Wiping out burnout in the cleaning industry

CONCERNS AROUND around mental health are particularly prevalent in labour-intensive industries such as the cleaning sector, which, in recent years, has played an increasingly important role in safeguarding our society. Recent ToolTime research, which surveyed 1000 UK tradespeople across various trade businesses, found that 24% of cleaning professionals cite stress and burnout from overwork as their most significant business challenge.

As we know, demand for cleaning services significantly increased during the pandemic. Alongside a surge in volume, cleaning professionals faced rising standards and intensified protocols in order to meet the new meticulous standards laid out for homes and public spaces alike. 

Unfortunately, the stricter guidelines around cleanliness and hygiene, implemented to ensure public safety, often came at a considerable cost to the well-being of cleaning staff and have since become the norm, setting a more rigorous industry standard. These additional industry protocols have added to already heavy workloads, contributing to the growing stress and burnout the industry experiences.

To add to this, rising operational costs, time management challenges, and severe staff shortages have exacerbated the strain on cleaning business owners. These operational issues are particularly stressful for management, placing additional pressure on maintaining a work-life balance and mental health.

As we recognise the myriad challenges impacting the sector, it becomes crucial to prioritise solutions that address the issues of stress and burnout.

In response to growing demand for cleaning services post-pandemic, digital tools have emerged as a crucial lifeline. By streamlining core administrative tasks, these tools help reduce the burden of paperwork, allowing business owners to focus on delivering their core services. This not only helps alleviate stress and burnout but delivers tangible business benefits by enhancing overall operational efficiency and productivity.

The challenges facing the cleaning sector 

Recent research shows that the percentage of UK households paying for cleaning services rose by a staggering 70% between 2020 to 2023. However, with severe staff shortages impacting the workforce, it’s not always easy to cope with what should be seen as positive growth. According to a report by the British Cleaning Council (BCC), the cleaning, hygiene, and waste industries have faced significant staffing issues since 2020. Its latest survey reveals there are currently 225,000 cleaning and hygiene vacancies, driven by a lack of interest among UK workers, tighter immigration rules, and the impact of Brexit. 

Compounding this, pressure on the cleaning sector is expected to intensify further in the coming winter months as the NHS issues warnings of a looming "tripledemic" of flu, COVID-19, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) during the winter season. With demand for cleaning services set to increase further, this will likely add additional strain on an already struggling sector.

Ultimately, these challenges highlight the urgent need to prioritise employee well-being within the cleaning industry. By doing so, cleaning companies can experience long-term benefits such as improved productivity and higher employee retention rates. In this context, digital tools are particularly beneficial in helping combat burnout and stress. 

The importance of digitalisation for today’s cleaning businesses 

The cleaning industry has traditionally relied on pen and paper or basic software, such as Word and Excel, to manage core administrative tasks such as invoicing and team management. However, this manual approach often complicates life as the additional burden of paperwork - such as tracking expenses and invoicing - increases workload, adding to already physically demanding jobs. Moreover, a lack of operational efficiency is a clear hindrance to long-term business growth. 

Research indicates that reliance on outdated methods currently results in up to 30% more work for trades professionals, meaning that evenings and weekends are often spent catching up on the admin necessary to keep businesses running. In addition, the rising cost of supplies means that, for the cleaning industry, finding ways to ensure prompt invoice payments is becoming increasingly crucial for effective business management.

Digital tools can offer a clear path to improving operational efficiency and fully realising productivity benefits, allowing cleaning professionals to save time on admin, spend more time on the job itself, serve more clients, enhance their professional image and, ultimately, promote business growth. This tech-enabled approach not only enhances the operational efficiency of businesses but supports a healthier work-life balance for cleaning professionals.

A digital lifeline for the struggling cleaning industry 

Our recent research revealed that 91% of cleaning professionals consider digital tools crucial for business success, helping to achieve a better work-life balance (42%), save time on administrative tasks to support business growth (35%), and create more efficient backend processes (30%). 

Rising costs make finding ways to maintain profitability, manage costs and ensure prompt invoice payments critical elements of small business management. Investing in digital and software tools offers the opportunity to create a resilient business model by streamlining and optimising operations for greater efficiency, enabling focus on increased revenue generation and profitability even with limited resources and in the face of higher operational costs. 

Job management software was recognised by 21% of cleaning professionals as offering business growth potential, time savings, better customer communications and making the business more appealing to younger or skilled workers to overcome shortages. Indeed, by centralising and digitising administrative processes it is possible to streamline paperwork and reduce the management burden. 

For example, by providing ready-made templates for digital paperwork, such as invoices and quotes, the time spent manually creating documents can be slashed, with the added benefit of enhancing the company's professional image to clients. By storing job documentation in a centralised system, additional time spent on filing and record retrieval is saved. This further simplifies the accounting processes during tax season by making relevant records easily accessible.

Additionally, centralising company data in one system further enhances transparency across the business, providing a clear overview of ongoing and upcoming cleaning projects. This improves workflow planning and ensures better communication with both customers and cleaning staff, enabling businesses to manage workloads more effectively. As a result, businesses can benefit from increased customer satisfaction rates, take on additional clients when capacity allows, and identify the right time to hire additional staff to reduce the workload on current team members.

Furthermore, for part-time staff moving between multiple sites, time-tracking features can  help to keep an accurate record of the hours worked at each client site. This ensures that accurate information is reported back to management, contributing to greater operational efficiency.

Overall, the operational efficiency enabled by job management software not only helps alleviate burnout and stress in the cleaning industry but also paves the way for new opportunities for business growth. These tools deliver significant benefits that go beyond improving the operational efficiency of a business — ToolTime users report an average saving of 30% in working time, with some achieving up to 50% savings, while other users report profit growth of 20%. 

Unlocking operational efficiency and productivity 

Cleaning professionals are grappling with a growing set of challenges that are taking a toll on their mental health, making it difficult to manage daily tasks, meet rising customer demands, and pursue business growth. Improving operational efficiency and productivity is essential to addressing the increasing issue of stress and burnout within the cleaning industry. 

By utilising job management software to streamline administrative tasks, cleaning professionals can reduce the time spent on paperwork and focus on core responsibilities. This allows valuable time for rest and recuperation or spending time with loved ones to be reclaimed, not to mention creating opportunities to reinvest that time into essential tasks such as business development and growth initiatives.

Marius Stäcker is CEO at ToolTime 

For more information, visit www.tooltime.app/uk