CBL Episode #139 To Shoe or not to Shoe? The Cleaning Professional's Dilemma

The unexpected request to remove shoes at a client's doorstep creates an immediate dilemma for cleaning professionals. Do you comply and risk safety issues, or decline and potentially lose the client? Shannon and Jamie tackle this common industry challenge with practical solutions and important safety considerations.

Chemical exposure represents one of the most overlooked dangers of barefoot cleaning. Professional cleaners already face heightened sensitivity to cleaning products over time, and direct skin contact only accelerates this process. Even products marketed as "safe for bare feet" contain chemicals that can be absorbed through the skin. This exposure extends beyond the cleaning staff to pets who later walk across these surfaces and ingest residual chemicals during grooming.

The safety implications extend further when examining slip-and-fall risks. Booties become dangerously slippery when wet, creating hazardous conditions when moving between bathrooms and other areas. This introduces serious liability concerns, as insurance policies and workers' compensation typically require proper footwear. The hosts share practical alternatives, including maintaining dedicated indoor cleaning shoes for specific clients or implementing a 7-10% surcharge for accommodating barefoot cleaning requests.

Cross-contamination presents another challenge that clients often fail to consider. The moisture from cleaning bathroom areas inevitably gets tracked throughout the home when using booties or bare feet, potentially transferring cleaning chemicals or contaminants to carpets and other surfaces.  Businesses with a legitimate reason to revisit these practices with an emphasis on health and safety.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:50

The Thank you. So Thank you to make more money with your cleaning business. I'm launching a brand new subscription-based series showing you exactly how, starting with short-term rental, cleanings, hosting and co-hosting. I've done it myself with my own proof of concept Vellum and Vine Hospitality Company right on Facebook and on the web, and now I'm sharing the playbook for just $7 a month. First episode lands in a week. Make sure you don't miss it. Welcome back, miss Jamie. Long time no seeing.

Speaker 2: 2:59

Yeah, we have some busy days, don't we?

Speaker 1: 3:05

Yes, we do. It's interesting to go through the motions and get things done. Today we're going to talk about whether you should keep your shoes on or off inside of a client's home. I've seen this topic come up on more than one occasion, especially in the last two to three weeks. I thought we would cover the topic, discuss the pros and cons, the safety features. I know we've probably mentioned in live somewhere I don't recall because of how much content we both put out, of how much content we both put out but I felt it was important for you to consider if you were going to do barefoot or not, booty or not, or you're just going to wear shoes.

Speaker 1: 3:44

There there are a couple of people client-wise and it's always. It's never brought up beforehand, it's just expected. So you're always and I hate to say this you're always caught with your pants down when this goes on, always. It's always a surprise. By the way, we have this thing and you're like, you're at their door and you're trying to figure out do I want to keep this client, do I not want to keep this client?

Speaker 1: 4:07

And the cleaning tech's like well, I didn't shower yesterday and I partied pretty hard last night. Or, oh my gosh, I didn't get a mani pedi, or there's all of this other psychological things. Are my feet ugly? Are my feet cute? There's a lot to the psychology behind cleaning barefoot or not. And you really, and if anyone's learned anything from me, it's the try not to overexpose yourself to chemicals. It does have long-term effects. I've mentioned on more than one occasion I'm hypersensitive to smells, like if you and I sat down at a chamber meeting and you were wearing a lot of perfume that I could not handle, or scented candles or plug-in air fresheners. I cannot tolerate it anymore because of my exposure in the industry and even that was I wore gloves, it just got more and more sensitive as the years, as we get older right.

Speaker 1: 5:03

Right. You get more and more sensitive as you get older and our exposure is higher than the, than the clients. The clients don't know what they're doing nine times out of 10. They're overusing product, as we've all seen from Bona, as we've all seen from Bona. Thank you, Bona. What's the other one? The Swiffer? You know those are both chemical products.

Speaker 2: 5:23

The news? Did you see the new ones where it goes up over the baseboards and I?

Speaker 1: 5:28

was like well, this is great, but it's still a chemical wash. And they always in the Bona. I don't know if they still do it. It's been a while since I've been, I've bought Bona or looked at any advertisement. But Bona, I don't know if they still do it. It's been a while since I've been, I've bought Bona or looked at any advertisement, but Bona always has the picture where you can walk barefoot on your floor. That's the psychology and you're, you're putting, if, especially if it's wet, you're putting chemical on your body by walking across that floor, your pants are putting chemicals on their paws and no one's giving them a bath. They're licking it off, so they're ingesting that chemical which we really don't know what the long-term effects are. So do yourself a favor and I know if you're Bona or Swiffer, you're probably going to hate on me, but this is my opinion it's good to limit your exposure to all of the chemicals that we're exposed to. I mean, we even have scented trash bags now.

Speaker 2: 6:26

Right, but it's like horrible too. I mean I've smelled worse throwing some of the trash away that we've thrown away.

Speaker 1: 6:29

You know Right, but you really need to have scented trash bags.

Speaker 2: 6:31

No, no, we don't. And I will say this If you are a professional cleaner I know a lot of if you have employees, go through your insurance and your work comp and OSHA Mm-hmm, and make sure that you are following those guidelines of whatever is imposed. We cannot allow that. And, and I'm sorry, but booties on the feet if you walk on a certain surface, they're really slippery. No, it's right on carpet, right on carpet, cool. But whenever you have to put it on because of the carpet to get to the bathroom and then try to clean the bathroom, why, you know, with no, no, just shower head and using a cup, it's so, so extra it's, it's extra work to clean barefooted.

Speaker 1: 7:39

It really is. You're exposing yourself to more chemicals but you're they don't. The client doesn't realize that you are like when they say you don't need to mop. I had someone mop it the other day and you're just like dude, I still have to get your bathroom floor wet because it's going to drip Right. Whatever I'm using to rinse off the chemical inside of your shower is invariably going to drip, right. Whatever I'm using to rinse off the chemical inside of your shower is invariably going to drip all over that floor that you just paid someone to mop. So I'm going to have to remop it and you are exposing yourself to extra chemical if you're not.

Speaker 1: 8:08

Before COVID we had a couple of clients that we did it for. They were legacy clients, right, and everyone knew I provided booties. This is when I had w2s, that's how long ago it was and it is a safety thing. But they don't realize that you're actually dragging that water from inside the shower because it's on the bottom of the booty right into the other parts of the home because it's not going to dry immediately and then you're, technically, you're walking wet across the carpet. If you do that, then there's the potential of damage, because what if that chemical didn't rinse off all the way and you step on the carpet, then you've cross-contaminated the carpet and you possibly have exposed that carpet to a chemical that will cause damage. So do you see where I'm going with this? I'm hearing you.

Speaker 2: 8:56

I'm hearing you, rachel Shannon? Yes, no it. Uh. We have one client and I. I took this client on. They explained to me but, as time has gone on, explained to me, but as time has gone on, they explained that they wanted booties Not downstairs but on the upstairs. And, as time has gone on, they're literally watching me, or my employees, because I don't do it. I was there for the first clean. I'm usually always there for the first clean. I'm not so much anymore. I'm Not so much anymore. I'm not so much anymore. I've completely taken myself off the schedule. I don't even show up as a Thank you, jamie, for can see the wheels turning.

Speaker 2: 10:10

Why am I having them wear booties whenever they are cleaning up? They're backing out and cleaning whatever. They just walked on. It just it made. No, it really was no Kind of redundant.

Speaker 2: 10:24

And you know, I also see a lot of solo cleaners that own their own business, that are totally legit with the insurance and everything. They'll use their indoor shoes. In my company, I do. You know you have to have you. You got to be pressed looking professional. You got to wear my company shirts. You have to wear your apron. These are things that I have. These are tools, and shoes are one of them and, just like with anywhere that you work shoes, you need to have the non-slip, because we're in showers a lot of the time and, trust me, I've been there, I've done it, I've gotten my hands dirty.

Speaker 2: 11:14

You know, I'm not just sitting back anymore just doing podcasting. I still run the business and, yeah, the booty thing, I do supply them. They are there if they want to use them. I've even had the, the. My employees stash some of our own booties at the at that home, just in case you know, just like, hey, we're doing it, but I, I don't know how, I don't know how I feel about that. And and do you take on a client? Like you know, do you take on a client? I mean, because this cause, this client is, you know, this is a $400 every two week client. You know you really want to.

Speaker 1: 12:04

Well, I think it is, and it goes back to remember when we talked to white Rhino and she was talking about there's two different experiences in commercial cleaning. There's occupied and unoccupied. I think there's two different experiences from cleaning with booties on and cleaning without booties on and or shoes. Cleaning barefoot causes a lot of issues. You're exposing yourself to chemicals more than you would so the other way there's a slip and fall issue. Then there's this weird dynamic of can I catch something from the floor, even though I put chemical down to kill everything? Because there's that going on. And so it becomes this whole weird dynamic of I don't want any dirt in my house, but I want you to come clean my house. So it's it's. It's a weird. It puts a weird energy fix onto things.

Speaker 1: 12:53

If it's something that you're doing and you're considering, I would love to hear from you on your reasons why you do it. I did it for a long time and then COVID happened and it's if we actually say this now. I'm really sorry, but we cannot clean and bare feet any longer. It's a safety thing, and it's also a safety thing for their health. I don't really know. We have too many cases now and I get it because I have a senior community where people have MRSA or any of the other crazy things that are highly contagious, that are not easy to fight off in your own immune system, and you're exposing yourself unnecessarily to cooties, so to speak, that you wouldn't normally have to had you kept your shoes on and or wore booties. So we just say it's a safety thing and if they get really like persistent, we'll obligate to booties and the cleaning tech knows. But I'm charging them extra for that and because I work with 1099s, I'm giving them that extra that I'm charging because they're the ones having to go through the hassle of that.

Speaker 1: 13:56

If you're W2s, it should be something that you provide, like gloves. That's where I stand on that. But if you, if you're W2s, it should be something that you provide, like gloves. That's where I stand on that. But if you decide whether you're going to do it or not, it is totally a safety thing. You're exposing yourself to more and you don't want to inadvertently expose yourself to some of the cooties that are going around. We won't go into all of the. I don't want to scare you. I worked in the food industry for a long, long time and when I trained servers I used to tell them did you grab these by the rim, did you wash your hands? And they'd be like why do I have to wash my hands? I'm like do you know that you can catch hepatitis off the edge of a glass? And they're like what so you? Because no one's going to say at the restaurant, hi, I have hepatitis, handle my glass different. Right, they're just going to drink water like everybody else.

Speaker 2: 14:43

So hep B is very easy to get, a little, a lot easier than the C.

Speaker 1: 14:51

Um, my mom and dad both had B and C, so it's really crazy, like when I was ski patrol, we had to get vaccinated for hepatitis C every year and I remember my arm felt like it was going to fall off for three whole weeks. I was just like, yeah, these are things to consider when you're going to decide whether you should clean their shoes on and off. And now a message from our sponsor. Welcome to Pelican Brand Cleaning Products from Longs Products in Louisiana, trusted by cleaning professionals nationwide. From our bold pink fuchsia cloths to the always reliable Housekeeper no 1, the powerful Quick-C Cleaner and our classic Pine Oil 80, we deliver the tools you need to clean smarter, faster and better. Pelican brand where quality meets clean. Look for all that info in the show notes.

Speaker 2: 15:52

Feel that they need to change shoes or put different booties or work barefoot. Maybe look through your insurance and read up on definitely, and it says I'm referring to my notes.

Speaker 1: 16:07

It says why some clients expect shoe removal and how to handle it gracefully. So a lot of people feel there's a cootie factor in their mind, right. They feel that because we've been in someone and then this happens, they feel that because we've been in other homes or your own home that you're inadvertently bringing in cooties, there's that factor right. Then there's the okay, she lives out in the sticks. I don't want her bringing dirt in my home. And in reality, if you live out in the sticks and the dirt I live in Arizona, it's just part of life, it's just what it is Right. So you could inadvertently be bringing dirt in that way. So if you are not wanting to comply with it, you could say no, we won't do that. You could provide booties or you could bring in a pair of cleaning shoes just for them.

Speaker 1: 16:52

We've had people in the past who've requested that they only that only pair of shoes and we've made the client pay for those shoes that we didn't make the cleaning tech pay for an expense.

Speaker 1: 17:03

So they that their client reimbursed them up to I think it was like 75 dollars I thought was a fair price, right, so the cleaner would go because they're spending their time getting the shoes. Now you can just go right to amazon and they would be reimbursed 75 dollars. So and and I would not do that through any of my payroll because I didn't want them to pay taxes on, and I always made sure that the client reimbursed the cleaner and those shoes were kept, like in a bag in the hall closet that way because in case because people's minds start to go around about does she take those shoes and use them in someone else's house, and they just left them in the in the cloak closet. So when they got there they were sitting there in a plastic bag. They were able to change off their shoes real quick and it was an easy peasy thing right, that's a good.

Speaker 2: 17:49

I like that right I'm right.

Speaker 1: 17:52

and then it says safety and liability concerns. We kind of touched on that. Refer to your insurance policy, and you guys know how I feel about you having insurance, and OSHA is always a good place. Try not to ask a lot of questions at OSHA. It's kind of like walking on a frozen lake you don't know where the ice is, I'm sure.

Speaker 2: 18:13

I'm already asking those questions.

Speaker 1: 18:16

Right? Did you have someone fall Right? It's this whole dynamic and one day maybe we'll have an OSHA person on here, I don't know, but just keep in mind that they're taking notes and writing names. There's alternatives to going barefoot. As we mentioned, you can wear booties barefooted, you could have indoor shoes, you could put booties on your shoes. Just know that it's a whole safety thing because you have more of a probability of slipping and falling. And I know some hardcore gentlemen who have carpet cleaning and floor resurfacing and they wear booties. But those guys are not in and out of showers, running all over the house doing their thing. It's a very slow and methodical thing for those carpet cleaners to be doing that and it's a nicer presentation, totally get it. But it is a hassle for the cleaning tech to run around in those.

Speaker 2: 19:22

I know it's great for marketing too.

Speaker 1: 19:25

It is.

Speaker 2: 19:25

It's great for marketing and psychologically for the client, that's a good.

Speaker 1: 19:30

And then setting professional standards and communicating it clearly, since I'm having a problem enunciating okay, this could be mentioned in your onboarding paperwork. You know, if you require or you could not bring it up, it depends on where you want to go. If you start to have a lot of requests, then that might be something that you want to add into your paperwork. I'm due to the recent world events of COVID. We no longer will clean barefoot in your home. If this is an expectation we are unable to meet that expectation, please call the office to discuss and then you can go on. Your spiel is a good way to handle it and again, you can do the shoe thing, the reimbursement, that type of thing, and then ways to balance client satisfaction for your team's comfort and safety. I think we've kind of covered that question on notes. What do you think, Jamie? I do.

Speaker 2: 20:23

No, I actually, as we're talking about this, I'm just thinking in my head. I wrote down need to update onboarding and I do. I need to go back through it. I think that is a good idea, that maybe I don't know how often we should be looking at our onboarding. Our contract it's really a contract, so our contracts or for me it's in Jobber, everything is in Jobber. Well, since I've looked at mine too, I probably should, so I need to update it and it's great, because all you do is just add that in there and then it'll say how do you want to sound professional? So I push professional and it just spits it out. And do you want to apply this to all people that you apply this to, like quotes for? And because all quotes that go out out, they have to look at that over and sign it. I would love for them to have to like check mark it or it's not that sophisticated.

Speaker 1: 21:34

Maybe one day well, I don't know if you bother listening to the podcast, let us know product update in jobber and it's on the 25th.

Speaker 2: 21:43

I can't wait to see what they decided to go with. They have a lot of us testers it's called labs out here to try out products and then we give them our feedback of. So there's some things that are going away. But updating my, my, my intake to, to mention this, I won't have my employees putting I, you know, with the exception of the one house, and even they're starting to realize that that's like kind of silly to ask however, you know, if you do subject your cleaning techs to do it, I would charge the client more.

Speaker 1: 22:31

I would charge them on average seven to ten percent on top of what you're charging them to cover the expense of the booties. Yeah, and again I reiterate, I would give that directly to the cleaning tech, because, or a higher rate of pay while they're in that home, it's really a lot of. It's a lot of extra steps. And you know, we all know, that when we're out there cleaning you just get into the groove. Which side of the house am I going to start on today? I'm going to do the right side or I'm going to do the top level? I'm going to do the bottom level. You get into the groove and you just want to get in and out.

Speaker 1: 23:02

When you're dealing with the booty factor gotta laugh at my own joke you're dealing with other elements inside of that. So you have to take on the booties, off the booties. The booties get wet, then they get slippery and then you have to get a new pair of booties. So there's that whole dynamic of what to do and how to have safety protocols, because you don't really want a workman's comp claim. Workman's comp is a very tedious and arduous thing to have to deal with. There's lots of forms to fill out, lots of questions that get asked. You're subjecting yourself and your cleaning tech to lots of questions, and I get it. But you know, for safety reasons I think it's best just to kind of refrain, if at all possible, from having to wear booties, and it really has come up a lot in the groups lately.

Speaker 2: 23:47

So I thought that one of my, one of my employees, she does take. She has her off work shoes. She has a pair of cute little pink.

Speaker 1: 23:58

Crocs, crocs to work if they're not slippery and she puts it in by her rag bag.

Speaker 2: 24:05

She's got like a rag bag and then a little bucket that pops out and she throws them in, and then she'll go to the door and she'll switch out her Crocs for the ones that she only goes into homes and cleans with. So I mean, there's that aspect. I did not, you know, I didn't know. It was just as we were growing. I was like, oh, what is that that you're doing? She's like oh, I just I change my shoes whenever I go into the client's home.

Speaker 1: 24:41

I'm like, oh, and that works great. But if you have a large team, as we see, a lot of people I mean the cleaning industry is slated to do it.

Speaker 2: 24:50

Oh it's having 16 employees anymore is just normal, almost nowadays Almost.

Speaker 1: 24:59

So just things to consider. We would love to hear your questions and or responses to whether you actually make your cleaning techs go barefoot or not. I would try to avoid it only because of the ick factor and the diseases that we seem to be exposed to more so than ever before, because reality is we don't want to catch it and bring it home to our families, right? And there's the whole cross-contamination thing. I remember this was a while ago, I want to say probably a decade ago. It was Doctors Without Borders. You remember that story. Yeah, she came back from another country and she had some sort of contagious thing and she was in either Washington DC, it was on the East Coast somewhere, and they contaminated. They had to like contain her in her unit and she's like I'm not staying home and everyone's like freaking out. And I remember the Ebola it was.

Speaker 2: 25:54

Ebola or something. Something was getting ready to go, or the monkey pox or something. It was something.

Speaker 1: 26:02

And it was highly contagious. So they tried to contain this, this one doctor, and the doctor flipped him the bird and said I'm not staying home, there's nothing wrong with me, but the reality is it put a lot of fear in people and I remember watching the interview with the cleaner, the the cleaning business owner, and they were talking about the price of the job and how much it was going to cost and what kind of labor it was, and I was just like that's above my at that time. Um, this was, you know, 10 years ago. Like this was above my pay grade. I don't want to have a conversation if someone dies, I'm like nope, I'm not pat. If someone, if that came in my, if that job, that a hundred thousand dollar job or whatever it was landing in my lap, I don't know if I was comfortable at that point in my life to step into the role that this guy did to get the a hundred thousand dollars, Cause I was like if you, it was so whatever it was was so contagious that if a glove ripped or something crazy they would get contaminated and they could die. I'm like Nope, you just you don't know what, you don't know.

Speaker 1: 27:02

And there are cooties everywhere and our immune systems are these great, wonderful things, but sometimes there's icky cooties that our immune systems are not prepared to fight back, and it's good to protect yourself, and how you do that is by wearing shoes. Wearing indoor shoes, just for that home wearing, you know, wearing gloves, all the normal stuff. Wearing gloves, all the normal stuff, but just things to consider for when you're actually you have that. Well, I need them to clean barefoot and, like I said, it always is on the front porch when you're having to have the conversation and you're on speakerphone and the client has to listen to you go I'm not sure. So, rather than have a not I'm sure moment, then this will hopefully prepare you for that conversation that you eventually might have to have yeah, I we're, I'm gonna have this conversation.

Speaker 2: 27:54

This is a good conversation to have right now. I love whenever we do these because it's just, it gives me such a reminder of yep, let's go back and look this over. So I'm running right alongside of everybody else and you know if you guys, if you, the listeners, are getting a lot of value out of this, leave us a five-star review so that we can start reaching more cleaners out there and let them, you know, know, let them hear the good news that we have to, especially with me learning right alongside every everybody. You know Shannon's been there, done that, sorry, sam, for years, for years. Crazy, yeah, I know Great.

Speaker 1: 28:44

Crazy. Well, thanks for joining me. Ladies and gentlemen, Thanks for tuning in. We always appreciate your feedback. Don't forget to like and share our podcast. We love you. See you next time. Bye.

Speaker 2: 28:57

Bye.