Case Studies Clean MD Reduces Turnover and Achieves Major Cost Savings

The Challenge

Clean MD is a commercial cleaning company that provides cleaning and restoration services to a wide variety of businesses. Amongst its team of approximately 90 people, the majority are cleaning technicians and the rest are in-office staff, including administrative, technical, and operations managers.

Cleaning technicians are responsible for conducting the cleaning services at client sites. Successful cleaning technicians are able to follow direction, accept feedback, and conduct themselves in a professional manner.

Unlike many organizations, Clean MD didn’t struggle to get enough applicants. According to Chris Boglev, Vice President at Clean MD, “We don’t really have a problem getting the word out there for job descriptions. When we post something, we get a lot of hits.” Instead, what Clean MD needed was a way to prioritize the applicants who were most likely to be successful.

The hardest part was that Clean MD was relying on resumes to make this decision. “Resumes are tricky because everybody looks great on paper,” Boglev said. He wanted access to more reliable information about each applicant before inviting them to the interview phase.

The Solution

Clean MD started using Criteria’s assessments to add an additional screening layer into the hiring process. First, a candidate would apply to the job online. Second, an administrative staff member would conduct a phone screen to qualify the candidate. Third, the candidate would take the assessments. And fourth, candidates who passed the first three steps would be invited to the interview, which typically occurred in-person but had recently transitioned to video interviews as a result of COVID-19. From there, Clean MD would decide whether or not to extend an offer.

Clean MD administered a combination of Criteria’s assessments to their incoming candidates. For cleaning technicians, Clean MD administered the Workplace Productivity Profile (WPP), an integrity test; the Criteria Basic Skills Test (CBST), which measures trainability and job readiness; and the Employee Personality Profile (EPP), a general personality assessment. For office staff, Clean MD administered the EPP and CBST along with a typing and computer skills test. 

The Results

Lower Turnover

The biggest impact from the testing was a dramatic reduction in employee turnover. The prior year, before Clean MD started using the testing, the company experienced 37.7% turnover. This year, with testing in place, the turnover rate fell to 22%. This represented a 53% decrease in turnover. Boglev attributed this reduction in turnover to Clean MD’s ability to identify people who are a better fit right from the start. Potential issues like punctuality or low productivity can be difficult to predict through resumes and interviews alone, but behavioral assessments like the WPP can help to predict the likelihood that someone will be productive and reliable in this type of role.

Lower Payroll Costs

One of the biggest benefits of the better quality of hire was a major reduction in payroll costs. Before using the assessments to hire, one of the biggest problems with underperforming technicians was that if they were doing an insufficient job, a manager would need to come in to inspect and potentially redo the work. This led to significant amounts of overtime hours for higher wage managers.

The assessments helped Clean MD hire better technicians who needed less oversight and rework. As a result, the company experienced dramatic savings in payroll costs. Compared to the previous year before the company was using assessments, Clean MD’s overtime hours fell by 31% and its regular hours fell by 5%. Combined, this led to a savings of about $45,500 in payroll costs. 

Even better? Despite the lower labor hours, Clean MD ended up earning more billings with fewer hours than they did in the same time frame the previous year. The result is that Clean MD is able to harness a higher ROI from its staff thanks to better quality of hire across the board.

Less Time Spent Hiring

Another positive outcome from lower turnover is less time spent hiring and training new team members. Before testing, Boglev said, “we were turning people over, which adds a lot of extra time into our schedule.” By increasing retention, Boglev’s in-office team can focus their efforts on growing the business, rather than continuously filling vacant positions.

Better Quality of Hire

One of the biggest benefits of the assessments for Boglev is the “quality of person.” Many of the results that Clean MD experienced all revolve around the company’s ability to find and hire better employees. Better employees perform better, stay longer, require less rework, and ultimately save the organization a lot of time and money.

A Great Resource During COVID-19

In the midst of the dramatic changes brought about by the novel coronavirus, assessments fill a critical role in the hiring process. Because Clean MD plans to use virtual interviews in place of in-person interviews, Boglev expects that they are “probably going to lean on the testing a lot more.” While the future remains uncertain, he feels more confident about their ability to hire good employees during this time with Criteria’s assessments in their toolkit.

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