, when you are training and obviously you’re reporting back to us every single day, how is it going? If you were to pick three green flags and three red flags of somebody new because I know a lot of the people listening, they’re new owners, and they have not necessarily honed the skill of hiring and deducing if somebody’s good. So obviously we’re trying to give you the best possible people to train, but sometimes they slip through the cracks because they are really good at bamboozling us during interviews, or we just had to hire quickly, or whatever. So say we give you a new person to train. Tell me what makes them good? What would stand out of like, “Yep, they’re gonna be great.”

Green and Red Flags in New Hires

Hanna: So while they have to show up. Yes, say that’s number one.

Stephanie: No, but, I mean, I know, obviously I have not really had anybody that hasn’t shown up. They maybe left early, or you had an emergency and had to go, or some crazy story like that. But yeah, number one is, you gotta show up and show up consistently. You can do that if there, if the first week they’re having just a really shitty first week. It was bad timing, and that has happened, but it’s rare.

Hanna: And most of the time, if it’s logistical things, your car broke down. Typically that happens in the first week of new job. Your kids are always sick. It’s always gonna happen. But if that’s truly the case when you, we usually can tell, and that’s you, it’s, it’s a given, it’s going to happen. It’s life. That’s how it goes. So number one, you gotta show up. Secondly, though, so how we do it is they watch me go through pretty much a whole house or entire complete spaces, kitchen, bathrooms, bedrooms, an entire space. And then once they’ve seen that space, they’re kind of allowed to go out on their own or tackle what they think they can. So that’s my second green flag, is if they’re willing to tackle something. And then thirdly, I usually give them specifics, whether it’s, you know, usually you work around this room, or, like, three, I try to do three things depending on the room of like, do this this way, and this is when I want you to do it, and it’s just whether they can follow those. It’s just simple, stupid instructions, and it’s usually not any big deal if they don’t do it that way. It’s just whether they followed those directions, if they can read the notes and then just going off those and doing it.

Red flags. We do a lot of communication on our phones. So we’re up, we have our phones on us all the time, but when I’m cleaning, are they on their phone? I said, family happens. Messages come in. We communicate with the staff or with the managers on our phones. So we’re always constantly glancing on them. You know, patients come up, and I do tell them, you know, if a phone call or family calls, kids calls, something happens, please, by all means, take the phone call if needed. You know, so that happens throughout the day, but if they’re constantly, successively, supposed to be paying attention, when they’re supposed to be paying attention.

The other one I would say, is, if I try to make small talk, I’m just like, you know, what’s that family like, you know, that sort of thing. And if they say, you know, well, I don’t really talk to my family, you know, I’m not really connected. It’s not necessarily a red flag, but it’s like, do we have other issues? Then? Are we going to have other issues?

Life Situations and Reliability

Stephanie: I would say, a chaotic personal life, unfortunately, is probably one of the biggest reasons people leave or can’t make it is just they are not capable of holding down a job right now, and it sucks, because some of them are the best cleaners. They’re so good and they just, they can’t. It is not the right time for them. And unfortunately, we give a lot of chances here, for sure, but it’s like, okay, our clients are really suffering. Your coworkers are really suffering because the lack of dependability in this manner. And so making those calls sometimes really hard. We just had to do that in the last month. Fire a great cleaner, because her life was an absolute show right now. And it sucks, because it’s not all her fault, or anything like that. It’s just the circumstances. And so sometimes making honestly, the business decisions is really hard. It’s tough when you like them, and especially when you like them, it’s like, “I like you. You’re a great cleaner, clients love you, great reviews,” all of these things, and yet it’s still not good for the business to keep you here. And you know, you need to focus on getting your life together and I don’t mean that in any type of negative way we’ve all been, but most of us, I don’t know Hanna, because you’re like a sideboard, but most of us have been some point in our lives, been very unreliable because of our own personal lives, or just going through a really hard time and it’s hard to know sometimes, if this is just you’re you’re going through that hard time and you’re gonna come out of it, or is this just what your life is like, is it just chaotic? And that’s it’s really hard to discern that sometimes.

Hanna: It is. It is because a lot of people just paint you this picture, or say what you want to hear. And the third one I would say, is, we carry a lot of supplies, and so it’s like, “Holy shit, are they just all over the place?” You know, can they come in, set things down and just gather their thoughts? Are they coming in just a flame? Really, and move a lot.

Stephanie: I remember what? She’s great. She would come in like a fucking tornado. I mean, shits flying. It would make the client nervous. I would get nervous. I was like, “Dude, you just need to step out to the car, just take a breather.”

Hanna: Oh, frazzled. She was oh man. She was just throwing things. And it was like, “Oh yeah, did I get to move fast?”

Stephanie: I would say I’m a spazz. Obviously, anybody watching this knows I cannot sit still. But it’s not like that. But it’s even the way we speak of, are we putting the client and our coworkers at ease, or on guard? And that doesn’t.

Hanna: She would just come in and be like, “Oh my gosh, dude. You know what happened?” Yeah, I would have to go, “Great,” but it was like, “Holy shit. Are you coming in like that?”

Stephanie: It really is an impression. These are some good things to look for, for sure, and obviously, there’s a million nuanced things of what makes a good or a bad employee, or trying to protect ourselves from wasting time and money.

Hanna: That’s what it is we really want to spend the dedicated time, so we’re not setting them up for failure.

Stephanie: And so once they go through, you know, weeks of the week of training and then going with, you know, other cleaners, and finally getting them on only, you know, their own houses, only to realize or they quit because they’re so overwhelming. It’s like, so, yeah, even today we, you know, had that conversation in our ops meeting, of, like, okay, this is, you know, we’ve had, now, recently, multiple hires who the physicality of it. They don’t realize it until it’s they’re into it, and it’s like, well, how can we, how do we show this even more than this? But having that discussion of, how do we be as clear as possible as to what this job is actually going to be like? And, you know, just trying to vet better. And so we talked about, revamping and having, you know, the second interview be a lot more about the physicality of it, so that we can make sure if it’s not a good fit, we don’t waste their time, and we don’t waste our time.

Hanna: And we don’t need to be lifting 50 pounds. It’s hard, but it is physical. You’re not sitting. And I would say that would be another thing is if they’re sitting.

Stephanie: Or sitting, yeah, in general, sitting is not allowed for our cleaning techs, really. I mean, what if you clean an oven, you can sit on your stool? I don’t, yeah, that’s just me. I really don’t know if we even allow it. Honestly.

Hanna: I think it’s more like cabinet fronts, yes, interior deep cleaning, yes, but yeah, I think it’s more like cabinet fronts.

Stephanie: Yeah, and even so, but if they just constantly are trying to sit down, it’s like, that’s not this kind of job. And I’m not obviously, it’s not like, you don’t get to sit, in between houses or whatever, but you’re on your feet. That’s what this job is. And there’s no way to clean a house on your butt, not really. So it affects your speed, because as soon as you sit down, it’s like listening to a slow audio book. You can’t do it while you clean. You got to listen to, you know, whatever.

But yeah, so that’s kind of the training aspect and now discussing the quality control aspect. Let’s talk about that.

Quality Control and Commercial Accounts

Hanna: Yeah. So that position we transferred about six months ago, you were saying, so, yeah, that’s about right, but just really doing a hone in on all of our commercial accounts and making sure they’re all up to snuff. Sometimes it’s months before somebody gets back in there to get a quality check clean. And a lot of those tasks we’re not doing every day, but they still need to be kept up on. So just making sure those odds and end things are being done or kept up on. I mean, we have some bigger commercial accounts, and there’s some pretty nice facilities. So when those are new, we try and keep them looking new. And so just getting those details or making sure that those are being followed up on, and things aren’t getting built up on, and then we have to spend way more time on them.

Stephanie: And so you’re doing a minimum every single account for us. We have, I think, 64 ish commercial accounts right now. Every single account gets in person, quality checked at least once per quarter, and then you are emailing them once per month as a virtual check in to give them an opportunity to share any feedback, good or bad, just to really have those touch points. And honestly, we’ve seen, really, that’s been really great. I mean, we already worked, attempting to do it before, having this position, but it was just really overwhelming for the managers. That’s where you came in. This is your responsibility. And now it’s getting done, consistently, and we’re really seeing, in it, we’re not getting complaints, you know, we may be getting proactive feedback, of, “Yeah, this isn’t been looking great,” and then we can nip it in the bud. It never gets to the actual complaint level.

Hanna: Or were they to the point where they’re upset about it, they have to bring into our attention.

Stephanie: So just being proactive and giving, you know, saying we want to know, I think it’s really helped with our, our client satisfaction as well as, I mean, even just with cleaner is, they’re, they’re kicking it into gear because they know they’re being checked. And it’s funny, because the women and the men that we have don’t see it the same. So, for sure, that’s the other thing. Is, when I’m on site doing the quality check, I do try to talk to employees on site and see what their personal opinion.

Employee Relationships at Commercial Sites

Stephanie: Oh, yeah. Meaning, the employees of our commercial accounts, Hanna actually will ask them, “How’s it going?” Because remember, it’s not just the stakeholders, as in, who pays the bills. Every employee in that building is a stakeholder. Because they can go and bitch to the person who pays the bills, or they can give your cleaner a hard time if they’re doing a bad job. It’s actually interestingly enough, you think commercial accounts, personality doesn’t matter, but I look at some of our longest commercial cleaners, and their accounts are eating out of their hands. They love them. They love them. Or even Lori, the cleaners, her and the employees play pranks on each other, because they have that rapport. And that means that if something is maybe not going so well, not that that would happen with Laurie specifically. But if you know, hypothetically that were happening and they like the cleaner, they’re much more likely to have some leeway, or just tell us, instead of going to their boss and being like, “This is shit, this is terrible,” and then all of a sudden it’s this whole thing. So, you know, it is important to have commercial cleaners that have, you know, that customer service, you know. And obviously we do a lot of daytime commercials. So if you’re cleaning all at night, your cleaners aren’t seeing the people. It doesn’t really matter. But that’s not the case for us. They see a lot of people.

Hanna: They do, they do and to just making sure that our staff is looking professional. And, you know, they’re not all discombobulated and carrying their carts or bags or whatever they’re carrying around.

Stephanie: But so when she does so, she does the QCs on the actual accounts. But then also on the other flip side of that, it’s every single employee. So it’s regardless of where they are, they’re getting QCD, and it’s not just the quality of the clean you’re looking at them as an entire entity. Can you describe that?

Hanna: So yeah, I would say, from the point of what they’re looking like or dressed in, is all the way down to their supplies and tools. Are they all in good working condition that they feel, checking their vacuums to making sure that they’re maintaining them slightly. Yes, sometimes it’s just crazy. And that too, we have to teach them how to maintain a vacuum they don’t know. And you can’t just assume that they do. And so we don’t assume it. We teach them.

Hanna: We do. Yep, I take that baby all apart one by one and show them everything that comes apart. And most of the time, they’re pretty fascinated. So it’s good their home vacuums are looking better, because we taught them, I’m sure. And that’s another funny thing on about the fourth day, I always have the new techs. They’re like, “Oh well, I noticed my microwave was not up to par.”

Stephanie: It’s so interesting because it’s we teach them how to see.

Hanna: Exactly see and feel. A lot of my job is on feel. I actually don’t wear gloves ever, except the toilets.

Stephanie: If I’m going to go check a regular home bathroom with a shower and tub. That’s the first thing. Rub it all the way around that bad boy, and then look at my hand. But yeah, even checking, you know, our supplies and everything that we keep on site, is it neat and tidy and orderly, that sort of thing.

Stephanie: It’s looking like a professional entity that and all of those micro impressions really matter. And if we’re going to be charging these luxury prices and really boasting about our our company, it’s every single detail matters to us. And it doesn’t mean that we’re psychos, but I would say we’re psychotic about quality. We’re psychotic about professionalism, that’s all very important. And obviously, every single interview with all of the staff members that they’re going to be seeing, you’ll see we’re all, very relaxed and casual. Obviously you’re seeing me and Hanna are interacting it’s, who’s the boss here? I don’t even know. But the point being is, I can be relaxed because out in the field is game time. It is game time, Showtime, and it better be on and so, like, I can be really chill and stuff, but you start doing a shitty job. There goes chill Stephanie out the window.

Hanna: Yeah, all of a sudden, you’re almost had beer. You almost had beer.

Stephanie: Yeah. We don’t do that when, when you do a bad job, you know, honestly, it’s we have this. This is I don’t want to boast, but this culture of excellence that’s been curated so that if you are shitty at your job, you you stand out like a sore thumb. Like, it’s so obvious. And we police ourselves almost.

Hanna: We really don’t have to say no, they’re getting it internally.

Culture of Excellence and Professional Standards

Stephanie: From the shame. Yeah, exactly. And that’s the nice thing. Is, now we have this, such strong crew of really excellent cleaners and so and really just take such pride in Yeah. And how do we, you know, we facilitate that by, the highlighting the affirmation, calling out any positive feedback, that’s very important to us, but I think that helps them learn to take pride, maybe where they wouldn’t have otherwise, like “I did something good.” And I think that, and especially coming back to, the whole, societal, view of cleaning and things like that, it’s we really just flipped it on its head. Of, we’re damn proud of what we have, you know, we kill it every day. It’s not every company that could say we’ve got 30 people hitting excellence every single day. And we have, we’ve had zero complaints in over a month now.

Stephanie: And you want to make fun of me because I’m cleaning a toilet? Go to your little corporate job and sit your little cubicle, and you may very well could be making more than them, you know. I mean, so it’s in the day, we’ll be laughing all the way to the bank. It is filthy rich cleaners, but, but the point is, just, it’s I think just being really strong and I know we make a difference, and I’m proud of the effect we have on people’s lives where, the, you know, people could be pencil pushing and literally have no bearing on any effect of anything they’re just a cog in the machine, you know. And I think it’s really important here that we, everybody feels like that’s not the case, we’re not, you know, the whole not just a number, that’s true, you know. And we really see each other as individuals, I would say. And even in the team meeting, of half the meeting is about not work, you know, we’re just talking about us, or, our weekends. We just go around the circle and, “How was your weekend? Anything exciting, any crazy shit?” Because there’s always something that happened, but then it helps us know each other and understand, “Oh, you’re having a hard time right now,” gives us, I guess, some context to each other as people, because at the end of the day, I know that a lot of people have come from places where it’s work and it’s life, and you do not co mingle your personal life and your work. But it’s just we see you guys as full like you’re full humans, and you can’t separate your work in your life. I mean, you try to compartmentalize. And obviously, we literally have said, if you’re having such a shitty time and it’s gonna affect the work, let us know. Let us know, and stay home. We don’t want you there. We do not want you there. Take a mental health day, literally. You need it, because you’re crazy, just take a week. But I mean, we’ve had that happen before where, people have came back after they’ve done poor quality work, and they’re like, “Well, I was having a bad day. What do you want from me?” And it’s we want you to call in, because now I’d pay you to do it. The customer has had a bad experience. I have to pay somebody else to go back and fix it. And overall, it’s now administrative, some labor and some frustration on that part, and chaos you calling in would have eradicated all of that, all of it. So it’s, yeah, call in. I’d rather you do that. And just boldly stating things like that.

Hanna: I think that goes back to before we were so used to our work piling up. If we called in, we have double the work now. And if we’re taking off, we double our work before we go and double it when we come back. So, that’s the other thing is just, they just take the time, if you need the time, take the time. And then the next day will be 50,000 times better.

Flexibility and Work-Life Balance

Stephanie: And they coming back to, just, you know, obviously quality is a quality checking is a big part of your role. So you’re doing that every single week. You’re doing training. Probably it just depends on our hiring, you know, flow, but usually it’s every other week, or at least once a month. Now for sure, and then you’re on call. I mean, you’re cleaning, what, 15, 20, hours a week minimum, I would say, you know.

Hanna: How many gives your takes on the flow, of course, that’s fluctuating, but that’s the other thing. Is, sometimes our schedule can change. We all know what we’re working Yeah, we’re all available for a certain amount of time, so the flip of the schedule doesn’t stress you out, and it’s just the expectation. And we’ve really tried to, make sure that that’s clear. Of, Listen, if you say that you’re available during this time, we can book you at any time, for that meaning, even today, later today, if you have open availability, if you don’t want us to book it, you need to let us know so that we take that availability out. And, you know, it’s just, changes happen every single day.

Hanna: Well, that’s the other thing. If we have available hours and we’re blocked for that and something comes up, it’s super nice that I just want to go help. We did just tell us. I don’t like to see other people drowning, so if I know somebody’s close to me. I’m happy to help out. But we all have those times, and if the availability is there or we’re open, we can utilize somebody else, by all means, just take that time or ask us.

Stephanie: And that’s what a lot of our cleaning techs will do, is be like, “Hey, I see that nothing’s been booked for tomorrow afternoon. I’d like to request it off, if that’s all right,” you know, just, you know, because I want to do these things, is that okay? And we’re like, “Yeah, go ahead,” you know. Just so that again, we just don’t want to book them, and they’ve already got, made plans. That’s the biggest thing. And it’s really a communication thing. And obviously it’s you know, the other thing, I think, is we all we’re in a position before, at least I was where it was, “Oh, shoot. I’m gonna hold my breath and just make sure. I’m gonna pray that I can get out by four o’clock, but I’m not gonna say anything.” And then 3:55 comes and something gets added. You’re like, “Go, you’re mad,” whereas you should have just said something exactly and it could have been covered.

Stephanie: I’m really just, honing in on, if we’re feeling resentful for, really the whole team, if you are feeling unhappy or resentful, keeping that in I think we’ve proven time and again and again, that’s the goal of we are going to listen to you, you know, we’re at least going to take your feedback for sure. And it’s not 95% of the time, a change is going to be implemented based on that feedback, and so they learn to trust you, you know? And then the beautiful thing is, is okay? Now I have this flock of really strong cleaning techs, right? And I had my flock of managers who are who experienced years of me proving time and again and US proving time and again. “We’ve got your back. We know what’s like. We’re here for what’s best for you, and we’re gonna stand by you,” and all of these things. So you build this consistency and behavior. You guys sell serene clean. New cleaner comes in brand new person. They’ve never interacted with us before. They’ve been razzled, dazzled by the interview process. They got this gorgeous orientation, and then we put them with cleaning techs who have worked with us, or you now over and so, you’re selling us, you know what I mean, this is a great place to work, and so, but you have to be a great place to work because, people, the bullshit meter is high when you’re talking to HR, when you’re talking to management or middle whatever the owners the same person in your position, the same position, they’re out there, somebody is not going to BS about that. You’re going to come and be like, “Oh, I wouldn’t want to work here. Get out while you can.” If that joke is made, it’s just there’s something wrong. But if, your seasoned people who have been here for years, and there’s longevity there, and obviously some of you guys are just starting out, but if somebody new comes in and says, because that before we had longevity, it’s “Yes, that’s great.” That would be, you know, and I didn’t have a lot to offer, but it’s, “Yeah, it’s really flexible stuff. Great. So listen, if you know, you need blah, blah, blah,” and, so that consistency and behavior was built to the point now, I don’t need to do any type of, selling. You guys sell it for us, meaning, and by selling, selling to employees, we’ve got two audiences here. We got clients and we got employees. And honestly, as we talked about supply and demand, our supply, meaning employees that needs to be as strong, otherwise we can’t grow. We can’t We can’t adapt, and, you know, deal with turnover. So, it’s, it’s really interesting. I’m just I feel like, in this conversation, I’m talking a lot about just, trust and.

Hanna: But that’s huge.

Building Trust and Overcoming Workplace Trauma

Stephanie: And I think the reason I’m really angling that is, because you had a employer in a workplace you couldn’t trust and you could never let your guard down, you know. And so, how can we, how can we be that for you? And also, you know, is it, it will get taken advantage of, and us not getting cynical about it? We get, I would say, I don’t want to say often, but yeah, bad eggs get in, and they absolutely take advantage of the kind workplace that we have, or the flexible workplace that we have.

Hanna: And just typically, they’ve smashed themselves.

Stephanie: Exactly, they burned the bridge, for sure. And so that’s, that’s the thing is just, I just, we try not to get cynical, because, turnover is just the state of things with with this industry. And even, no matter how great you are, it just is what it is. Of, okay, we just had somebody quit without notice two nights ago, right? We’re not all just saying, “Guess we should just close up shop, because that’s how people are. They’re just shitty.” And it’s if we let that get to us, it just, we can eat up, but the business would have to go under, because this is the name of the game in this industry. Specifically, is you’re going to deal with turnover, you’re going to deal with bullshit clients. And I mean, I would love to talk about some bullshit clients with you, if that would be good. Specifically, one of the ones, one of the stories that actually inspired the SOS feature in ZenMaid is story. So do tell Hanna. You can tell the story. I’ve told it before, but you’ll, in your own words, tell.

The Dangerous Client Situation

Hanna: So we were assigned another cleaning tech and I were assigned a first time clean, a first time clean. But it was like a odd, right? It was like a caring one, like the state was kind of paying for it, I believe, or so, you know, basically the entity that set up the cleaning was not the actual individual homeowner. It was another entity, so that when it was more like a charitable thing, we were told, “Well, the story I got going in was this was a dad of four kids, I believe, who had a terminal cancer, and he had not been doing well.” So gosh, by all, we’re gonna go knock this out and make this great for everybody involved. So when the other cleaning tech and I arrived, we walked into, oh, a house that was destructed to say the least. Dishes, clothes, garbage, all everywhere over the house. But when we first walked in, we were, let’s see, presented by a gentleman who was sleeping in a hospital bed, who had tubes and things hooked up to him, and there was nobody else around, so we just quietly walked past. He looked like he had been sleeping, so walked past him and got started in another section of the house. I started in the bathroom, and the other cleaner had started in the kitchen. About a half an hour later or so, he woke up from his stupor and came to the kitchen to introduce himself, maybe because, one, he had no idea we were coming. And secondly, who were we? And so we had kindly introduced ourselves, and you know, we were here to clean, and he became so excited that we were there to help him, and he didn’t really know who had sent us, or again, why we were there, but he was open to having us there. However, the situation turned real sour real quick.

Stephanie: But we got a message from you guy, from the other cleaner and just, this is what’s going on, but we’re good.

Hanna: And she had personally known him from outside the community. Unfortunately, he was somebody who was well known around the town for not being a great guy, and so he had kind of come and gone throughout the morning, I’m gonna say, within an hour, kind of making small comments about, “Thank God I have women here about to clean my house and make it beautiful.” And those just got progressively worse.

Stephanie: Didn’t he grab, a bottle of vodka or something? I thought, I feel like.

Hanna: He grabbed some sort of alcoholic beverage and went to the basement, who then came back up a few minutes later. And he was not in any state that we wanted to be dealing with. But started making comments about taking this other cleaner to the bedroom. And that was, that was the straw. I knew that whatever happened at that point, Steph was going to stand behind us, and I looked at this other cleaner, and I said, “You put your phone on record. You put it in your back pocket. We pack up all of our stuff.” And we knew that if we confronted him, that things were going to turn south in a quick hurry. He was going to get disgruntled and angry, you don’t know.

Stephanie: And so there’s guns all over the house. There were guns. So we have a belligerent alcoholic who is sexually propositioning our cleaners with loaded weapons in the house.

Hanna: They were relatively present to where he was, I mean, they were arm’s length wherever he was standing, and so I knew that when we made our move, we were gonna have to do it now. That’s terrifying. Were you just terrified?

Hanna: So I wasn’t, because I knew who I had with me, and I knew she could stand just as much we were work. So had I been going in with somebody else? I’m not sure, you maybe felt like you had to protect her.

Hanna: Yeah, even though I still felt like that, but she, I knew she was gonna take this strong as I was to think, and that is just so. Well, and honestly, that was my first, “Get out now” kind of moment. So we quietly gathered our things, because he had now made his way back to the bed and put himself back to sleep. And he really thought nothing of it, like it was just like, “Hey, it’s sunny outside, or it’s gonna rain.” And so, I cleaned up my area, she cleaned up her stuff. And we made one final swoop out. And ran, and I can remember messaging you guys.

Stephanie: Literally, my heart was in my gut, just, “Oh, my God, I’ve never heard Hanna,” I did.

Hanna: So it was so funny, because she was parked behind me, and when I started the message, I was in my car throwing my shit, literally in, because I knew if he woke up, it was not going to be good. So it was just get out of his driveway. And so when I said my phone down, I put it on the back of my car, and I hit record, and I’m recording this as I’m throwing my shit in, and I was like, “We’re heading out. We’re going, I’ll be at the office in six minutes.” And so I left, she was right behind me. We pulled out, we left, and on the way back, I listened to my voice memo, and I am, shaking in my voice, and so I sent a new message, and I was like, “I’m all as well. We are okay. But at the time, it was not good that we are all out and we will be fine. We’ll be back to the office in five minutes,” and from there, it was a calm situation, nothing happened. I just knew that we needed to get the hell out, and yet I knew too that you guys were gonna have our back. It didn’t matter what the hell happened.

Stephanie: As soon as he got I remember actually, because the other cleaner had messaged to let us know that he had grabbed a bottle of alcohol, and we said, “You guys can leave right now.” And you guys decline because you’re like, “We feel okay.”

Hanna: It was, it was okay. I mean, it was getting a little sketchy. But, I mean, we, we said, the girl I was with, I knew I could handle our own so not that I want to put anybody in that position for sure, of course. But I thought again, this guy is dying. We need to help the kids. And the poor kids. And so, we were going to try and stick it out. And then it was that. In what happened actually, was he came up from the basement, made the comment, but I walked in on it, and I could tell by the cleaner’s face that it was not okay. And I looked at her and I said, “I don’t know exactly what he said, but I could tell by the look on your face it wasn’t okay. So this is now we’re gonna go.” And she explained it after the fact, but I knew just by looking at her that it was, it was.

Stephanie: You guys had to get out there. And just hearing the story and it still, it still makes me emotional thinking about it, because, I just I think about you guys are put in unsafe, you know, our our business is inherently, potentially unsafe, you know. I mean, it’s scary. There’s just never No, you just don’t know, middle of no vacation rentals, you know. And that’s scary. And, you know, no cell reception and all of these things. And obviously, I’ve made it very clear, from the get go, of safety is our number of concern. And.

Hanna: I don’t how many times I emphasize that, I was like, “Your guts telling you to run.”

Stephanie: Get that. And obviously we give you guys, pepper gel, and you know anything you are, exactly the alarms, but. And so it was really validating of, or it made me feel really, happy that. ZenMaid, listen to this. And again, this was one of the stories I told them last year, and then for them to come out with that SOS button was just it just makes me feel really appreciative that, they’re they’re listening, they’re listening to us. And also, you know, this is a women led industry, and the people doing the physical work are mostly women, and so you know, we are in potential danger all of the time, every single day, potentially dangerously.

Hanna: And any wife who’s scheduling it is thinking my husband and not, never gonna look at that.

Stephanie: And that’s the hard part. Is when we have to tell a wife, “Hey, your husband did this.” To cancel?

Hanna: It’s terrible. Came home.

Stephanie: Exactly. It came on to me, or whatever. It’s just, it’s a, it’s a very unique industry in that, you know, we’re alone in people’s spaces, and that puts us, you know, in a vulnerable position. For sure.

Hanna: Most normal guys hide from us. They’re so awkward. They see our car. They’re not in any eyesight of us. If they on anything, it’s.

Stephanie: If, there’s a plumber or, my house, I’m like, “I don’t even know what to do with myself right now.” Seriously, what do I do right now? I can’t just, sit down on the couch and relax. That’d be weird, right?

But, no, it’s it just, and obviously, you’re a very, confident, self assured person, and not all of our techs are like that. True that just really facilitating that confidence of, you know, we will have your back, whatever the reason is, I don’t care how minor it is, whatever the thing is, you leave, you leave. You will never be in trouble for it. And, it’s just something that, is forever, something that we are going to emphasize any I’m trying to think of any other particular challenges that you know, you faced during this time. Does anything come to mind or different, you know, even the phases of the business this is something I asked Ashley B as well, of, you know, what has stood out to you as the growth and changes of serene, clean, is there anything that, you’re like, “Oh, that, you know, that was a big step, or XYZ, or blah, blah, blah.”

Watching Business Growth and Changes

Hanna: I mean, I think there’s been just implementing the benefits, or, you know, one asking us what we want, and taking that even into slight consideration. Is huge, but, watching us grow. I mean the numbers. We always talk about the numbers. So listening to that, I love to hear the number should be going on.

Stephanie: Actually. Let me interrupt myself. Here. You have transitioned from cleaning tech, who has been, you know, exposed to some, but not all now, to being privy to all of the business. What has that been like? Because I have been burned before taking cleaning tech into a more you know, you’re not a manager, but you are. You know what I mean, whatever you are, your hybrid position is you are exposed to information that otherwise techs are not and so what has that been like for you to now see all of this stuff?

Hanna: It’s enlightening, because now, well, here’s the, I guess, the positive behind it now, because when you guys talk about things, I now have a full on stand. I get the full picture. And sometimes, of course, with my own call position, I’m not always attending in the meetings or present in them, but knowing, why? Why, and you’re huge, I’m telling us why. If we’re going to implement something to the rest of the text, we always tell them why they might not like it. I’m going to be honest, we changed them, but again, discussing the why behind it, and any of my other companies, they’ll be like, “No, this is the policy. Why are you asking? Why? Just comply.” Just comply. And it’s funny now that we’re we are a little more on top of them and holding them to accountable. And they’re like, “Well, why, though?” And it’s like, “Well, you’re based everything is based on your accountability, if, if you can’t just simple follow rules. And it’s not like we’re super harsh or have a ton of them. It’s little basic things. But when we change things like the MUP buckets, we need to be utilizing them because there’s a specific reason why. And if you want to be told 50,000 times why, by all means, we’ll have a conversation. But you can’t just continue to not do it and then be like, “Oh, well, why are you throwing that against me.” Now you’ve been told for three months that this is what’s happening and so, and even, just the buy in in general, or just a buy in overall, of why is good quality important? And that’s been something I try to emphasize. Of, when, your guys’s livelihoods are directly tied to high quality cleaning, we lose one big commercial account that’s huge. We start losing residential and negative word of mouth because of quality, we don’t even know the ramifications of it. Nothing matters more than quality. Well, safety, but second to safety, quality is the most important thing, because we can do nothing if we do not have the best quality. And so it’s just that. That’s all that matters and and everything else, tumbles down from it. Because if we know we’re doing a great job and the product, if you will, is good, then it can’t be that. But we will succeed. And then it’s just simply, perhaps a marketing or it’s a, it’s a hiring problem, right? But at the end of the day, it will never be a quality problem, because I just don’t want to have a shit product, right? It’s not this is my name, this is your name, all of our names on it, and, we take such.

Hanna: When I do it, it’s crazy to me. Why? Why wouldn’t.

Stephanie: Yeah. Well, that’s why you’re here, Hanna and other people are. Yes, and so, really tight, exactly, and just really tying, you know, your performance affects all of us, and that allows us to do a ton of donations. It allows us to give away cleanings and help people. It allows us to just do a lot of wonderful things. Quality allows us to add benefits and literally, their life better. Exactly. It’s. The only way we can do that is if we kill it cleaning. We do not want people to ever cancel because of quality. We want it to because we’re too expensive. I canceled my cleanings. It’s soft, yeah. No, we never want that to be the reason. And so just really folk, and honestly, that’s been your position is just, a lot, I feel like we’re just killing it when it comes to, that has been so much better, you know? And just, all of the problems, oh yeah, when we do get a complaint, it’s just there’s so much that has to happen with that. And it’s just, it’s really demoralizing, and then we feel like we gotta, beat it into their heads. Of, “Okay, don’t do that, right? Check, check the edges of the floors,” you know what I mean? I sort of hesitate, when I ask people in the commercial accounts too, “How’s it going, you know? Tell me something we can improve on.” They’re like, “Well, I can’t really think of anything.” It’s like.

Hanna: Exactly, no. It’s if there’s nothing that stands out as bad, it’s, that’s fantastic. And then to share that and get, again, creating that sense of pride in our text and just it makes them at the end of the day, if you are just, cracking the whip on them and just punishing them, and they’re just afraid of being punished, then, you know, you’re gonna get they’re gonna do the bare minimum so that they don’t get punished, right? Whereas, if it’s this sense of internal pride and value system, and that’s something I mentioned in April’s interview, was, April’s values. Well, really, all, all of you guys, you know. But specifically, I was talking about April with, the military background and, you know, abhorrent to laziness, you know, taking pride in work and having this really strong, value system of service. And obviously, you have that too. You have this very strong attraction to being of service. You are absolutely, super hard working. You have this crazy, you know, work ethic and just feel like you don’t get tired. I don’t know when that’s possible and but in just a really strong sense of mission, I guess you understand our mission?

Hanna: It’s like two I take pride in conquering the mission.

Stephanie: No, it’s just really exciting. And that’s where it’s just, my I feel like my role is to, help, I guess, motivate and keep reminding of the mission and but honestly, it’s just kind of been taken, it’s taken a life of its own, you guys do it for me, to the point of, I don’t need to, be this hard hitter. Of, “This is why we’re doing it. Guys.” You guys start to do it yourselves, you know. And obviously we’re there to remind you of, “Yeah, this is why it’s important.” But I think it’s just really, honestly, the business that has been built is just, it’s so amazing. And I just take so much, it takes so much pride, and obviously, but it really feels like it’s been a group effort, it’s and obviously, it is technically mine, but I don’t it’s ours, that’s, that’s how I see it, you know, because, we built this, I couldn’t have done it without this core group of people, you know.

Hanna: Yes, I’m very grateful to be wait we’re gonna do so great.

Stephanie: I know it’s only six years in, I know. And obviously I for our, you know, our Overlord, ZenMaid, you, you have used ZenMaid since day one. What’s it been like going from cleaner to now? You are kind of a field manager, if you will. How has ZenMaid allowed you to do your job? From cleaning tech to now? What you do now?

Using ZenMaid for Quality Control

Hanna: Well, I think just them listening to us and where we’re struggling and or what we’re needing to fix or make better? I think is the biggest thing. You know, I think there’s a few things coming up that are going to make it huge, and there’s a few things that I sit back and I’m like, “Oh gosh, is that really the best thing for us, and in the field, would that work?” Because that’s where I think it’s a little bit different. You guys are seeing the clerical side of things, and is it really feasible over there the techs, and that’s what I love is, we do get a little special insight of, they, you know, they, they get a lot of insight for their changes from us. And that’s why I writing it by, especially you, because it’s, “Okay, we’re thinking of this as office managers. But from a cleaner perspective, what would make the cleaners job easier and what’s realistically gonna get done exactly?” So I think I, I might be the bearer of bad news. Like, “Dude, they never gonna do that. You want them to do that they’re never gonna do, but the honesty from a notes perspective, or get what we mean when we say it that way, and I think that’s the biggest communication breakdown, is even down to how we clean it, the weight versus dust, or just the verbiage and getting it all straight line across. But back to ZenMaid. For me, I can see both sides of it I’m in the office sometimes, and then when I’m out in the field, I still have access to all your appointments, so I can see it and I I can navigate through it either way.

Stephanie: So seeing, for you, doing quality checks, perhaps off the cuff, being able to see where the cleaners are right in the field, you’re on your car and you’re like, “Oh, let me go QC this person.”

Hanna: Yeah, and there too, I can just pull up the cleaner, see where they’re at break down by towns. I do really however I want, and figure that information out in a pretty snappy manner.

Stephanie: Just makes it a lot easier, especially at our scale. You know, we’re talking about hundreds of clients, dozens of cleaners, and it’s your responsibility to make sure they got their shit together. So that’s a lot. Hanna and so, some days are better than others, but definitely, you know, we’re definitely. Big on softwares and systems that make it easier.

Hanna: Make it easier. Yeah, just forever, as automated as possible, no paper as much as possible, except in our checklist, and I’ll die on that hill, printed checklist.

Hanna: On the paper checklist, I’m a paper checklist girl. Well, this is so much. The clients love it. The clients love it too, for from a marketing and branding perspective, for sure. But it really has been a whirlwind since you have come along. And I just can’t believe you have evolved, and just really, I feel like taking the reins, you know. And yeah, well, I’m gonna try, and we’re gonna, we’re gonna start another job.

Stephanie: Yes, exactly, only, only up from here. So as you guys can see, I have been incredibly lucky with all of my, you know, key players, if you will, and just been really blessed to find those wonderful people who, you know, take, take up, you know, the torch of my original mission and, fly it just as hard as if it was their own, you know, original mission, and now it’s our mission. So it’s really amazing, and at that, you know, Hanna, thank you. This was my longest I mean, we could babble for hours, as you guys can see.

Note: This transcript has been edited for clarity and readability.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• ZenMaid
• Cleaning for a Reason