The SOUL of Our Brand

Heart of WellNest House Cleaning

A couple of weeks ago I was filling out a form about WellNest and was asked, “What is the SOUL of your brand?” Here was my response:

The soul of our brand is the mastery of our customer persona. As customers ourselves, my wife and I designed the business around our own specific needs as a family with 1 to 3 young kids, our focus on organics, our love for technological ease, and our fast-paced, professional lifestyle.

There was one critical piece to the soul of our brand that I forgot. And it’s very simple.

Our clients can feel confident and good about hiring us.

What does this mean?

The house cleaning industry is notorious for poor treatment of workers. Here are some common examples:

1. Few companies offer health benefits, crews are paid hourly or fixed only
2. Crews work nights, weekends, holidays, 5 hours one day, 15 hours the next with minimal consistency
3. Crews are often not paid overtime, even if lawfully owed
4. Crews are not given holiday pay or any paid time off to recharge and reset
5. Crews are often paid only for time inside the home, not for transit time
6. Crews are often paid a percentage of revenue per house regardless of how much time it takes
7. Crews are often required to drive their own cars and pay for gas
8. Crews are often required to pay their own taxes as 1099 contractors

So what makes us different? Why can clients feel confident that by hiring us, they’ll receive the highest quality of cleaning performed by crews who are properly compensated and taken care of by their employees?

Industry-leading pay

 Our rule for pay is to always be 10% above our competition before even including any benefits. We are constantly performing market research to ensure this is the case.

We provide health benefits

We are proud to offer our employees a great benefits package (medical, dental, vision) where we pay over 50% of their benefits through UnitedHealthcare. The focus of our plans is on being affordable while still providing our employees the ability to see specialists with a co-pay versus hitting a deductible first. As a small business, this is challenging but has been the difference maker in ensuring we hire and develop the best talent.

We provide steady, full-time Monday through Friday schedules

We do not work on weekends or holidays. We have consistently given our teams between 35 and 45 hours per week from Monday through Friday with start times in the AM and end times in the early evening. Our rigorous scheduling, performed by our proprietary technology, allows our crews the ability to rely upon their schedules and enjoy a great quality of life. 

Overtime pay, holiday pay, paid vacation

We actually strive to give our employees overtime as that means we are busy and providing great service. We provide six paid holidays and give one week of vacation per year to recharge and reset.

We pay for transit time

Our belief is that if an employee is in our office for work, in our vehicle, or in a client’s home, they should be paid accordingly. 

We provide safe, reliable company cars with paid fuel

We purchase used vehicles from reliable, name brand manufacturer dealers who are willing to put their reputation on the quality of the vehicle. The Toyota Yaris and Toyota Corolla are our go-to vehicles.

All of our employees are W-2 employees

The trustworthy people we hire want to have taxes taken out because they want to do the right thing. In this industry, cleaning professionals could easily be paid cash and not pay a dime in taxes. Instead, our teammates choose to pay payroll taxes in order to do the right thing.

Growth opportunities

Rather than hiring expensive office staff, we empower our top Supervisors with growth opportunities to help us run our office. This includes roles as dispatch leaders, administrators, and trainers. 

Employee Appreciation Breakfasts every Friday

To say thank you and show our appreciation, we treat our team to breakfast every Friday with music and energy. This usually consists of a combination of bagels, English muffins, muffins, fresh fruit, coffee, juice, egg sandwiches, and other great breakfast items. It’s a simple and fun way to say thank you for taking such good care of our clients.

How do we do this while still offering competitive prices? Growth and scaling help. We automated the administration of our business through technology, process, and empowering our top Supervisors with growth opportunities. This combination nearly eliminated the need for expensive office staff and overhead. It’s a Win all around and I cannot be prouder of our team for making it happen.

When starting WellNest, we knew the industry is notorious for extraordinarily high turnover but did not fully understand why. We understand now. By offering the best pay, benefits, and quality of life, we attract the best talent, which means we provide the best cleanings. And our clients can feel confident and proud to work with us.