Employees are the backbone of any business, and hiring quality staff is one of the most important tasks for small business owners. This is especially true in the commercial cleaning industry, where your labor force plays such a crucial role in the success of your operation. While large companies often have the luxury of a well-trained human resources department, small business owners are often left to deal with finding, interviewing, and hiring applicants largely on their own.

Following various social media posts, I notice that one of the most discussed topics in our industry centers around finding reliable employees and getting them to stay. Members of the various groups mention how they use the different recruiting websites or how they target certain age groups, such as over 55 or college students, etc. Most BSC’s report that despite today’s uncertain business climate, with unemployment still widespread, they still struggle to secure reliable employees.

In the first installment of this series, we discussed how BSCs can easily set up an employee training area. Before reading that article, some of you probably thought you didn’t have room for a training area, but we showed how one can be set up in a location as small as 100 square feet.

Last year, I wrote the article “Effective Training of Today’s Diverse Workforce” for SERVICES, and it included numerous examples of how technology can improve training. Since this is the 2013 technology issue, this article will update some of the changes I have witnessed since that article first appeared.

In July, the Department of the Treasury used its administrative authority to grant employers an additional year to implement key elements of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) employer mandate. Essentially, the mandate stipulated that employers of 50 or more full-time equivalent employees must offer affordable health care coverage to full-time employees or pay a penalty.

The words “performance review” may, for some, call to mind a nightmarish scenario straight out of the movie Office Space, complete with a dull, ineffective interview process and angry employees. Unfortunately, there are certainly some businesses where the film’s satirical exaggeration of performance reviews is not such an exaggeration. But the good news is that your business need not be one of those bad examples.