The moment you decide you can’t do it all yourself is a milestone. It means your cleaning business is growing. But hiring your first cleaner or your fifth member of your Cleaning Staff is one of the most challenging parts of running a service business, and it’s where a lot of otherwise capable operators hit a wall.
Finding someone who actually shows up, does the job well, treats your clients’ homes with respect, and sticks around long enough to be worth training that combination is rarer than it should be. But it’s not impossible, and there’s a real approach to making it work.
This guide covers what actually matters when hiring cleaning staff in Australia in 2026 legally, practically, and from a culture point of view.
Know What You’re Hiring For Before You Start Looking
Before you post an ad or call anyone back, get clear on exactly what you need.
Are you looking for someone to do residential cleans? Commercial? Both? Do they need their own car, or will they travel to job sites by another means? Are you hiring for specific days and hours, or do you need flexibility? What physical demands does the role involve?
The more clearly you can describe the job, the more likely you are to attract people who are genuinely suited to it. Vague job ads attract vague applicants. Specific job ads attract people who read the description, thought about whether it suited them, and still applied.
Understand Your Legal Obligations as an Employer
This part isn’t optional, and it catches more business owners off guard than it should.
If you’re hiring someone to work for your business in Australia, you almost certainly have obligations as an employer regardless of whether you call them casual, part-time, or by any other label. The distinction between an employee and an independent contractor has specific legal meaning, and getting it wrong creates real risk.
Employment vs Contracting
Many cleaning businesses try to hire staff as independent contractors to avoid payroll complexity. But the Fair Work Commission and the ATO have clear tests for what makes someone an employee versus a genuine contractor. If you’re directing when, where, and how someone does their work and providing the equipment they’re very likely an employee under the law, regardless of what a contract says.
If you’re unsure how to classify someone, speak to a business adviser or employment lawyer before you make an offer. It’s much cheaper to get it right upfront than to deal with a claim later.
Key obligations for employees in Australia:
- Pay at least the applicable minimum wage under the relevant Modern Award (for cleaning, this is typically the Cleaning Services Award 2020)
- Pay superannuation at the current legislated rate, on time and to the correct fund
- Provide payslips that include all required information
- Keep proper employment records
- Meet your obligations under workplace health and safety laws
- Understand your obligations around casual conversion for long-term casual employees
Fair Work and the Cleaning Award
The Cleaning Services Award sets minimum pay rates, penalty rates for weekends and public holidays, and entitlements like leave loading. Make sure you understand what applies to the roles you’re hiring for. The Fair Work Ombudsman website has detailed, free information and a pay calculator you can use.
Working rights checks
Before someone starts working for you, you’re required to confirm they have the legal right to work in Australia. This isn’t optional. Keep records of this check. For Australian citizens and permanent residents, that’s straightforward. For visa holders, their right to work and any restrictions on hours needs to be verified.
Write a Job Ad That Attracts the Right People
A good job ad does two things: it attracts people who are genuinely suited to the role, and it quietly puts off people who aren’t.
What to include:
Be honest about the work. Cleaning is physical, hands-on work. Don’t dress it up. If someone isn’t prepared to spend several hours on their feet, moving furniture, getting into corners, and working at a consistent pace they won’t last, and that wastes everyone’s time.
Be specific about what you’re offering. People want to know: What days and hours? What’s the pay rate? Is there a consistent set of clients, or is the schedule variable? Is there growth potential in the role? Being upfront about these things builds trust even before the first conversation.
Mention what makes your business a good place to work. This doesn’t need to be a long sales pitch. If you pay correctly and on time, if you have consistent hours, if you treat your staff with respect and keep communication clear, say so. These things matter to good candidates, especially in an industry known for inconsistent employers.
Where to post:
- Seek and Indeed for broader reach
- Local Facebook community groups and Facebook Jobs (surprisingly effective for local cleaning roles)
- Gumtree Jobs
- Your Google Business Profile and website people who find you through your own channels tend to be more genuine
The Hiring Process: Don’t Rush It
The pressure to fill a role quickly especially when you have jobs booked and no one from your Cleaning Staff available to do them, often leads to rushed decisions that don’t work out. As hard as it is, give yourself enough time to do the process properly.
Initial screening
Before you invite someone for an interview, a short phone call is worth fifteen minutes. You can tell a lot from how someone communicates, whether they’ve actually read the job ad, and whether they have basic questions about the role or just want to know when they can start.
Ask a few basic questions:
- Have they done cleaning work before? (Helpful, but not essential)
- Do they have their own transport?
- Are there any days or hours they can’t work?
- Why are they looking for work right now?
Listen to how they answer as much as what they say.
The interview
For a cleaning role, a practical element is valuable. Consider offering a short paid trial clean before you make a formal offer. This gives you a real look at how someone works their pace, their thoroughness, how they handle equipment, whether they ask questions when they’re unsure.
Some things to explore in conversation:
- How do they handle situations where they’re running late or something comes up unexpectedly?
- What do they do if they’re unsure whether something at a client’s property needs special attention?
- Have they dealt with a difficult work situation before? How did they handle it?
These aren’t trick questions. They just give you a sense of how someone thinks.
Reference checks
Always check at least one reference, ideally from a previous employer. Ask about reliability, work quality, and how they got on with the team. Most people are honest if you ask direct, specific questions rather than vague ones.
Onboarding Properly Makes a Real Difference
A lot of hiring failures happen not because the person was wrong for the job, but because they weren’t given enough support at the start.
Your standards aren’t obvious to someone who hasn’t worked for you before. Show them. Do the first few jobs alongside them if you can, or have a senior team member shadow them. Walk through your checklist. Explain why certain things matter not just what to do, but the reasoning behind it.
The basics of a good onboarding process:
- Make sure all employment paperwork is completed before their first shift (tax file number declaration, super fund nomination, etc.)
- Provide a written outline of their role, hours, pay, and your expectations
- Walk them through your cleaning process and standards don’t assume
- Introduce them properly to any regular clients they’ll be working with
- Make it easy for them to ask questions without feeling judged for not knowing something
People who feel supported in their first few weeks are much more likely to stay. High turnover is expensive and disruptive. A bit of investment upfront pays off.
Keep Good People Once You Find Them
Pay correctly and on time. This sounds basic, but it’s the single biggest source of staff turnover and complaints in the industry. If you pay the right rate, every week, without error you’re already ahead of many employers in this space.
Communicate clearly and respectfully. People don’t stay in jobs where they feel unheard or disrespected. If you have a problem with someone’s work, address it promptly and fairly, don’t let it build and then dump it on them. Equally, when someone does a great job, say so. Acknowledgement costs nothing.
Be consistent. If your expectations change week to week, or if your scheduling is chaotic, even reliable people start looking elsewhere. Consistency from your end encourages consistency from theirs.
Create a path forward. People who feel like they’re going somewhere stay longer than people who feel stuck. Even in a small cleaning business, you can offer growth, more responsibility, better clients, a senior role, and a pathway into supervisory work as you expand. Talk to your team members about what they want, and where possible, help them get there.
A Note on Building a Team Culture
When it’s just you, culture isn’t something you think about. When you have two, three, five people representing your business at clients’ homes every day, it becomes everything.
The way your team treats clients, the way they handle unexpected situations, the standards they maintain when you’re not there to watch all of that is culture. And it comes from the top.
How you behave, what you prioritise, how you treat your staff these things ripple outward. Hire people who share your values, treat them the way you’d want to be treated, and hold the standard consistently. That’s the foundation of a team people are proud to be part of.
Final Thought
It takes time to get right. Most people make at least one hiring mistake before they really get the hang of it. The key is to learn from those experiences, tighten your process, and keep going. The team you eventually build will be one of the most valuable things about your business.
More guides for cleaning business owners across NSW at nswbusinesstoday.com
