“A Day Porter Program is like a daytime cleaning service with benefits.”
These invaluable team members can offer you a vital service with cleaning so that your facility never has to live with a mess waiting for the nighttime cleaning crew to come in. Likewise, your Day Porter can help you tackle your ‘to do’ list allowing you to focus on the most critical action items.
Probably not but they might just be faster than a speeding bullet and more powerful than a locomotive! What your individual Day Porter does is pretty much up to you. Of course, there are the basics that most Day Porter services offer but the extras run the gamut based on your needs and the requirements of your facility.
“What your individual Day Porter does is pretty much up to you.”
As a rule, your Day Porter is provided with a set list of cleaning and maintenance responsibilities with a schedule. These vital services become the foundation of your Day Porter’s responsibilities. These are often responsibilities like:
As far as extras go, where do you really need help? Maybe you could use a hand setting up for meetings, perhaps an employee needs assistance moving offices, maybe you need a package run downstairs-- your Day Porter is there to help you manage your workload and keep your facility running on track.
In order for your Day Porter to truly function as your facility’s super hero, they need to understand what kind of help you need. Most successful Day Porter’s have a personality for the job, they enjoy helping and being of service to their customers. Quite often, you need only point them in the right direction and they will be off and running tackling their ‘to do’ lists with ease and enthusiasm.
“The best Day Porters need you to point them in the right direction and they will be off and running with ease and enthusiasm.”
In order to get premier building maintenance from your Day Porter, you should determine what kind of daytime help might be most helpful for you, your facility and tenants or employees. In fact, your Day Porter can be immeasurably helpful and even cost-effective in helping to fill in service gaps and add just the right amount of people power to keep your facility on target.
“A Day Porter can be immeasurably helpful and even cost-effective in helping to fill in service gaps.”
Once you know what you and your facility need, it is suggested that you work with janitorial services company to create the job description and schedule of duties for your Day Porter services. Understanding what is required of them will make it easier for your building services contractor to find an individual who is a great fit at your facility. Working together, you and your commercial cleaning company can establish a job description and schedule of duties with both your Day Porter and nighttime cleaning crew to keep all areas of your building covered.
Because they work during the day beside you and your staff and occupants, your Day Porter can become an integral part of your team. Likewise, the position of day Porter requires a certain level of helpfulness, attention to detail, responsiveness and positivity to really get you the hero you are looking for in your facility. You want a Day Porter that enjoys and works well with other people. Your janitorial services company must be serious about finding and hiring very good people in general, but especially when it comes to filling Day Porter positions in the janitorial jobs arena.
“The position of day Porter requires a certain level of helpfulness, attention to detail, responsiveness and positivity to really get you the hero you deserve.”
Your commercial cleaning company must understand how to attract, interview, screen, hire and train amazing individuals. They should always conduct in-depth background checks comprised of criminal background checks and drug screening but the better janitorial services companies also incorporate things like reference and employment verification, personality testing and more to find a good fit. Your Day Porter works alongside you and your staff and you need to be able to trust them.
In order to set your Day Porter up for success, you must determine what duties are most important to you and critical for your facility. Setting clear expectations with your Day Porter from day one sets them up for success and allows you both to track progress. Day Porters are people first and super heroes second. In the absence of clear direction, most of us gravitate to those job duties we like best and delay completing tasks we find less engaging.
Add to this natural tendency the fact that Day Porters are often given so much to do. You may also have a multitude of staff asking for your Day Porter’s assistance. Over time, even the best day porters may begin to view certain duties like tidying up restrooms or spot mopping your reception area as unimportant. After all, it is so often the ‘special’ tasks that also garner the most attention and praise from you the Facility Manager. How can you curb this? You make duties and priorities well defined. On that same note, you must not allow your staff to pile on too many requests with no process for approving or prioritizing the workload.
Imagine it from your Day Porter’s perspective, they may not understand who is authorized to give them duties and who is not without your prior approval unless you tell them. It can be a very sound idea to have a point person to field random requests to decide if and how that request can fit into your Day Porter’s other responsibilities. Solid communication will help your Day Porter will help you get the superhero level of service and responsiveness you desire.
“Setting clear expectations with your Day Porter from day one sets them up for success and allows you both to track progress."
A Day Porter program can be an effective addition to your maintenance services and offer just the right amount of help you need to keep your facility looking great and running well around the clock. If you think a Day Porter might be just the thing your facility or facilities need, please contact Stathakis today at (800)278-1884 so we can assist you in designing a Day Porter customized to the individual needs of you and your facility.