Labor Shortage in the Cleaning Industry 2026 — How to Keep Your Team Together and Projects Covered
Recruitment in the cleaning industry has tightened every year. We explore concrete ways for a smaller team to handle the same number of projects — without compromising quality.
In Finland, recruiting professional cleaners has become noticeably more difficult in recent years. Turnover is high, substitutes are not always available, and experienced supervisors burn out covering empty shifts. The situation cannot be fixed with a single trick, but the basic structures of operations management directly affect how many employees a company actually needs to cover the same projects.
Why is turnover so high specifically in the cleaning industry
Typically, a new cleaner leaves the job within the first three months if the onboarding was confusing: project instructions are on a different piece of paper than the keys, the supervisor doesn't answer the phone at 5 a.m., and the pay is delayed because hours weren't logged on time. None of these are the employee's fault — they are all system issues.
Another major reason is unpredictability. When an employee receives their shifts only the night before, they start looking for another job immediately. Keeping the calendar 2–4 weeks ahead is a simple but crucial retention method.
Three operational fixes that impact cash flow
- Project cards on mobile: door codes, alarms, keys, special instructions, and contacts all in one place, not on paper.
- Automatic prevention of overlaps in shifts — no more two cleaners at the same project or forgotten projects.
- Location-based start for work hours: hours start only at the project site, and payroll receives clean data without manual corrections.
Onboarding in 1 day — not two weeks
When project cards, instructions, and routes are in a mobile app, a new employee can manage the first day without the supervisor driving behind them. In practice, this means that with the capacity of one supervisor, three times as many new hires can be onboarded compared to a paper-based model.
This is directly money: every day a new employee is productively at the project and not next to the supervisor shortens the payback time.
Finding substitutes before a crisis
Most cleaning companies have quiet hours in the afternoons. If the system shows employees' free capacity in real-time, substitutes can be offered first to their own staff — not to an agency at a rate of 38 €/h. This is often a 3–6% margin improvement annually.
Want to see Eemel One in action?
In a 30-minute remote demo we walk through your cleaning company’s processes.