For years, our industry has striven to improve the service delivery to our clients through training and development. There are several barriers to ensuring that staff have the appropriate education to perform their jobs. I will look at a few.

Cleaning has always been seen as a low pay, low skilled job. The pandemic has highlighted how skilled some of our operatives are and have to be to ensure that that the public are safe. However, regardless of how much or little training they get, it is all about perception. Our clients, despite not wanting to do the job themselves, continually ask, ‘why do cleaners need to be trained.’ And of course we know the age-old line ‘any one can clean.’

This makes it difficult for the industry to raise standards and therefore elevate staff training. But if we forget the outside noise regarding cleaning operative training, in this edition I am going to look at some of the challenges in training cleaning operatives. Before I go into this, it is reasonable to say that each company, nation or region has a different way in which they approach training.

Let start with looking at this subject from the employers side. Some employers see the benefits of training and therefore they make an investment to developing staff in practical and theoretical training. Training should start with the induction. The operative needs to understand what the company and its client aims, and objectives are. Standards should be set, and subsequent training should address the methods to achieve those standards.

Given that some of our staff start from a very low level of education base, some companies don’t always take this into consideration. Information overload is a regular criticism of our training. We expect our staff to take on way too much information in one session. The sessions are not always structured to meet the need and ability of its trainees.

If we look at how to handle chemicals as an example. Navigating around the different types of chemicals, and how to use, them can confuse staff. They struggle to understand how to use dilution ratios. But some trainers still follow the one size fits all approach and then wonder at the end of a session why some people just don’t get it.

The methods used to train staff may be inappropriate. The trainer continues to use the same old methods and style at every session. This is called ‘ineffective or inappropriate training.’ There is no absolute method for training, but what trainers & companies have to figure out is the model that fits their company culture and the people that work in it. Measure training at the time of delivery. Don’t wait until the operative goes on-site as that could be to late to avoid problems. Visualise how learning methods promote retention in your organisation. I have always set a minimum level of knowledge retention. I would be happy that, on the day of training, if they retain 5% of what I have told them, that is good. That figure would be a lot higher for a practical subject especially if they have a same -day assessment.

Too often, trainers subject their employees to training that is too enormous, repetitive, incomprehensible, outdated, or just plain useless. Bombarding trainees with too much content can make them feel burdened and cause them to push back or disengage from the training. This is called ‘Content overload.’

The trainer needs to find ways of making the training enjoyable and interesting. Staff will not engage if they don’t understand it, or don’t want to be there in the first place. Get the operatives to express themselves without embarrassing them. Praise them when they do something well and approach a question in a different way if they get it wrong. Don’t embarrass them or make a point of highlighting their mistakes in front of the group. Encourage them and, regardless of the outcome, a good trainer will know who has received the message.

Conclusion

The conclusion is to look at yourself as a trainer first before condemning the trainee;

• Are your training methods appropriate?
• Is the session structured. Not too long?
• Is the session right for the trainee?
• Are you open to changing your delivery style to meet the needs of the trainee?
• Is the subject right for the trainee, or is the trainee right for the course?
• Cleaning can be a dry subject (no pun intended) so make it interesting for all in the room.

There are other reasons, but these are just a few.