Hi Uriel. What do you do as the Director of Post-construction?
I deal with various areas such as project management, sales, and coordinating with contractors. I’m also involved with hiring employees, subcontractors, and teaching project managers and salespeople. And occasionally, I do executive presentations to maximize our potential as a company, specifically as a post-construction cleaning company.
What did you do before Total Cleaning? Did you work for another cleaning company?
No, my background was pretty unique. I was a regional manager for Home Depot Latin America in Chile and Argentina. I was one guy wearing five hats as part of a four-person team sent to open stores in South America. Overall, our job was to take Home Depot USA’s DNA and recreate it in Chile. Initially, I was asked to go for three months to hire local engineers, architects, installer subcontractors, store managers, assistant managers, and salespeople. When I finished my 3 Months, let’s call it a job; I was asked to stay for another three months. I then met with the company’s CEO, who asked if I could stay in South America for five or six years.
What brought you to Total Cleaning?
I ended up staying in Chile for nine more years but eventually decided I needed to return to the United States. I reached out to Total Cleaning, had an interview on Zoom, then, two months later, came to the United States for an in-person interview and was offered the job. It was a great opportunity because I had done a lot of construction, and one of my responsibilities was cleaning. Now that I’m in the operations part of post-construction cleaning at Total Cleaning, I see how much work goes into ensuring our customers are 100% satisfied.
What other skills do you think transferred over from your previous job to Total Cleaning?
My 25-plus years of experience in customer service. As mentioned, I worked for Home Depot, and they believe 1000% in customer service. Taking that mindset and expertise and bringing it to Total Cleaning was a very natural transition. When they do a job, I ensure that my teams get “100% satisfied” feedback from the client for their work. And since I was once a construction manager, I can talk with general contractors when I go to different job sites. General Contractors have their own language, and I know how to understand it and plan a cleaning schedule around what they’re doing.
What makes Total Cleaning different from other commercial cleaning companies?
When someone thinks about a cleaning company, they mainly think it’s a guy with a pickup truck, broom, and a mop just there to do the job. Total Cleaning is a corporation with directors, project managers, supervisors…a whole structure that allows us to give our customers much better results—really, a higher standard of cleaning.
What would you say to people looking for a job and considering a company like Total Cleaning?
I’ve worked for major corporations. I mean, you name it. I’ve been there. If I had met Total Cleaning 30 years ago, I would have been the happiest guy in the world. Why? Because besides being family-oriented, Total Cleaning cares about its employees. They empower the individual to make good decisions based on their experience. Not many companies allow you to make those decisions, and this company does. We work long hours, but at the end of the day, it’s fun. And individual titles aren’t important—we all start together and finish together—so that’s very unique.
What do you think makes employees stay long at Total Cleaning?
I think for some of the reasons I mentioned to you earlier. Total cleaning also gives people opportunities to grow within the company. Some people want to become directors…other people want to become supervisors…and some are happy cleaning every day. Whatever your career path within the company, Total Cleaning strives to make you happy with a good-paying salary and good benefits. The company’s leadership has an open-door policy, so everybody feels relaxed. There’s someone here in the office, a young lady, she’s extremely smart and started as a receptionist. Now she’s the assistant to the director of janitorial and in charge of the entire portfolio. I mean, that’s a great opportunity…like a master’s degree worth of real-world experience.
Do you have any hobbies or interests you want to share with us?
Sure! I love running. I’ve been doing half marathons just about my whole life. I just did a 5k for Total Cleaning and came in number 60 out of 450 Runners and number 3 for my age group. I’m 58 years old, so that’s not too bad. I also like tennis, and I love soccer. I just love sports in general.
Fantastic! Thanks for meeting with us, and thanks again for your time here will appreciate it.
No problem, anytime!