What can you expect your house cleaner to share?
Today’s topics number 11 on Reader’s Digest’s list of “13 Things Your Housecleaner Won’t Tell You” I’m sure this one will get some attention! So, let’s talk about “If you leave your personal life out for us to see, we most definitely will talk about you. We may even send pictures to our friends and relatives.”
This is a very tricky subject and it really depends on the individual housecleaner. I can say from the business owner’s perspective that we never share anything about any client to anyone outside of our company. What we see in your house is your personal life and it is nobody’s business but yours. Realistically, from the housecleaner’s perspective, it depends on the integrity of each individual person.
We take every step to prepare that they may see a wide variety of things when entering a client’s home. We let them know that if they do see things or hold personal conversations with you, they can come back to our office and let us know (especially if something makes them uncomfortable), but they are never to share anything with anyone outside of our company. Client confidentiality is something we do not take lightly. We have had situations in the past where employees were disciplined where we were able to verify they had shared personal information about our clients with outside individuals.
My advice to clients or potential clients is to be aware of what you are leaving out for housecleaners to see. Our employees are expected to be very detailed in their work; they will be lifting, moving and cleaning many things in your house. With that said, it is important to note that things inside of jewelry boxes, medicine cabinets, dresser drawers, closets or any other cabinets are not things you should be worried about someone seeing. We do not clean inside those areas during regular cleanings. Also, be aware of what you are sharing with your housecleaner. Confidential conversations should be treated with the same care as private property.
To be safe, all you have to do is ask yourself if you are ok with someone seeing what you have left out. You have to be aware that the possibility does exist for someone to share what they see in your home or speak about you with others. As a company, we can do background screens and educate our employees on the ramifications of violating the client-confidentiality policy, but it does not completely eliminate the possibility private information being shared.
Please check back tomorrow when I’ll be going over item number 12 of 13 on Reader’s Digest’s list:“Recommend us to your friends. We may give you $25 to $50 off a cleaning for each referral—if you ask.” If you have any questions call Total Cleaning Plus to get all your answers.
