Wholeheartedly nurturing your STR team

Staff training & staff management in the AirBnb Industry– how to nurture the perfect STR team

Your cleaning standards are the lifeblood of your business, which means your STR team is VERY important. Period, full stop, the end. Making sure you have the systems and processes to hire the right people for your team, nurture them, motivate them and have a team that is aligned with your mission and vision is critical for the success of your business. But how do you achieve this? Grab a cuppa and sit down for this week’s blog. 

Business vision

Many hosts miss this piece but it really is the cornerstone of your entire business. From how you choose which properties to list, how you decorate, your ideal guest you are trying to attract, the guest experience you offer and the amenities you include. This all starts with your unique vision and mission. 

This shouldn’t take you a long time – this really is sitting down and reflecting with your business partner or spouse or just you. What is the business you are trying to create? What is your exit strategy? How many hours do you want to work? What are your goals – financial as well as lifestyle?

This is where I come in as I can help you articulate this for your own business. 

You can do this at any time – if you are just starting out, if you are pivoting, expanding, refocusing or scaling. 

Having a clear picture of your values, your goals, who you are serving, how you want to show up in your business will make every single decision after this so easy. Reach out if you want a hand with this as I have some super simple coaching and mentoring tips that will map out your business plan. 

Hiring

Now that you have your business vision, communicate this with any new potential hires even before you interview them. When you are hiring a cleaning team, you are looking for people who want more than just a paycheck. You are looking for people who align with your values. 

I hire mainly through word of mouth. I ask people if they know somebody who would be a good fit. Then I ask them to come and meet me for a coffee and a chat. I want to hear about their goals, their time availability, their standards. Then I can get a feel if they would be a good fit. 

I am the OPPOSITE of a micro manager. I hire people for my STR team who are self-starters, grown arse adults, who can be trusted to work independently, who are wanting to do a good job and who can communicate with me clearly and robustly about their jobs. 

TOUGH LOVE – this is NOT just about you and your business but about setting a nurturing environment where everybody wins. If you hire people that are needing to be micromanaged, this will sap you of your time, energy and profits. Micromanaging will steal your focus away from your highest level tasks – ie building profitable systems, marketing strategy and scaling strategies. 

Onboarding

For onboarding, I give potential staff a trial – cleaning my house. I pay them the standard market rate for house cleaning of course. I show them where to find everything and then I get out of the way and leave them to it. 

I am looking for how well they clean behind furniture, how they manage their workflow for efficiency, how they use their intuition and common sense and how well they ask questions of me but also to see if they will be a good fit for my STR team.

How much to pay

My cleaning manager has been with me from the start. She is my go-to person when I want to discuss payments. I trust her to tell me the truth and to also advocate for her staff to make sure they are well compensated. 

A well paid cleaner is a happy cleaner. A cleaner who feels valued, seen and respected will also tell you what they are looking for. Communication is the key here. 

I like to charge a flat rate per clean. This is ABOVE market rates. I show my cleaners the house and I let them know the price for a clean. This is based on what my cleaning manager has suggested is a good rate for the number of beds and bathrooms. This fee is charged to the guest with a small percentage tacked on to cover my costs. Basically this is then a pass-through cost.

My STR team are all contractors. This means they are responsible for their own taxes, their own health insurance and their own transport. But as I pay above market rates, there is still plenty of profit for them.

I am also totally fine with the team setting their own schedules. As long as my work is done, they can work for other employers too. Plus we often have guests asking for babysitting – I offer this work to my cleaners as a way for them to earn extra money. It is again a win-win-win. A win for the guest – they get to have trustworthy babysitters who know the house, a win for me as I have offered an upsell that is super valuable for my guest and a win for the cleaner who is supplementing her income. If you want examples of other side hustles for STR, click here.

Incentives

If I get a great review – I screen shot this and send to my team. People want to feel appreciated and valued. Be quick to acknowledge. 

I budget in for Christmas bonuses, birthday presents and also for perks to let cleaners use the properties if they are not occupied. Or if their families are coming into town, they get a great rate. 

My main manager is originally from the Philippines so part of her package is a flight home to see her family once a year. 

Training 

I do not ask cleaner to do anything that I am not prepared to do myself. Or that I haven’t done myself. It is really good for you as the owner to know what is needed for each job in your business – especially how long it takes. When you understand the job, you can create systems, checklists and tools that work for both you and your team. 

When onboarding a new house or a new employee, i suggest you create a check list of what absolutely needs to be done and a “suggested” order of what to do. Then a list of the final checks before leaving the house. 

This has grown organically as we have learned. For example, one thing that gets often overlooked is the coffee maker. So it is on the check list that any old nasty coffee filters are not left behind. 

Then we have a system of team work.

Team work

The cleaners are often the first on the scene on check out. If they have to wait to get into a property because the guest is late to leave, they are often too shy to ask the guests to leave. This is your job as the owner. Kicking out a tardy guest is NOT the job of your cleaner. Respect your cleaners’ time and you be the one to get the guest to respect the rules. 

My cleaners are also fantastic at telling me how many stars a guest deserves. I want them to help me review the guests – this makes them feel appreciated and valued as a part of the business. 

When there has been a super difficult turnaround, I will drop in a give the team a hand – we have each other’s backs at all times. We will come and collect up excess trash and take it away, drop over extra linens and also consumables. 

Then we have a back up system where somebody else with fresh eyes walks through the property before the next check in. This is as a support mechanism – not to judge or criticize each other. 

We have a great communication system that alerts us to the stock levels of everything from toilet paper to shampoo. 

Systems

Good communication systems are essential! There are plenty of systems to choose from. Your PMS should be the first place to start. Or there are services like Breezeway that also have a paid system to automate this. But before you simply rely on software, you need to do the work on your vision, mission and systems FIRST. Reach out and I can help you with some business mentorship. Most hosts miss this step and these are the ones who do not have a scalable business and are losing money from lack of efficiency. 

Firing

I’ll be honest here, I have never had to fire any of the cleaning staff.

Yes I am that good..  🙂

In fact, it is my cleaning manager who has determined that from time to time, cleaners just don’t meet her high standards and so she simply tells them they are no longer needed and they don’t get any more hours. 

Unfortunately, my cleaning manager is leaving. I am devastated. Her son has graduated from university and she no longer needs to support him. So she is going to retire – she has earned it. But I am also very proud that I have been able to support her goals as a single mother to earn enough money working at Tokyo Family Stays to put her son through college and set him on his path. 

So I am looking to nurture a new cleaning manager as my business moves forward so that my STR team will continue to flourish.  Hopefully I can replicate with a new team leader that I am promoting from within the ranks. 

Looking for some FAQ or House rules swipe files or cleaning policies? Check out here. Very important to have great procedures in place so that your STR team can also work within the guidelines you have set.