An experienced janitorial services vendor can assist facilities managers with yearly review tasks that may be costing your organization thousands of dollars a year in lost revenue and productivity.
Janitorial Services Tips for Facilities & Property Managers
With Spring nearing, the time for facilities maintenance and property management executives to review their current processes and procedures has arrived.
A recommended list of items to review are:
- Staff training and education.
- Cleaning procedures.
- The scheduling of significant repairs and cleaning tasks.
- Supply inventory, and;
- A review of organizational practices.
Training & Education
Proper training and education will improve worker and occupant safety while improving efficiency and bottom line expenditures.
Untrained custodial staff typically are not aware of several, potentially costly, health and safety aspects of commercial cleaning, including:
- Chemical lay times to achieve desired effectiveness.
- Safe product handling and disposal processes.
- Advanced equipment maintenance and handling, and, most importantly;
- Customer relations and interactions.
Take the time to mentor your junior custodial staff, on the job, while ensuring your senior workforce and management are abreast of emerging products, techniques, and technologies that could cost-effectively improve service delivery and customer satisfaction.
Cleaning Procedures
Proper cleaning procedures are a byproduct of correct training and up to date education standards.
Those standards should evolve to match the modern stance on sustainable and healthier practices, such as:
- Daytime cleaning to eliminate energy waste.
- Implementing touchless, chemical-free, or automated cleaning technologies.
- Integrated pest control and management procedures to eliminate toxic pesticides.
- Color-coded microfiber cleaning system adoption.
- Two-bucket cleaning system adoption.
- Electronic resource monitoring and alerting, such as IoT paper towel and soap dispenser systems, and;
- The use of team vs. space cleaning techniques.
Analyzing your current processes with your custodial staff will help identify pain points and areas of material and personnel resource waste.
Major Repairs & Tasks
Heavy winter storms have severely damaged roads and other infrastructure.
Additionally, ice melt used to protect pedestrians along hazardous walkways have likely damaged unprotected floors and carpets.
With the storms finally decreasing, it's time to:
- Replace HVAC filters with HEPA filters.
- Clean air ducts.
- Strip, scrub, wax, and treat hard floor and decorative concrete.
- Clean carpets.
- Introduce walkway and entry mat systems to protect newly cleaned carpets and flooring.
- Exterior facade and window washing, and;
- The parking lot and structure cleaning and repairs.
As the need for significant maintenance and repairs are considered, alongside the estimated costs, take the opportunity to investigate ways to protect your property investment, and how your custodial staff can assist.
Inventory Supplies
A review of the previous year's damage, as well as maintenance and repair requirements, should give you some idea as to your immediate inventory and purchasing needs.
As previously mentioned; now is the ideal time to review your current product purchasing and management policies and practices to see where inefficiencies, as well as healthier and safer business practices, can be identified.
- Consolidate product purchasing from a single vendor. Better yet, use this opportunity to find ways your building can adopt sustainable business practices.
- Additionally, take a moment to review current product labels and MSDS to ensure your building is not releasing toxic chemicals into the indoor and outdoor environment, and irreparably damaging the health of workers, building occupants, and the planet.
- Check cleaning equipment, especially electronic vacuums, scrubbers, and buffers to ensure they are operating at ideal levels, and run any manufacturer recommended maintenance.
Remember to recycle all outdated equipment and properly dispose of any unwanted chemicals and containers according to State and Federal Law.
Organizational Practices
Cleaning closets have an unfortunate tendency to become the filthiest space in a building.
This can lead to unsafe or unacceptable working conditions, as well as dangerously unhealthy cleaning practices.
Take to review:
- How equipment is stored to ascertain safety conditions, as well as the potential for poor storage practices negatively affecting the longevity of equipment, especially mops, brooms, and cleaning rags.
- Ensure chemicals are stored according to manufacturer recommendations and per OSHA regulations.
- Finally, take this opportunity to assess the potential cost benefits of implementing a chemical management system.
Proper and ongoing training of all custodial staff and management are required to ensure equipment is handled safely, that will not lead to excessive wear and tear, and that potentially harmful chemicals are stored safely.
Takeaway
Yearly inventory, policy and procedure reviews, as well as staff training, may not seem appealing, but it is the perfect opportunity for facilities maintenance and property management executives to review and adopt scientifically backed green and sustainable cleaning practices.
The savings in employee health and performance, by itself, will likely produce a return on financial investment, within the first year.
If you would like to learn more about the advantages of outsourced janitorial services to assist with your facilities maintenance and property management needs, contact us today for a free quote!
In Bakersfield CA, Valencia CA, or Santa Clarita CA, call (661) 395-3009
In Fresno CA, call (559) 473-1790
