I spent over 20 years in the Navy before finally retiring and starting my own plumbing business.
In the Navy, everybody helps keep the ship clean.
It doesn’t matter who you are, or what your rate, you’re constantly cleaning the ship. I carried over the same idea to my plumbing business but I found that it was a problem. People who were hired to do plumbing work, simply don’t want to clean the office on their spare time. I fought with my employees about this for a few years before finally deciding that maybe I was the one who needed to change. After all, I’m not in the Navy anymore. I was happy to get out and it’s not fair for me to treat my employees like they are service members when clearly, they are not. Instead, I started looking for a commercial cleaning company to come in and clean the office a couple times a week. Then I signed up for a commercial cleaning and, I discovered that it really doesn’t cost that much to have the professional cleaners come in twice a week. I signed up for the monthly plan, at first. I wanted to see how it would work out. I have to say that I’m very impressed. The cleaners have been coming twice a week now for a month and my office has never looked more tidy. My employees are happy too because I finally stopped harping on them about keeping the place clean. Now they can just concentrate on plumbing. I think it’s really helping the morale of my business.