How Johnston Businesses Can Stop Worrying About Their Cleaning Company (And Focus on Growth)

Here's a question for Johnston business owners and office managers: How much time did you spend last week thinking about your cleaning company?

If the answer is "more than zero," you have a problem.

Your cleaning company should be completely invisible—not because they're not doing their job, but because they're doing it so well you never have to think about it. You should walk into your Johnston office every morning and simply find it clean. No surprises. No issues. No mental energy spent on whether the cleaning crew showed up or did their job properly.

Instead, many Johnston businesses spend hours each month:

• Checking whether cleaners actually came in
• Emailing about missed areas
• Discovering problems after the fact
• Playing phone tag trying to reach someone who can fix issues
• Wondering if they should start looking for yet another cleaning company

That's not just annoying—it's expensive. Your time has value. Every minute you spend managing your cleaning company is a minute you're not spending on revenue-generating activities, employee development, customer service, or strategic planning.

You didn't start a business to be a cleaning company manager. You started it to build something, serve customers, and grow. Your cleaning should be one less thing to worry about, not a constant source of frustration.

This is your guide to what reliable commercial cleaning actually looks like, why most Johnston businesses aren't getting it, and how to finally stop worrying about whether your office will be clean tomorrow morning.

The Real Cost of Unreliable Cleaning

Before we talk about solutions, let's acknowledge what unreliable cleaning is actually costing your Johnston business.

The Direct Time Cost

Track how much time you or your staff spend on cleaning-related issues in a typical month:

• Checking whether cleaners came in: 15 minutes/week = 1 hour/month
• Emailing about missed areas: 20 minutes/week = 1.3 hours/month
• Playing phone tag trying to reach the company: 30 minutes/week = 2 hours/month
• Walking the office checking quality: 20 minutes/week = 1.3 hours/month
• Dealing with no-shows or last-minute changes: 1 hour/month
• Vetting and switching to new companies: 10 hours/year = 0.8 hours/month

Total: ~7.4 hours per month spent managing cleaning

If the person handling this makes $60,000/year (~$30/hour), that's $222/month in labor cost just managing your cleaning company. Over a year, that's $2,664 in management overhead.

And that's conservative. Many Johnston businesses spend significantly more time than this when cleaning is unreliable.

The Hidden Productivity Cost

When your office isn't properly cleaned:

Employees waste time on cleaning tasks:

• Wiping down conference room tables before meetings
• Cleaning coffee stations that should have been cleaned
• Restocking bathroom supplies that weren't refilled
• Tidying areas that should have been handled

If this happens daily and takes even 30 minutes of combined staff time, that's 10+ hours per month of productive time lost to tasks your cleaning company should have handled.

Employees work in a less pleasant environment: A dirty or neglected office affects morale, focus, and productivity in ways that are hard to quantify but absolutely real.

The Professional Reputation Cost

What happens when clients or prospects visit your Johnston office and:

• The lobby looks dingy
• The conference room has dust on the table
• The restrooms aren't clean
• The general impression is "this company doesn't have their act together"

You'll never know how many deals or opportunities were influenced by facility impressions, but the impact is real. First impressions matter, and your office cleanliness is part of that impression.

The Mental Load Cost

This one's harder to quantify but might be the most important: the constant background stress of knowing your cleaning company is unreliable.

You're always slightly worried about whether they'll show up. You're always checking after them. You're always prepared for problems. That mental load creates stress and takes cognitive bandwidth away from actually running your business.

The cost of unreliable cleaning isn't just the cleaning bill—it's all these hidden costs that far exceed what you're paying for the service.

Why Most Cleaning Companies Are Unreliable (And How to Spot the Pattern)

Understanding why commercial cleaning is such a frustrating industry helps you recognize the pattern and avoid it.

The Standard Commercial Cleaning Business Model Is Broken

Here's how most cleaning companies operate:

Phase 1: Great Start (Months 1-2)They need to impress you to keep the account, so they:

• Send their best people
• Spend appropriate time on your facility
• Respond quickly to any concerns
• Make you think "Finally, a good cleaning company!"

Phase 2: Gradual Decline (Months 3-6)Once they feel secure in the account, things slip:

• They send whoever's available, not necessarily the best people
• They reduce time spent on your facility to improve their margins
• They start skipping details you don't immediately notice
• Response time to issues slows down

Phase 3: Rock Bottom (Months 6+)By now, quality has deteriorated significantly:

• Obvious things are being missed
• You're frustrated and complaining regularly
• They promise to fix things but don't really change
• You start looking for their replacement

Phase 4: The Cycle Repeats You switch to a new company, and Phases 1-3 repeat with them.

Johnston businesses often go through this cycle every 12-18 months, constantly switching cleaning companies and hoping the next one will be different.

Why This Happens: The Structural Problems

The quality decline isn't usually intentional—it's structural to how most cleaning companies operate:

Massive Employee Turnover The commercial cleaning industry averages 200-400% annual employee turnover. That means most companies are constantly hiring and losing people. The cleaner who does great work on your Johnston office in January might be gone by March, replaced by someone new with minimal training.

No Quality Control Systems Most cleaning companies have no systematic way to verify their work is being done properly. They assume their crews are doing good work unless they hear complaints. By the time you notice problems, they've been happening for weeks.

Multiple Layers of Management When you report an issue, it goes through layers:

• You call the main number
• Receptionist takes a message
• Message goes to operations manager
• Operations manager emails the supervisor
• Supervisor talks to the crew
• Maybe something gets fixed

By the time your concern reaches the people actually cleaning, it's been filtered, delayed, and possibly lost in translation.

Incentive Misalignment Sales reps are rewarded for signing new accounts, not maintaining existing ones. Operations staff are trying to maximize efficiency (which often means cutting corners). Nobody's incentive is perfectly aligned with you getting consistent, high-quality service.

Price-Based Competition When companies compete primarily on price, they have to cut costs somewhere. That "somewhere" is usually labor—paying less, training less, and allocating less time to each cleaning. You get what you pay for, except you often don't realize what you're getting until it's too late.

The Warning Signs You're in This Pattern

If you're experiencing these, you're caught in the unreliable cleaning cycle:

• ✓ You're regularly checking whether cleaning actually happened
• ✓ You're frequently emailing about missed areas or incomplete work
• ✓ You see different faces on the cleaning crew constantly
• ✓ Getting someone on the phone who can solve problems takes multiple attempts
• ✓ They promise to fix issues but problems persist
• ✓ Quality was great initially but has declined
• ✓ You're thinking about switching companies again

Sound familiar? You're not alone. This is the experience of most Johnston businesses with commercial cleaning.

What Reliable Cleaning Actually Looks Like

Let's flip the script. What should your experience be with a truly reliable cleaning company?

The Morning Test

Every morning, you walk into your Johnston office and:

• It's clean
• Nothing needs your attention
• You don't think about cleaning at all

That's it. That's the goal. You forget you even have a cleaning company because everything just works.

The Specific Behaviors of Reliable Service

Consistency: The same people clean your facility night after night. They know your building, they know your preferences, they know where everything goes. There's no constant retraining of new people.

Proactive Communication: If there's an issue—a broken door, a water leak, supplies running low—you hear about it before it becomes your problem. Your cleaning company acts as extra eyes on your facility during off-hours.

Actual Quality Control: Someone other than the cleaning crew actually inspects their work and documents the results. You receive regular quality reports showing scores and areas for improvement. Issues are caught and corrected before you ever notice them.

Responsive Problem-Solving: On the rare occasion something is missed or needs attention, you can reach someone immediately who can fix it. Not "we'll pass your message along"—actual, same-day resolution.

Direct Accountability: You have a direct line to someone who can make decisions and solve problems. No phone trees, no layers of management, no "I'll have to check with my supervisor."

Long-Term Stability: The company has been around for years and plans to be around for many more. They have long-term client relationships—not because clients can't leave, but because they don't want to.

This isn't fantasy. This is how reliable commercial cleaning actually operates. Most Johnston businesses just haven't experienced it.

The Systems That Make Reliability Possible

Reliable cleaning doesn't happen by accident. It requires specific systems and practices that most cleaning companies simply don't have.

System 1: Zero Turnover Through Above-Market Compensation

The single biggest predictor of cleaning reliability is employee retention. When the same people clean your facility for years, quality stays consistent.

How do you achieve zero turnover in an industry with 200-400% average turnover? Pay significantly above market rate.

Rodan Cleaning has essentially zero turnover. Every cleaner on their team has been there for over two years. Six team members work six or seven nights per week and haven't missed a single shift in two years.

That's not luck or accident—it's the result of paying well enough that people want to stay. Happy employees mean reliable service for you.

What this means for Johnston businesses: The same familiar faces cleaning your office every time. People who know your building, understand your preferences, and take pride in their work because they're valued employees.

System 2: Documented Standards Through Training

"Clean the office" means different things to different people. Reliable service requires documented, trainable standards.

Rodan's Cleaning University program trains every cleaner on specific protocols:

• How to clean different surfaces properly
• What products to use where
• What "clean" actually means for different areas
• How to handle special situations
• Why certain details matter

This isn't a quick orientation—it's actual training that creates consistent understanding of expectations across the entire team.

What this means for Johnston businesses: Your office gets cleaned the same way every time, regardless of who's on your cleaning crew that night. The standards don't vary person to person.

System 3: Monthly Quality Audits

Here's the system that makes the biggest difference: independent quality auditing.

At Rodan, an internal auditor's only job is visiting client facilities monthly, inspecting work against documented standards, and generating detailed reports. Typical scores run 95-96%, with specific notes about what was done well and what needs improvement.

These audits accomplish three things:

1. They catch issues proactively before clients notice them
2. They provide accountability for cleaning crews who know their work will be inspected
3. They give clients documentation that quality is being monitored

What this means for Johnston businesses: You're not the quality control department for your cleaning company. Someone else is checking their work and fixing issues before you're affected.

System 4: Direct Owner Access

When you need something addressed, can you reach someone who can actually fix it?

With most commercial cleaning companies, the answer is no. You call a main number, leave a message, and hope someone gets back to you eventually.

With owner-operated companies like Rodan, you have owner Zach Vander Ploeg's direct contact information from day one. Text or call with an issue, get same-day resolution.

What this means for Johnston businesses: Problems get solved immediately because you're talking to someone who can make decisions, not someone who needs to "escalate your concern to management."

System 5: 26 Years of Reputation to Protect

Companies that have been operating since 1998 have something newer companies don't: a reputation they can't afford to damage.

When you've been serving Johnston and the greater Des Moines business community for over two decades, word travels fast if your quality slips. Long-term success depends on actually being reliable, not just claiming to be.

What this means for Johnston businesses: You're working with a company that has long-term accountability to the local business community, not a startup that might not be around next year.

The Johnston Business Advantage: Location + Reliable Service

Johnston has grown from a quiet suburb to a thriving business community with its own identity. Understanding Johnston's business environment helps explain why reliable cleaning matters here.

Johnston's Growing Business Community

Johnston is home to:

• Professional services firms
• Healthcare facilities and medical offices
• Financial institutions
• Technology companies
• Corporate offices for regional and national companies
• Growing retail and restaurant sectors

These aren't businesses that can tolerate unreliable vendors. They need partners who deliver consistently.

Proximity Matters for Service Quality

Johnston's location—northwest of Des Moines, easily accessible from I-35/I-80—makes it easy for cleaning companies to serve. But proximity alone doesn't ensure reliability.

What matters is working with companies that:

• Serve the entire metro area reliably (Des Moines, West Des Moines, Waukee, Ankeny, Urbandale, and Johnston)
• Understand Johnston's business environment
• Have established relationships in Johnston's business community
• Can respond quickly when needed

Regional companies often struggle with Johnston because they're Des Moines-focused and treat Johnston as "too far." National franchises treat Johnston as just another account in their system with no local accountability.

Local, family-owned companies with metro-wide coverage like Rodan understand Johnston as part of their core service area, not an afterthought.

Johnston Businesses Deserve Better

If you're running a business in Johnston, you're part of a professional, growing business community with high standards. You shouldn't accept the same frustrations that have been standard in commercial cleaning.

You deserve cleaning service that actually works—consistently, reliably, without requiring your constant attention.

Making the Switch: How to Finally Get Reliable Cleaning

If you're ready to stop cycling through unreliable cleaning companies, here's how to make a strategic change.

Step 1: Calculate What Unreliable Cleaning Is Actually Costing You

Before you switch, understand the full cost of your current situation:

• Time you spend managing cleaning issues (hours × your hourly rate)
• Employee time lost to cleaning tasks that should have been done
• Professional impact of inconsistent facility appearance
• Mental load and stress of unreliability

When you add these up, you'll realize that saving $100/month on cleaning but spending 10 hours managing problems is a terrible trade-off.

Step 2: Define What "Reliable" Actually Means for Your Business

Get specific about what you need:

Frequency:

• How often does cleaning need to happen? (Daily, 3x/week, 2x/week, weekly)
• What specific days work best for your operations?

Scope:

• Which areas need regular attention?
• What specific tasks matter most to your business?
• Are there specialized requirements (medical office standards, data center protocols, etc.)?

Communication:

• How should issues be reported to you?
• How quickly do you need problems resolved?
• What level of documentation do you want?

Quality Standards:

• What does "clean" mean for your business specifically?
• What are the deal-breaker issues that absolutely can't happen?
• What level of consistency do you require?

Having clear answers to these questions helps you evaluate whether a cleaning company can actually meet your needs.

Step 3: Evaluate Based on Systems, Not Promises

When talking to potential cleaning companies, don't just listen to what they promise. Look at the systems they have in place:

Ask about employee retention: "What's your average employee tenure? Can I meet the people who will actually clean our office?"

Ask about quality control: "How do you verify your work is being done properly? Do you do regular inspections? Can I see a sample audit report?"

Ask about accountability: "When I have an issue, who do I contact? How quickly will it be resolved? Can I have direct contact information for someone who can make decisions?"

Ask about stability: "How long have you been in business? Can you provide references from long-term clients—5+ years?"

Ask about training: "What training do your cleaners receive? How do you ensure consistency across your team?"

Companies with real systems can answer these questions specifically. Companies without systems will give vague answers about "commitment to quality" and "customer satisfaction."

Step 4: Check References from Similar Businesses

Don't just take the company's word—talk to their actual clients, preferably Johnston businesses or similar professional environments.

Questions to ask references:

• How long have you been working with them?
• Have you experienced consistent quality or has it declined?
• How responsive are they to issues?
• Do you actually not have to think about cleaning anymore?
• Would you recommend them?

If a company can't provide references from clients who've been with them for 3+ years, that tells you something about their retention and reliability.

Step 5: Start with Clear Expectations

When you do switch, establish clear expectations from day one:

In writing, document:

• Specific scope of work (what gets cleaned, how often)
• Quality standards (what "clean" means for each area)
• Communication protocols (who to contact, how, for what)
• Audit and reporting expectations
• Response time for issues

This protects both you and the cleaning company by ensuring everyone understands exactly what's expected.

Step 6: Give It Time to Stabilize

Understand that there's always a learning curve with a new cleaning company:

• First cleaning: They're learning your facility
• First month: They're adjusting to your specific needs and preferences
• Months 2-3: Service should stabilize and become consistent

The difference between reliable and unreliable companies shows up in how they handle this learning period. Reliable companies improve quickly and then maintain standards. Unreliable companies might start strong but begin declining after the initial impression period.

What to Expect When Working with Rodan Cleaning

Since we've been using Rodan as the example of reliable service throughout this article, let's be specific about what Johnston businesses actually experience:

The Initial Process

Free Cleaning Assessment: Rodan walks your Johnston facility, discusses your specific needs, and provides a detailed proposal outlining exactly what's included, frequency, and pricing.

No Long-Term Contracts: Service quality should earn your continued business, not contracts that lock you in.

Clear Scope of Work: You get written documentation of exactly what will be cleaned and how often, so there's never confusion about expectations.

The Ongoing Experience

Consistent Crew: The same people clean your facility. Every cleaner has been with Rodan for 2+ years. You build relationships with the people actually doing the work.

Monthly Quality Audits: Your Johnston facility gets audited monthly by Rodan's internal auditor. You receive scores (typically 95-96%) and detailed reports.

Direct Owner Contact: You have Zach Vander Ploeg's cell phone and email. Issues get resolved the same day, not after navigating layers of management.

Proactive Communication: If something's noticed during cleaning—a facility issue, supplies needed, something broken—you hear about it.

Specialized Training: Every cleaner has completed Cleaning University training on proper protocols for different environments, including office cleaning, medical facilities, financial institutions, and more.

The Result

You stop thinking about cleaning. You walk into your Johnston office every morning and it's clean. When you need something addressed, it gets handled immediately. You redirect the time and mental energy you were spending on cleaning management toward actually growing your business.

That's what reliable looks like.

‍

Making the Decision: Is Now the Right Time?

If you're reading this article, you're probably already frustrated with your current cleaning situation. Here's how to know if it's time to make a change:

Switch immediately if:

• ✓ You're spending hours each month managing cleaning issues
• ✓ Quality has noticeably declined from initial service
• ✓ You're regularly discovering cleaning wasn't done
• ✓ Getting problems resolved takes multiple attempts
• ✓ You're already mentally shopping for replacements

Give it a bit longer if:

• Your current company is responsive to issues
• Quality is consistent, even if not perfect
• You have a good working relationship
• Problems get resolved quickly when they occur

Definitely don't switch if:

• You don't think about cleaning because it just works
• Your office is consistently clean
• Issues are rare and handled immediately when they occur
• You're genuinely satisfied

But if you're in that first category—frustrated, spending time on cleaning management, dealing with declining quality—then yes, now is the right time to make a change.

Taking Action: Your Next Steps

If you're ready to finally stop worrying about your cleaning company, here's your action plan:

This Week:

1. Calculate your current cost – Track time spent managing cleaning over the next week. Multiply by your hourly rate. Add your cleaning bill. That's your real cost.
2. Contact Rodan Cleaning – Call (515) 276-1618 or visit rodancleaning.com/contact to schedule a free assessment of your Johnston facility.
3. Ask the right questions – Use the questions from this article to understand their systems for reliability, quality control, and accountability.

Next Week:

4. Get the proposal – Review detailed scope, pricing, and expectations. Compare not just price but systems and reliability indicators.
5. Check references – Talk to their actual Johnston or similar business clients about their experience.
6. Make the decision – Based on systems, references, and value (not just price).

Within 30 Days:

7. Transition service – Schedule start date, communicate with current provider if needed, ensure smooth handoff.
8. Experience the difference – Notice what it's like to walk into a clean office without having to check or worry.
9. Redirect that time – Use the hours you were spending managing cleaning on actually growing your business.

The Bottom Line: Your Time Is Worth More Than This

You didn't start a business in Johnston to become an expert at managing cleaning companies. You started it to build something meaningful, serve customers, and create value.

Every hour you spend checking whether cleaners showed up, emailing about missed areas, or trying to get problems resolved is an hour you're not spending on what actually matters.

Reliable commercial cleaning exists. It requires specific systems—employee retention through above-market pay, documented training standards, regular quality audits, direct owner accountability, and long-term reputation to protect—but it exists.

Johnston businesses deserve better than the frustrating cycle of unreliable service, declining quality, and constant vendor switching. You deserve to forget you even have a cleaning company because everything just works.

Ready to stop worrying about cleaning and start focusing on growth? Call Rodan Cleaning at (515) 276-1618 or schedule your free assessment.

‍