Why Mentorship Programs Fail in Sanitation (and What StartKleen Did Differently)
How Dos Amigos builds belonging, reduces first-week turnover and makes smaller, but more efficient crews.
TL;DR
StartKleen’s Dos Amigos program reduces first-week turnover in contract sanitation by pairing new hires with mentors selected for genuine enthusiasm over task mastery, running 120-day structured pairings with milestone check-ins and building crew cohesion.
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Task-Oriented Training Solves the Wrong Problem
Most mentorship programs start strong. Six months later, they’ve been quietly replaced by the rhythm of daily deadlines.
I’ve watched it happen. You launch a program, see early results and then the production schedule takes over. Deadlines are tight. Managers are moving fast. The program doesn’t disappear: it just stops mattering. That’s the version of mentorship that doesn’t work.
The version that works looks different from the start, and the difference shows up in who you pick as a mentor before anything else.
Standard onboarding checks the boxes. It doesn’t address what actually causes new hires to leave in contract sanitation. Your first night on a sanitation floor is loud, wet and unfamiliar. You walk into a break room full of people who’ve been there for years. Nobody introduces themselves. You don’t know where the locker room is. You don’t know where to take a break. You’re wondering what you got yourself into before the shift even starts.
A mentor who walks you through the first hour, answers the basic questions and makes you feel like you belong. That’s what changes whether someone comes back for day two.
Wade Becraft, Regional Manager at StartKleen, says other companies treat retention as a training problem. It isn’t.
It’s not a training program. I can’t train somebody that doesn’t stay past three days because they’re not comfortable inside of the building. We’re training people because we’re retaining them.
Wade Becraft, Regional Manager, StartKleen
Why Programs Get Diluted
The structure of Dos Amigos isn’t what erodes. Buy-in is what erodes, and once it goes, the structure keeps running while quietly doing less.
Dos Amigos runs through five tiers: mentee, mentor, advisor, coach and program lead. I came through the program myself as a mentee, became a mentor and then moved into an advisor role before becoming Area Manager. I’ve seen the program function well and I’ve seen it lose momentum.
What causes the momentum loss isn’t usually one failure. It’s the accumulation of days where the program was technically running but nobody was reinforcing why it mattered. Fast-paced facilities have production deadlines that make everything else feel secondary. Mentors stay in their roles but stop being intentional. The program becomes paperwork.
My colleague Coyt and I found exactly this when we decided to refresh the Dos Amigos rollout at our facilities. The structure was right. The buy-in had eroded. Getting it back meant going to the beginning of the selection process and rebuilding it.
What We Actually Look for in a Mentor
The most common mistake in mentor selection is picking the best worker on the floor. That person and the right mentor are rarely the same.
High performers are focused on output. That’s what makes them good at the work. What makes someone a good mentor is something different: they’re focused on people.
When Coyt and I rebuilt the selection criteria, we stopped asking who was most skilled and started asking who was genuinely happy to be there. We wanted the people who really enjoyed coming to work, regardless of what we were doing that night. People who were excited to be part of the team. That joy, that excitement: we wanted that to rub off on new hires.
The selection process now involves a recommendation from a supervisor or lead, a conversation with the site manager and an interview. We’re not looking for task mastery. We’re looking for someone who will ask a new hire how they’re doing, whether they got enough rest and whether they brought a change of clothes because the floor is going to be wet tonight. The things no checklist covers.
The goal isn’t someone who can teach the job. It’s someone who will help that person grow, even if they don’t stay with us. If someone decides this job isn’t for them, they should leave with enough support and clarity to make that call themselves, not just disappear because nobody checked in.
What Happens After 120 Days
The most durable outcome of Dos Amigos isn’t what happens during the program. It’s what happens after: the relationships continue and the team starts functioning differently.
The formal program runs 120 days, with check-ins at the 30, 60, 90 and 120-day milestones. Those check-ins happen with both the mentor and mentee separately, because what each person feels about the pairing is rarely what they’d say in front of the other. Mentors often think they’re doing worse than they are. Getting that information back to both sides is one of the most useful things an advisor does.
Workers who went through Dos Amigos together tend to operate as genuine teammates rather than people defending their section of the floor. In sanitation, workers often draw an imaginary line around their area: this is my section, that’s yours and I’m not crossing that line even if you’re behind. Dos Amigos breaks that pattern. The bond formed over 120 days creates a habit of mutual support that outlasts the program itself.
Wade Becraft has watched it show up in client conversations. StartKleen regularly bids 45-person crews for work that facilities had been running with 60. Clients push back every time.
We come in and we’re at 45 people and the customer says there’s no way. But once the crew is on one page, fighting for one team, efficiency goes way up. I’ve had clients tell me they were watching the camera and had never seen a crew move like that, going through the facility in sequence, checking on one another. I’ve never seen that happen before. That’s the teamwork you build with Dos Amigos.
Wade Becraft, Regional Manager, StartKleen
Keeping the Program Alive
The hardest part of running Dos Amigos isn’t launching it. It’s keeping it from becoming background noise.
Our answer is periodic refreshes: going back to mentors, reminding them of what the program is for and why it matters. Not audits, not recertification, just bringing the purpose back into focus before the daily grind pushes it aside again.
Mentors can also take attrition personally, especially early on. If someone quits during their first 30 days, a mentor who invested in that person can feel like they failed. Part of the advisor role is providing context and keeping the mentor engaged. If a mentor needs a break, we have a path for that too: we pause them from active mentoring and bring them back when they’re ready.
A stable team is a more effective team. The program only delivers that if the people running it stay invested in what they’re doing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about StartKleen’s Dos Amigos mentorship program and what makes it work.
How do you choose the right mentors for a contract sanitation training program?
At StartKleen, mentor selection involves a recommendation from a supervisor or lead, a conversation with the site manager and an interview with a program advisor. The criteria prioritize genuine enthusiasm and a people-first mindset over job performance. What the program needs is someone who will make a new hire feel like they belong, not someone who can clean the most area in a shift.
What makes StartKleen’s Dos Amigos program different from standard trainer assignment?
Standard trainer assignment is task-focused: here’s your station, here’s the process, here are the steps. Dos Amigos is built around comfort and acclimation first. The first priority is making new hires feel less lost on a challenging floor, with task training following once that foundation is in place.
How do you prevent a mentorship program from losing momentum over time?
At StartKleen, the answer is advisor check-ins at 30, 60, 90 and 120-day milestones with both the mentor and mentee separately, plus intentional refreshes to bring the program’s purpose back into focus before complacency sets in. The structure doesn’t maintain itself.
What retention outcomes has StartKleen seen from Dos Amigos?
The most significant outcome has been the drop in turnover in a line of work where most new hires don’t make it past the first week or 30 days. StartKleen also regularly bids 45-person crews for jobs that facilities previously ran with 60, with the efficiency gain coming from team cohesion rather than increased workload per person.
How long do Dos Amigos mentors typically stay in their role?
Most mentors stay in the role as long as they hold the same position. If a mentor is promoted, a replacement is selected. This continuity is one reason the selection process is treated as a priority from the start: you want someone who genuinely wants the role, not someone assigned to it.
About the Company
StartKleen is a founder-led, third-generation food safety business headquartered in Gunter, Texas. We provide turnkey contract sanitation, chemistry solutions and food safety training to 200+ USDA and FDA-regulated food processing facilities across the U.S. With 30+ years of combined leadership experience, 1,500+ team members and a 97% client retention rate, we deliver consistent, audit-ready sanitation backed by a culture of mentorship, accountability and pride.
Learn more at startkleen.com.
About the Author
[AUTHOR BIO NEEDED: Jose Vargas, a Regional Manager with Startkleen assigned to the Western Region. Jose oversees 11 plants in three different states. He has been with Startkleen for three years and serves as a Dos Amigos Advisor, in the mentorship program. ]
Methodology
This article reflects Jose Vargas’s professional experience managing the Dos Amigos mentorship program across multiple StartKleen food processing facilities. Workforce outcomes cited, including crew-size comparisons and mentee progression patterns, reflect operational experience across StartKleen’s plant network.