commercial cleaning direct employment

[Moneymandan]

hi all, I am trying to gain some new contracts for a cleaning business but things are remaining tuff, I have seen on some jobs websites that companies are recruiting cleaning staff and paying min wage their fore cutting out the middle man, I can see the pros in doing this obviously as the price will be lower but can see many more cons, would someone please help me with any advice, do you think I could contact the companies offering our service still?

 

[PuddlePayroll]

If you can see the cons in employing directly I think you need to spin these in your favour and discuss with the companies why it makes sense to outsource.
I used to work for a large contract cleaning company that provided contract cleaners to hotels. The main point on winning contracts except from our reputation for excellent service was the fact that hotels want to keep cleaning labour costs to a minimum and outsourcing was always going to provide the cheapest labour for them whilst not compromising on quality.

 

[LawSpark]

Maybe focus on the quality you can offer.. Eg are clients protected from unexpected absences, do you guarantee certain standards, do you have previous happy customers who can endorse your services..

 

[Moneymandan]

good ideas thanks guys!

 

[dmckellar]

i run a cleaning company, i have a mix of employed and agency staff. both have pros and cons, depends what area of commercial cleaning you do. You won't get someone up on a cherry picker with a pressure washer for £6.50 an hour, we do builders cleaning and the cost per labour hour is higher than the cost of office cleaning per hour for example.

have a look at what you need, what the employee expects and work it from there, until then you could go through an agency for staff

 

[Office Cleaning]

You need to sell the benefits of what you can offer them, there are many benefits including:

Many commercial clients do not want to take on more risk which is why they outsource to cleaning companies like ours. By risk I mean taking on employees where they do not have to.

Commercial companies want to outsource as this means they can concentrate on their core competencies and not have to deal with cleaning issues. Put simply cleaning is a pain to run on a daily basis and get right, is it really worth not outsourcing it? What about the lost opportunity cost of generating and retaining existing business?

The cost of outsourcing to a commercial cleaning contractor can be extremely competitive (our service is) compared to hiring cleaners direct. Paying an hourly rate direct is just one part of the cost, their will be paye/holiday pay and then finding someone to cover, cost of recruiting/ admin when they leave, cost of finding and getting materials delivered, cost of supervision, cost of HR and on and on.

There are numerous reasons to outsource, most larger companies outsource as much as possible and for very good reasons.