When organisations such as yours consider psychosocial hazards (things that make workers feel stressed, unsafe, or undervalued), if you discuss them at all, you likely think about them within the context of your own employees—your office staff, your frontline workers, your management teams. As a result, you’ve probably got policies in place, maybe even a dedicated HR team, who is tasked with making sure your people feel supported, respected, and safe at work.
But what about the cleaners who come into your site every night?
The ones you don’t see, the ones who get the job done before your day even starts? Have you ever once thought about whether they’re being treated fairly? Because if you haven’t—well, you’re not alone. Most businesses don’t. And that’s exactly the problem.
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Commercial cleaning has some of the worst working conditions out there. Cleaners are often given unrealistic workloads with impossible timeframes, left without proper training, and supplied with poor equipment that makes their job harder than it should be. Many work in isolation, late at night, with no support if something goes wrong. Some deal with verbal abuse from clients who expect a higher standard of cleaning, while others face bullying and intimidation from the very companies that hired them.
The biggest reason this happens?
Sham contracting.
But more on that shortly.
In this article, we’re going to cover what psychosocial hazards are, how they manifest in commercial cleaning through sham contracting and poor working conditions, and how that directly impacts the quality of cleaning your organisation receives. Because at the end of the day, a cleaning service is only as good as the people delivering it. And if those people are struggling, the service you’re paying for will, too.
SafeWork Australia defines psychosocial hazards as anything in the workplace that can cause psychological harm—things like stress, anxiety, or even physical injury due to ongoing strain. (I've listed each of them below.) These hazards don’t just make a job harder; they create serious risks for workers’ well-being.
Now, when most people think about psychosocial hazards, they probably picture high-pressure corporate environments, frontline workers dealing with aggressive customers, or industries where there’s a physical danger involved. But in commercial cleaning, psychosocial hazards aren’t just present—they’re baked into the way most of the industry operates.
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And the biggest reason? Sham contracting.
I’ve seen it time and time again. Cleaners working under sham contracting arrangements aren’t just underpaid—they’re put in working conditions that violate nearly every psychosocial safety principle. They’re given too much work, not enough time, no support, no training, and no security. They work alone, often overnight, in physically demanding environments with no oversight or protection. And when something goes wrong—whether it’s poor cleaning results, a compliance failure, or an injury—they get blamed.
If you look at the official list of psychosocial hazards, you can see how every single one of them plays out under sham contracting:
And let’s be clear—when psychosocial hazards are ignored, they don’t just make life miserable for cleaners. They directly affect the service businesses like yours receive. An overworked, unsupported cleaner cannot provide high-quality cleaning. And when that happens, it’s not just compliance that suffers—it’s the entire standard of cleanliness in your workplace.
I was lucky—I was an actual employee, not a contractor—but that didn’t stop me from being exposed to some serious psychosocial hazards. My training consisted of a five-minute walkthrough with a supervisor at 5 a.m. on my first day. They showed me the cleaner’s room, pointed out a few areas I was supposed to clean, and then left the site. That was it. I never saw that supervisor again. Not once.
For the next three and a half months, I was completely on my own. I had no idea how to properly clean a toilet or a urinal. I didn’t even know how to use half the equipment I was supposed to operate. I burnt myself with chemicals because no one had shown me how to use them safely. And then, on top of all that, I was copping abuse from customers and shopping centre tenants who weren’t happy with my work.
And why weren’t they happy? Because I had no clue what I was doing.
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I stuck it out because I needed the job, but I still remember it to this day—nearly four decades later. That’s how much of an impact poor working conditions can have. And I was an employee. Imagine how much worse it is for the cleaners today who aren’t even given the basic protections of employment.
I've said this for years.
And the opposite is just as true. If a cleaner is stressed, underpaid, rushed, and unsupported, it will show up in one way—the quality of cleaning delivered to your site.
Picture this. You’ve got a cleaner who’s been hired under a sham contracting arrangement. They’re being underpaid. They’ve been given two hours to do what should take four. They haven’t been properly trained. They don’t have the right equipment or supplies. They get no follow-up from their cleaning company, no support, no accountability. They’re completely on their own.
Now, imagine that same cleaner turning up to your site tonight. Are they going to do a thorough, detailed clean? Are they going to go the extra mile to make sure everything is done to standard? Or are they just going to do the bare minimum to get through the shift?
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That’s the reality of what happens when psychosocial hazards are ignored. Cleaners who are overworked and unsupported don’t have the capacity to care about the outcome. Corners get cut. Bins get missed. Surfaces don’t get sanitised properly. Compliance becomes a massive risk.
And then, when an issue arises—when an ESG auditor comes in, or when there’s a complaint about the cleanliness of your site—the cleaning company won’t have answers. Because they don’t know what’s happening on-site either. This is what businesses need to understand. The quality of your cleaning service is a direct reflection of how the cleaning staff are treated. If your provider isn’t looking after their cleaners, you’re not going to get a high-quality, reliable service.
These issues exist between the cleaning company and the cleaner, right? And look, I get it. Of course, you don’t want people to be mistreated. No one sets out to support exploitation. At the same time, what are you really supposed to do? You’re just trying to get your site cleaned—not run an investigation into their business practices.
But let me ask you this—who hired the cleaning company? Who decided which provider would be responsible for keeping your site clean? You did.
Too many say yes to the cheapest quote with a cleaner and assume responsibility ends there. When you choose a cleaning provider that relies on sham contracting, underpayment, and poor working conditions, you are supporting that system—whether you realise it or not. You might not be the one setting unfair workloads. You might not be the one underpaying the cleaner. But you are engaging the company that does.
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This isn’t just about business—it’s about people. The cleaners coming into your site every night aren’t just some outsourced service. They’re workers. They have families to support, rent to pay, and the same right to fair treatment as anyone else. And yet, most of the time, they’re invisible. You don’t see them. You don’t hear about their conditions. And that’s exactly why so many cleaning companies get away with sham contracting—because no one is paying attention.
If you wouldn’t accept these conditions for your own employees, why accept them for the people keeping your workplace clean?
If you want to know whether a cleaning provider understands psychosocial hazards, you don’t need a long checklist or a complicated audit process. You only need to ask them one question:
“Do you know what psychosocial hazards are?”
That’s it. One simple question. And I can tell you right now, 95% of cleaning companies out there won’t even know what the term means—let alone how to manage it. If they can’t answer that question confidently, then they are not taking worker well-being seriously.
🔎 Related: How to Evaluate the Accountability of Your Commercial Cleaner (+ Examples)Now, if they do know what psychosocial hazards are, there are a few follow-up questions that will tell you whether they’re actually doing something about it:
Most cleaning companies won’t pass this test. And if they don’t, you have to ask yourself—do you really want a provider that doesn’t care about the well-being of its own workers? Because if they’re cutting corners with their cleaners, they’re cutting corners with the service you’re paying for.
This goes beyond ticking compliance boxes or expecting better cleaning results. It’s about accountability. The provider you choose shows what kind of business you want to be. You can work with a company that treats its workers fairly, trains them properly, and delivers a service you can trust—or you can ignore the problem and hope for the best. But make no mistake—what you allow is what continues. So ask the hard questions. Because if your provider can’t answer them, then you already have your answer.
If you're interested in learning more on how to choose the correct commercial cleaning partner for your organisation, you can download our guide, 10 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Commercial Cleaning Company. Or you can contact us at any time with your questions, or to start a conversation about how we may be of service to you.