Hiring a Cleaner: Should You Find Someone Yourself or Contact an Agency?
Posted on: 29 January 2020
You're a busy person, even though the idea of busy can vary. Maybe you work full time, you have to look after young children or you have an active social life. Keeping your home clean can be rather time-consuming and to be perfectly honest—it's not the most exciting thing in the world. If you have decided to hire a cleaner, about the first thing to think about is if you're going to place an advertisement yourself or simply contact a home cleaning agency. There are pros and cons to both approaches, so read on to learn more.
Finding the Best Person for the Job
When listing an advertisement, you have to field every enquiry yourself and attempt to vet your prospective applicants. References are helpful but aren't always conclusive since much of the process is instinctive. A cleaning agency will generally have done all this for you before they would even think of sending someone to your home, so this is usually the easiest option. As for the cleaning company's references, just take a look at their online reviews to gauge the level of customer satisfaction.
Insurance for Your Cleaner
It's incredibly unlikely to be an issue, but what about if your cleaner was to accidentally damage your home or property while they were working? A cleaning agency will have public liability insurance to protect against this improbable scenario. If you're hiring someone privately, make sure that they have the necessary coverage. If they don't, then it can be a dealbreaker.
Dissatisfaction with the Results
It's up to you to tell your cleaner precisely how you want your home to be cleaned. And yet if you're dissatisfied with the results, despite your reminders to the cleaner, what can you do? With a cleaning agency, it's just a matter of contacting the agency and regretfully informing them that it's not working out. A new cleaner can generally immediately be arranged. You don't have this option with a private arrangement and need to find a new cleaner yourself.
Illness and Holidays
If you're hiring a cleaner privately, you need to ask what are their contingency plans for when they're unavailable due to illness or holidays. Do they have a friend or family member who takes over their duties on these occasions? Or are the scheduled cleanings during this time simply skipped? With an agency, a replacement is arranged to cover someone when they're unwell or away.
There's nothing to stop you from hiring a cleaner yourself, so there's no reason why you can't have a perfect working arrangement with that cleaner. But considering all the things you need to know before employing a cleaner, the agency approach is probably going to work out better for you.
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