Empowering the Next Generation of Leaders in the Most Unlikely Industry

Flexibility Is Caring

Kristen’s decision to hire students was more about wanting to work with people her own age than anything else. She quickly discovered that working around school schedules is hard, especially when you also have to consider your customers’ preferences for cleaning appointment times. But because Kristen was a student herself, she understood that school came first, no matter what, so she had to be flexible.

Agreeing to work around classes, extracurriculars, and exams had an unintended benefit: The students loved it. If they’d ever had a job before, they hadn’t had one that offered so much flexibility and understanding when it came to the hours they were available to work.

Even if the pay was less than other part-time jobs they could get in Gainesville, they would choose Student Maid because the flexible scheduling made them feel like their employer actually cared about them. It was one of the first examples of our company and its leader putting people first.

Core Values as Guidelines for Making Decisions

Kristen started Student Maid with no leadership or business experience outside of what she learned as a finance major at the University of Florida. Most of what she needed to know as a CEO she learned by actually doing it (and messing up a lot, which is the theme of her book, Permission to Screw Up: How I Learned to Lead by Doing (Almost) Everything Wrong). Everything else she learned by reading every book about leadership she could get her hands on.

One of those books was Delivering Happiness by Zappos founder Tony Hsieh. In it, Hsieh talks about how core values aren’t just words on a wall; they can be a powerful guide for decision-making within your company. When Kristen read it, Student Maid didn’t have core values, so she asked the students for ideas, and within a couple weeks, they had narrowed down the suggestions to 10 values.

Before the values, if a student faced a problem while out cleaning houses, they would have called Kristen and asked for help. But now, Kristen simply told them, “As long as your solution is in line with our values, it’s OK with me.” It put the power in their hands, and it made them feel trusted, capable, and empowered.

The Ripple Effect

A few years after Kristen started Student Maid, something interesting began to happen: She started to hear from former team members who had moved on from the company after they graduated from college. Some of them were simple, sweet messages: “I miss you! Hope you’re doing great!” But others were something more. “Thank you,” they said. “Because you put your trust in me, it helped me trust myself and become more confident. Now, I feel more confident in my new job.” One Student Maid alum who started his own business told Kristen that he modeled his company’s core values and culture after Student Maid’s. The result was that his employees preferred working for him over similar businesses nearby.

It was a light bulb moment for the Student Maid leadership team. We saw the tangible ways we could impact people, and it made us want to see how else we could enrich the Student Maid experience.

The Workshop

In 2015, Kristen got invited to attend a workshop called “Listen Like A Leader” put on by Barry-Wehmiller University, the educational arm of a multibillion-dollar capital equipment and engineering company. The workshop is a course about communication that is known for drastically improving the interpersonal relationships of Barry-Wehmiller’s employees at work and at home. The experience was life-changing for Kristen. She knew she had to figure out how to bring this workshop to Student Maid.

A few months later, with Barry-Wehmiller’s blessing, she created a workshop for Student Maid that included learning the “FBI” (feeling, behavior, impact) method for giving feedback, a listening exercise, and 2 modes of deep self-discovery and reflection: DISC analysis and a strengths assessment. She decided that it would be mandatory for each person at Student Maid to go through the workshop, and, of course, they would be paid to do so.

The results were dramatic. For starters, the FBI feedback method ensured that everyone at Student Maid knew how to deliver specific, meaningful feedback—good and bad. It made face-to-face confrontation (the only kind allowed at Student Maid) less daunting for people who grew up communicating behind screens. Students took what they learned and used it to start difficult conversations with their families. One even spoke to his parents for the first time in months after a falling out. And now that the students could put their strengths into words, they were better prepared to write strong cover letters and advocate for themselves in job interviews when they moved on from Student Maid.

A Culture of Learning and Growth

Soon after we instituted the workshop, the leadership team went through Simon Sinek’s “Find Your Why” exercise. The exercise is meant to help organizations solidify their purpose because, as Sinek says, “People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.” The statement we came up with was, “We empower our students to try so that they can transcend their limits.”

The why statement brought together what Student Maid had always been—a supportive work environment with a fun, welcoming culture—with what it aspired to be: a company that pushes people to become the best they can be at whatever they do. With our why defined, our next job was making sure everything in the company, from our hiring process to our website to our employee handbook, matched it.

We started with The Line. For Student Maid team members, “standing at The Line” means they are showing up to work every day with the intention of making good choices, following the core values, and growing personally. For the leadership team, it means we will support team members’ growth, lead with compassion, and ensure a successful, enriching experience for everyone at Student Maid. If team members (or the leadership team) fail or are not willing to stand at The Line, that’s an indication that they should no longer be part of the team.

The Line became the basis of a new version of our employee handbook, called The Guidebook, which focuses on illuminating paths to success instead of listing the consequences of failure to comply. The new Guidebook also outlined the Accountability Action Plan (AAP), a 4-step process for holding team members accountable when they make mistakes. The AAP is designed to get students to buy into their own accountability by empowering them to come up with reasonable consequences for their mistakes and an action plan for ensuring those mistakes don’t happen again. But they don’t do it alone: The leadership team provides guidance and support throughout the process. Our hope is that the students learn from the experience and from their failures, just like Kristen did on her journey to creating Student Maid.

The Ambassador Program

The Ambassador Program was born out of necessity. The Chief of Student Maid, Amanda, wanted to move to Portland, Oregon, to be with her family. Amanda didn’t want to leave Student Maid; she wanted to do her job remotely. The problem was that some parts of her job just weren’t possible to do from 3000 miles and 3 time zones away.

We had to make a choice: Did we hire someone new to handle the operations in Gainesville, which comes with a steep learning curve and a long training process, or did we try something completely new?

We decided to kill 2 birds with one stone. The students had long been asking for opportunities to do something besides cleaning at Student Maid. What better opportunity could there be than learning how to run the business?

The Ambassador Program wasn’t just the answer to Amanda’s move. It was a missing puzzle piece. Putting the daily operations of the business—interacting with clients, hiring and training new team members, tracking finances, and so on—in students’ hands meant giving them invaluable, hands-on management and leadership experience. It gave the premise of the workshop—promoting students’ learning and growth—a tangible, real-world application.

Now, once a year, students can apply to be part of 1 of the 4 Ambassador Teams: Operations, Recruitment, Training, and Culture. Then, the leadership team selects new Ambassadors based on the applicants’ interviews and on how well their unique strengths fit the roles available. If an applicant is not selected, we tell them why, and we give them specific things to work on so they have a better chance of being selected the next time around.

Amanda serves as the Ambassadors’ coach and “safety net” of sorts, training them on the different aspects of their new jobs, guiding them through tough problems, and encouraging them to capitalize on their strengths and overcome their weaknesses. The program is as big a benefit to the Ambassadors as it is to the company: With so many students helping things run smoothly, Amanda and the rest of the leadership team can focus on growing the company.

Student Maid’s evolution from a 1-woman cleaning business to a purpose-driven company stemmed from our belief that employers can have a profound impact on their people. We believe that when you invest in people, you aren’t just supporting their growth; you’re making them feel cared for.

Sixty-six percent of the working world is disengaged in their jobs. ¹ Work-related stress, illness, and incidents are the fifth leading cause of death in the United States. ² And a lot of it boils down to poor leadership and companies that treat their people like numbers.

Student Maid is out to change that. We believe you don’t have to love the work you do in order to be happy at and fulfilled by a job. (No amount of encouragement will make you love cleaning toilets.) You just need to know that your employer cares about you and wants you to succeed. Student Maid team members are not afraid to talk to their leaders about what’s going on in their lives. They make deep, meaningful friendships with the people they work with. They bring their best to work because they understand that there’s someone on the other side who appreciates and recognizes them for their effort.

As Student Maid continues to evolve, one thing remains the same: We are committed to learning, growing, and continuing to figure out how to be the best employer we can be.