What are the Qualities of a good cleaner?

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It may be hard to see how several years in a cleaning company prepares you for anything else in life but cleaning. But the skills and attitudes needed to thrive in Agathos Commercial Cleanings or as a good cleaner at all, are universal, and prepare one for greater responsibilities. This is in no way exhaustive and is in no order.

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Discipline
It takes an amazing amount of self-discipline to consistently deliver top quality performance to clients even in something as basic as cleaning, where performance naturally declines over time. It takes discipline to be always punctual, show up at clients’ premises rain, snowstorm or shine and follow assigned tasks when the natural tendency is to do otherwise.. Discipline transcends occupations.

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Humility
Those that are humble can grow and become more than they presently are. Those that are humble can learn. Those that are humble can keep an open mind to possibilities beyond their field of experience. Those that are humble can create new things. Which occupation does not need humility?

 

Servant Heart
As a cleaner, we serve you.  Agathos Commercial Cleaning, gives clients the freedom to disengage without notice and so the servant heart is even more needed because we retain clients only because of our service quality. The world can only be made better by those who have the willingness and the heart to extend beyond themselves and serve, whether they stand to benefit significantly. We serve with all our heart, mind, and body.  At Agathos Commercial Cleanings, we are blessed to have people, who do it joyfully day in day out. Such people should lead because they serve joyfully.

 

Confidence
This may seem to contradict the idea of humility, but really, who is truly humble unless they have something to be proud about? As a cleaner, you need to be confident of who you are and can separate who you are from society’s conception of you, which is dependent on what you do. If you allow yourself to be defined by what society thinks of you, you are internally defeated and once you are internally defeated, the quality of your work suffers. As a cleaner, you need to take pride in the work you do and know that even if others do not appreciate you much for it, it is worthwhile. If a cleaner can learn to do their work as well as Shakespeare wrote poetry, they will most likely be able to do anything else as well.

 

Discretion 
This is big. As a cleaner, you need discretion. We do work with task lists but as a cleaner you need that unique human endowment of personal judgement to know when to stick to the task list and when to set it aside. If you are someone who only follows task lists and loves routine, contrary to what most people may think, you cannot be a good cleaner. You need discretion to be a good custodian of people’s physical and information assets. That takes discretion and it is needed everywhere. In cleaning, you learn it if you did not have it.

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Presence 
A good cleaner needs to be present. At Agathos Commercial Cleanings, we always say that people should bring their whole selves to work. It is not just a physical activity. It is mental as well as spiritual. Discretion for example requires using your intuition, which is beyond mental. If you are not present, you must do a poor job. Cleaning allows one to practice being present. At Agathos Commercial Cleanings, after consistent complaints about your work, you either learn presence or leave. Don’t we all love people who are just present? There is a serenity about them that is contagious and you can be sure that when they are doing anything, they are not doing something else. When they are here, they are here, now.

 

Trust
This is perhaps the biggest quality in cleaning. Who wants to give anyone access to their space, their lives, their information, their assets if they cannot be trusted? No matter how good a cleaning company is in terms of quality of work, trust is what determines who consistently wins with clients and gets rave reviews. Intuitively, most clients know that it all comes down to trustworthiness and not the size of the company or the age of the company. Our clients must trust us to do a good job, to care for their space, their assets, their information, to be honest and open about what we can or cannot do and to keep our word. Our staff must be trustworthy for us to retain our clients’ trust. Trustworthiness is a quality cleaners need and it is a quality in very short supply in our world.