Involving Others
6.0 Involving Others
6.1 Types of Involvement
One way to see this is through Internal and External involvement.
External involvement is when you instruct an outside company of cleaners to carry out a service for you, the principle being that they are being remunerated for carrying out a specific service that they are responsible for.
Internal involvement is more within connected people and links, for example your immediate family or co-workers getting stuck into cleaning as well as or instead of yourself. Also, with larger organizations like charities and volunteering groups you can tend to have a lot of people getting involved with the cleaning.
6.2 Selection Criteria
Whether an internal or external cleaner, simply make sure they can do the task. It sounds simple, and in actual fact it is, as any cleaning service will only be as good as the individual cleaner doing the task at hand.
So have a small trial, establish clear goals and expectations, monitor and train carefully, and check that the way it is completed is acceptable just as much as the actual task at hand.
6.3 Cleaner Charges
How cleaning companies charge is typically on an hourly basis, often between £10 and £13 per hour, and reflecting the work involved. You therefore need to ensure all the work is reflected in this, including any additional aspects like taking any refuse away, and even travel time involved.
Check also what the cleaner can use themselves or needs to be provided by you, and whether they need to reflect purchase of special substances or equipment in their rate. Even though cleaners are mobile, you need to be clear what equipment and substances they can use and are responsible for.
Alternative methods of charging include a one-off charge for a certain task, or involvement of multiple people and helpers.
6.4 Family & Friends
Involving others can have many benefits to lots of people, although often an ideal that people struggle to see in reality. As well as obvious benefits like reduced costs and hassle from involving external cleaners, it can help develop good relationships and a sense of personal responsibility and fulfillment in their home or business.
We have blogged before about involving kids in particular, but this can include extended family and friends as well to make fun and enjoyable.
6.5 Volunteers
Our involvement with charities has enabled us to see direct benefits from other volunteers mucking in with cleaning, whether that’s a direct volunteer within the charity or community group, or even working with the JobCentre Plus scheme to involve those looking for work.
Just like with family and friends, there can be so many other benefits in addition to just cost savings and time by this, once a suitable basis and rating system is set up.
Here is a blog post with four ‘I’s of getting volunteers involved with cleaning.
