I am Mario, manager of “Weclean Limpezas Domésticas”, a domestic cleaning company that provides cleaning service in the Lisbon area since 2006. I am here to make use of my experience in the portuguese domestic cleaning market and share with you some useful information to consider when hiring a cleaning service for your home.
There are mainly two alternatives of domestic cleaning service in Portugal, a maid and a cleaning company. This article is about comparing these alternatives in order to decide what is best for you. It will help you understand what is really important and what is best for your case. Let’s do it.
The first question you should ask yourself is: How much help do I need? At my home we are four, a couple with two four year old kids. The house is about 150m2, but is very messy because of the kids stuff. Too many toys and books around. In my case, no doubt, I have a need for a full time maid. I had one full-time maid, Not anymore after Covid19. I may say that if you need more than 20 hours a week of cleaning, economically speaking, it is better for you to hire a maid either part-time of full-time.
The most relevant element of a good cleaning service is the stability of the cleaning person or cleaning team. Employee turnover in the industry is very high and it is not easy to hire. Many of the candidates in cleaning services are there because they ran out of options. Quality is low, they don’t stay long enough and this end up being a terrible cleaning service.
You may reduce employee turnover by hiring a cleaning maid part-time or full-time, in other words, by giving them stability. Full-time of course is less risky in terms of turnover. So, based on your needs, if you are considering hiring a "once a week" or "once every two weeks" cleaning service for your home than you are much better off by hiring a cleaning company like Weclean.
Weclean works as a "cooperative of clients". It puts together many similar clients (weekly and biweekly), providing a montly contract with the cleaning staff, thus giving them the stability they really need. This is something that the client alone can’t do it, unless hiring full-time. This makes the cleaning company a less risky choice than hiring a maid paid by the hour. The maid paid by the hour is always available for a client that needs full-time or part-time. And if the maid is good she will be gone soon or later, and most of the times without long time notice.
There are other things to consider too when comparing these cleaning alternatives. (1) Companies may charge more per hour than a regular maid, but it usually includes equipment and detergents and for this reason it may be a better deal. (2) Working in teams of two, brings a social proof principle which increase loyalty and prevents misbehave. The team is treated as one and both will pay the price for wrong doings, such as leaving earlier, being on the phone all the time, being lazy, careless and breaking objects. (3) When you go on holidays and cancel your cleaning service for a month, the cleaning company will not suffer as much as the single maid will. (4) Hiring is difficult and time consuming. A cleaning company like Weclean have the tools to test and filter the candidates before making a decision to hire them, thus reducing the risk of bad choices.
Don't forget and most important, the maid is a human being with needs just like ours. The quality of the service varies with the mood of the cleaning team, thus the essencial elements to look when hiring is loyalty and honesty. The rest we can manage.
Difficult times at the moment, but it gets worse if we get sick. Be safe. Stay at home.