With an uncertain economy, building owners and management companies continue to look for cost saving measures throughout their operations. Rarely do reduced budgets come with reduced responsibility. The directive of course, is figure out how to do the same or more with less. In an attempt to get essential services covered while reducing costs, many facilities are looking at outsourcing janitorial services as a workable, livable cost cutting solution. There are good reasons to outsource cleaning. Not only can outsourcing janitorial services save you money, outsourcing cleaning can help stabilize costs, enhance overall service, safeguard your building’s assets and reduce your workload. Outsourcing janitorial and cleaning services to a professional Building Services Company can secure value for your organization by reducing operating costs while continuing to keep your facility safe, clean and comfortable.
Outsourcing facilities services to a professional janitorial company saves you money in a number of ways. First, you benefit from the immediate cost savings as a janitorial company will likely get much more done in much less time. Second, an established medium to large janitorial company gets big discounts via their purchase power on equipment, supplies, paper goods, trash liners and more. Third, there are significant savings involved when you pass the employee recruiting, screening, hiring, training and managing over to your janitorial contractor through outsourced janitorial services. Think about the time and management required with payroll, benefits administration, health care, employee status verification and other labor intensive tasks associated with having your own part time orfull time employees. Cost is what you pay, value is what you get. When you outsource your janitorial services to the right building services contractor, you get much more value for your dollar. With an experienced janitorial company, services are simply going to better and cheaper, it is just a part of their operations and business, it IS their business.
Anything you do over and over again you naturally get better at. Building maintenance and janitorial services are no exception. Sure, you can manage in-house janitorial but do you really want to? Outsource janitorial and everything gets a little easier. Handling your cleaning and maintenance in house is like running a business within a business. Do you want to learn the ins and outs of another business beyond your own in order to get everything you need from it or do you want to pass along the work and responsibility to a professional janitorial company for whom this is their focus? The reality is that the quality will always be better with a commercial maintenance company. It’s simply their core business and as such gets all of their important resources directed at it like training, equipment, technology to create efficiencies and keep everyone on track and more. Can the same be said for your in-house cleaning service?
You can have an in-house cleaning service but is that the business you really want to be in? Because if you don’t manage it as a business within your business, it isn’t likely to work. Outsourcing your janitorial services eliminates the problems that can come with using your employees to handle cleaning and maintenance. Think about the significant costs in both time and money that come with managing a team. First, nothing scales because training you acquire, equipment you purchase and more is used in one place, yours. Unlike your professional janitorial company, you don’t get to benefit from the income generated by the use of acquired equipment, products or training in a number of other facilities. So not only are you at a disadvantage here, there are other disadvantages that are likely to create headaches for you as a Facility Manager. Think about it, when you have a cleaning employee versus a cleaning contractor, you have:
Worried about coverage during times that are particularly busy for you? Not sure how to handle facility maintenance when your in house cleaners are absent or ill? Professional janitorial services companies have both enough customers and a large enough cache of employees to shift labor hours when and where you need them most. They also are more likely to have well trained floaters ready and waiting to step in should your regular cleaner or cleaning team be out. With a commercial cleaning company, especially a really good one, service is far more likely to be seamless and attuned to the needs of your individual facility.
When you manage your cleaning and janitorial in-house, you also take on all of the associated liabilities. As in most industries, cleaning and janitorial come with specific liabilities associated with the work. When you contract with a reputable, professional building services company, you shift these responsibilities to them. Your janitorial company will insure their own employees and if they are really good, they will even add you or the facility owner to their contractor's policy shielding you from third party litigation. Again, it’s the idea of a business within a business. A company focused on janitorial as their core business is always going to be able to perform better and cheaper. It is the nature of specialization.
What already overtaxed Facility Manager really wants more to manage? When you outsource your commercial cleaning to the right contractor, you shift a great deal of the headaches, major and minor, to them. All elements of the management of your maintenance becomes the responsibility of your contractor. So pieces like hiring, training, procurement, equipment maintenance and repair and other time consuming duties shift to your janitorial services company leaving you free to focus your attention where it is needed most.
If you partner with an experienced, professional building services company with integrated facility solutions, it’s a win win for both of you. When your building services contractors has a menu of other services, like HVAC, electrical, plumbing, carpet cleaning and more, you can use as you need them without either having to handle it in house or contract with yet another company to get the work done. Save yourself the time of searching for a proficient, reputable, affordable contractor and get the work budgeted, planned and executed with your existing contractor. If you already trust your commercial cleaning company and have vetted their prices, offloading another maintenance task to them will be much easier than vetting a new, added contractor.
When you outsource your cleaning and janitorial to a pro, you get better results in less time. A professional janitorial and cleaning company is more likely to use advanced and effective methods to get the work done right. They likely benefit from more exhaustive and specialized training. And they are likely using newer, more effective equipment that is better maintained. Even the options for green cleaning programs become much more viable when contracting with a janitorial services company
For most Facility Managers, the truth is it usually comes down to numbers. Does outsourcing your cleaning and maintenance save you money or cost you money. Don’t make the mistake of comparing the Full Service of a commercial cleaning company with little more than your payroll expense. If you want to compare outsourcing janitorial and an in-house cleaning service in an apples to apples way, you have to look deeper. With in-house commercial cleaning you have
These all add significant costs in both time and money. Add those up and then compare to the all inclusive price you get from a prospective janitorial contractor and it is easy to see where the better value lies.