2.1 Introduction
Cleaning is an important aspect of most people's lives.
Both domestic and business settings have a large market for cleaning services. Their standards for cleanliness are high but attainable. The cleaning industry is extremely variable, including jobs that require different skill sets and tasks.
This module will provide an introduction to the general cleaning-service industry and introduce you to the variety of jobs available to you, as well as their required tasks. It will also allow you to consider the benefits and downfalls of employment and self-employment in the cleaning industry. Details on each specific job will be expanded on in the following modules.
2.2 Domestic Cleaning
Domestic cleaning is the term used to describe the cleaning of a house.
Therefore, an individual or group who cleans other people's homes provides a domestic cleaning service. An increasing number of people have begun hiring cleaners for a set amount of hours per week. Homeowners choose to do this because they cannot clean their home themselves due to a lack of time, or because they do not like to perform the task. In today's modern world the market for domestic cleaning continues to grow because people are becoming increasingly busy.
Domestic Cleaning Tasks
Proper domestic cleaning usually involves completing the following tasks:
*Hoovering/Vacuuming floors and carpets
*Dusting surfaces, skirting boards and architraves
*Cleaning the front doors and the entrance way
*Cleaning cupboards and sinks
*Cleaning baths, showers, and toilets
*Dusting ornaments, televisions, and other appliances
*Changing bed sheets and cleaning curtains
*Cleaning the inside surface of windows
*Mopping tiled or laminate floors
*Maintain 'deep cleaning' during the week.
* Any other jobs that the client requires, such as household ironing, hanging up laundry, or cleaning dishes.
The Clients
Clients hire your services for all of the everyday jobs that working families do not have the time to do. A homeowner may request other cleaning tasks not listed above, or you may offer another cleaning task that you think they may need.
An important thing to note is that you will be tasked to clean the home, not to tidy it. As the cleaning is done, clients will be able to manage the maintenance of their clean spaces much easier. Most will tend to keep their home clutter-free and organised, which makes your job so much easier, especially if you are a repeat cleaner.
You may at times encounter a client who expects you to do everything: the dirty dishes, the tidying up, emptying the trash, and putting away the children's toys from the night before. The onus will be on you if you want to do this work, or if you are going to be cleaning only. Naturally, if there are more services required, you would reflect that in your invoice for the job. This will ensure that you are not losing money for the extra work you are providing, because your overall service will take longer, which could be spent with other clients.
It is also extremely important that you respect the client's space. Treat it like your own home and be thorough. Take pride in your work. This will ensure that you develop a good rapport with your clientele and are asked to come back, creating dependable income.
The Domestic Cleaning Market
Most of the time, you will be hired as a repeat cleaner. Occasionally, you may attend one-time service jobs - such as when an individual is moving house, or when someone has gifted your service to family or friend. One-time services are becoming more common as people begin to give gifts of time, instead of things.
Domestic cleaning contracts can be found without advertising your services to homeowners, as there will be letting agencies that require professional cleaning services to clean up homes, ready for their next lease. The same goes for estate agents with a home entering the market. You may be able to advise of a deep clean to the carpet, or offer other services; such as to bring a shine back to a marble kitchen floor.
As a general rule, any market with residential properties that require cleaning can provide job opportunities. Most will be repeat services to homeowners, whereas working beside estate agents and letting agencies will provide more one-time services and opportunities.
A mixture of both types of clients can start you with a steady stream of work to keep you busy.
FACT
The domestic cleaning market is worth anything between £3 billion and £9 billion per year
http://www.smallbusinesspro.co.uk/
Business Considerations
To expand on the one-time cleaning market, be open and smart about these opportunities. One-time cleanings can be more expensive because you will not be going back. The incentive that your repeat work is cheaper can also help with the rapport of your repeat clients, and it can encourage one-time buyers to consider hiring you as a repeat service.
2.3 Business and Commercial Cleaning Services
Offices, restaurants, hotels, and other business premises often require regular cleaning services.
This is because these establishments have high-traffic from both employees and customers, making the demand for upkeep of a pristine atmosphere of the utmost importance.
Unlike domestic clients, business clients may require a cleaner to visit their property on a daily basis - often late in the evening or early in the morning. The reason for this timing is to ensure cleaning tasks are conducted during off-business hours, when the space is least busy and has fewer people around. This works best for both you and your employer, because your tasks do not conflict with the tasks of the business or commercial space.
Commercial Cleaning Tasks
Regular office and commercial cleaning duties include:
Hoovering/Vacuuming around the premises
Emptying garbage and recycling bins
Cleaning toilets and sinks
Dusting desks and telephones
If you work for a hotel or restaurant, you may find yourself doing the following:
Changing sheets, cleaning rooms and toilets
Steaming kitchen equipment, surfaces, and appliances
Mopping floors
Hoovering/Vacuuming and dusting public areas
Window and façade cleaning
Stone cleaning
Other businesses may require close attention to hygiene. These include:
Medical practices
Dental practices
Hospitals
Salons
Spas
Laboratories
Understanding Commercial Environments
Before approaching the commercial cleaning market, you should be well versed in what will be expected from your services. This will require you to be able to understand the needs of each type of business.
Office Cleaning
An office environment can be a busy place, especially during the working day (normally between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.). There are going to be documents being processed, accounts being handled, and office staff making important phone calls. They cannot be expected to cut a conversation short, or make sure confidential documentsare out of sight, in order for cleaning to be done. These are some more reasons for your early and/or late hours.
Hotel Cleaning
A hotel environment is used most often between late afternoon and mid-morning the following day, and often harbours a lot of people traffic. Most hotels will employ their cleaners independently; in other words, you will be an employee of the hotel you work in, and they will pay you.
However, self-employed cleaners are a more suitable option to small hotels or bed and breakfast premises where you will carry out the same type of work: changing bed linen, and cleaning the public areas, such as the dining area before meals are served. Your hours, in either a bed and breakfast or hotel setting, will be based between late morning and mid-afternoon, because this is when most of the establishment's spaces will be unoccupied.
Medical Practice Cleaning
In a medical practice setting, cleanliness is of the utmost importance to the establishment because of people's health. Tasks will include making sure the establishment is hygienic, free from bacteria, and dust-free. Most care facilities use a colour coded cleaning system, such as blue to indicate toilet cleaning equipment, yellow for kitchen areas, and red for public areas.
Restaurant Cleaning
A restaurant environment also relies on good hygiene because people are consuming food. Not only this, but, the overall enjoyment of eating also relies on environmental factors such as ambience, which is maintained through cleanliness. A cleaning role is essential to this business. The hours you can expect from this industry as a cleaner will depend on the restaurant's hours, but the rule of thumb is that cleaning occurs in the toilets before service and in the kitchen after service. For medical and restaurant settings, it is important to be aware of cross-contamination and to prevent it whenever possible. An example of cross-contamination is if you use a mop in the toilet, and then proceed to use the mop in the kitchen area - this transfers the bacteria from the toilet onto the kitchen floor. Later modules on steam cleaning, chemical cleaning, and the standards expected of different industries will more thoroughly explore what you should expect in each venue.
2.4 Carpet Cleaning Service
Carpets are attractive, but they also harbour stains, smells, and dirt.
With that in mind, it makes sense that an increasing amount of domestic and business clients require carpet cleaning. Professional
cleaning ensures that a household's carpets will be as clean as possible. On a domestic level, very few things are more embarrassing than a guest walking into your home and smelling something awful because you do not know how to properly clean your carpet. And for businesses, unclean carpets present a very unprofessional image. These are examples of why there are many employment
opportunities for carpet cleaning. It is a specialised area that ensures effective cleaning on highly used items of the household.
Business Requirements
Entering the carpet cleaning industry means you must invest in specialist equipment. You will require powerful machines for removing stains and smells, and restoring carpet colour. Standard domestic models will not provide your clients with a satisfactory clean, and these machines are likely to fail after repeated business use. Investing in specialised equipment ensures that you can provide a quality cleaning service, while also having equipment that will last you years.
However, as far as business start-up costs go, carpet cleaning machines are not prohibitively expensive; costing around £500-£1,500 for one machine. The machine will last you more than a few years, so it is worth the investment for a long-term business plan.
Expanded Services
As a carpet cleaner, you can also offer upholstery cleaning services. Upholstery is a padded textile that is permanently fixed to an armchair or sofa. Like carpets, sofas suffer a fair share of dirt exposure over the years. Even the most tenacious of parents cannot prevent sticky hands and dirty feet from infiltrating their upholstery.
Upholstery cleaning can also involve 'heirloom furniture' that can only be properly cleaned by specialised machines, and you may be surprised at how many people still have valuable furniture that needs looking after. So as a carpet cleaner, you are not only limited to cleaning carpets.
Potential Earnings
Carpet cleaning service charges have very little price differentiation among most companies in the UK. Depending on the job, you can make some fairly quick cash. For example, for a set of carpeted stairs and the landing, most companies charge £30 for the job. But most clients will not hire you for just one tiny feature of their house - they will often contract you for more than one. This will increase your household job minimum earning to £50 per house.
Based on market research, you can charge around £350-£400 for an overall household clean, including sofas and armchairs. This is based on a three bedroom home, with a separate dining and living room area. Your profits will largely depend on your suppliers, machine maintenance, and the time you spend reaching and leaving the client's home.
2.5 Ironing Services
With an iron in your hand and a pile of client's clothes at the ready, you can enter an attractive work-from-home industry that is not threatening to die out any time soon. As many households now have two working parents, and many professionals find themselves working long hours, ironing services are becoming an ever-increasing necessity in modern Britain.
Common Materials for Ironing
As an ironing service provider, you can expect to tackle the following items meticulously:
Shirts
Skirts
T-shirts
Tops
Dresses
Trousers
Jeans
Playsuits
Pillowcases
Duvet sets
Curtains
Towels
Bed sheets
Business Considerations
Invoicing for this job is slightly different from other cleaning services. When offering an ironing service, you must choose between charging per kilogram, or per item. Both approaches have advantages and disadvantages, and will be explored thoroughly in the Ironing Service module.
When offering an ironing service you should invest in the correct equipment. Do not rely on standard domestic irons to complete your work - it will produce poor results and runs the risk of ruining a client's clothes. Start-up costs for a business offering ironing services are some of the lowest of all cleaning services, and advertising is often easy.
In addition to providing an ironing service you could also offer a laundry service.
This would include the washing and drying of a client's garments and linens. You would be required to know how to appropriately wash and dry different fabrics to get them to look their best. There are a number of clients that you could cater to, most likely local to your own neighbourhood. Spas, day care centres, doctor's offices and restaurants are all suitable clients who have many types of linen that need to be managed efficiently.
2.6 Window Cleaning Services
Window cleaning is not just difficult for those who work many hours, but it is often inconvenient and unpleasant.
Not everyone wants to break out a ladder and ascend it to achieve glistening glass in the highest places. Because of this, window cleaning services are in demand across the country.
The Services
When branching into this cleaning industry, you may offer:
Window cleaning and glass care for residential and business properties
Interior window cleaning
Gutter and fascia cleaning
Pressure washing drive cleaning
Conservatory valet services
Commercial window care
Mineral water window care
Business Considerations
There is a large market for window cleaning services in the UK. This said, beginning a window cleaning business requires as much careful thought as any of the other services, if not more. This job has a major risk of falling from large heights, so insurance is an absolute must for this type of work. You should also invest in specialised equipment and cleaning solutions to ensure that you will provide your clients with an incomparable service.
The industries you want to branch into will largely depend on the equipment you acquire. In general, the tools and support you need for domestic clients are very different from those needed for commercial clients. Specific equipment for these services will be examined more in the Cleaning Equipment module. Some areas require window cleaners to be licensed, whereas others may regard it as an extension to a domestic cleaning service, and no licence may be required.
NOTE: For those in Scotland, you will need to check with your local council about licensing requirements.
Check the licensing requirements before advertising a service, and in all areas, make sure any neighbourhood
watch areas are informed of your plans before turning up with roof ladders. This will ensure that your service
plans go smoothly and without interruption.
2.7 Employment and Self-Employment
As a cleaner, you have the chance to work as an employed or self-employed individual.
Both options have benefits and some disadvantages too. You should consider both options carefully before deciding which path is best suited to you. If you are inexperienced or new to the industry, starting out as an employee for someone else's business will allow you to learn more about the business and understand it beforebeginning a self-employed journey.
Employed Benefits
Guaranteed hours
Sick pay
Holiday pay
Statutory maternity and paternity leave
No need to advertise
Employed Pitfalls
You cannot control your own hours
You may not be able to determine your own leave
There is limited scope for determining your own pay
Self-employed Benefits
You can determine your own hours
You get to decide when your holidays are
There is unlimited scope for earnings (with commitment)
You can build a reliable client base
Self-employed Pitfalls
You are responsible for your own tax, insurance, and advertising costs You must.
work on marketing and developing a client base.
There is no guarantee of work, no matter how lucrative the industry is.
You do not have access to guaranteed maternity, paternity, and sick leave.
In the modules to follow you will get a glimpse into what is really required in the cleaning industry, so you can
proceed to make an informed decision on what best suits you.
Module Summary
There is a wide range of cleaning jobs for those looking to enter the industry. Each particular type of job has its own intricacies.
Before entering this industry's workforce, consider if a domestic or commercial cleaning job is best suited to you. Then, consider what type of cleaning service you could and would like to offer. Windows, carpets, ironing and general cleaning are all services required by an ever-increasing market, both domestically and commercially. You need to analyse your particular skill set and what you are prepared to put up
with before deciding which route to take. However, once you have decided which path to follow you will be faced with another decision:
whether employment or self-employment is right for you. The conclusion will take time and careful consideration.
Again, this will depend upon your personal circumstances and motivation levels.
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