When your office cleaning sucks, so do your employees’ attitudes. While not many of us love cleaning, nearly all of us appreciate a clean, tidy work environment. When your office or facility is in disarray or disrepair, you unwittingly send your employees the message that sub par work is acceptable. Think about it, if you don’t require good work from your janitorial services, how can you ask your employees to do their best? You cannot cling to the adage, “do as I say not as I do,” employees are simply smarter than that. Dirty offices and poor facility management can heavily influence important business and financial benchmarks. For example, if your facility maintenance is operating at ‘good enough’, motivated employees are likely to move on to greener and cleaner pastures and the overall quality and productivity of your remaining employees will go down. Hoping to attract top talent? Care about employee engagement? Want absenteeism and attrition to go down and productivity go up? Then mind your office cleaning and if you are handcuffed to a poor office cleaning company, decide to make a change.
Is your office refrigerator talking back? Are gross office restrooms sending employee complaints skyrocketing? Are skipped tasks leaving you frustrated? Does your janitorial company have so many new people in and out of your facility that you feel like you are constantly starting over? Are your office cleaners getting shortchanged on the training they need to really care for your facility? Does your janitorial contractor wait for you to complain rather than be proactive in delivering the service they promised? Do you feel that the value you are getting from your office cleaning services has been slipping for a while now? If your commercial cleaning company is phoning it in, it is time to move on. You contracted with a professional janitorial services company to make your job easier not harder. With janitorial companies, the goal should always be to exceed your expectations, not just meet them and certainly not do the minimum. While your office cleaning services cannot give their services away, the best office cleaning companies know how to stay on track with responsive service and even find room in their day to build in the small amount of ‘extras’ and that extra attention to detail that makes customers raving fans.
While it might be difficult to find a good one, commercial office cleaning services are not all the same. What do the best office cleaning companies do differently? They understand your security needs and are make use of careful hiring and screening processes to find the best fit for your facility maintenance. The most committed office cleaning services pursue and secure their CIMS Certification that demonstrates a solid commitment to industry best practices. The most professional commercial janitorial service companies have a solid knowledge and track record of compliance in both your industry and their own. Not only do great janitorial service companies care about delivering quality work, they have the systems in place to guarantee it. While no one is perfect all the time, this accountability creates reliability for you the customer. The best office cleaning companies have an ability to staff up and staff down as your facility’s needs change and they often even offer other related services to make your job easier. Likewise solid janitorial companies knows that green cleaning is important and offers comprehensive green office cleaning services that are more than just lip service. Additionally, a solid, responsive commercial cleaning company will use tools like Regular janitorial inspections to assure they are staying on the mark.
Great service requires an intention and a plan, it never happens by accident. So look for companies with an intention to be the best, even those that reach second, third, fourth and even fifth place are miles ahead of those who aren’t even in the race. Likewise, look for those companies that have adopted and developed the systems to turn their intentions into realities. How does your commercial janitorial service company find and keep good people? Do they create choice and set expectations for their would be customers with clear pricing? Are they committed to green cleaning, cleaning for health and technology in their industry? Are they CIMS certified? While it isn’t easy, asking questions will help you avoid getting chained to another stinky office janitorial company.
When it comes to office cleaning companies, people matter most. It is the office cleaners, custodians, day porters, medical office cleaners and others that care for your facility each day. Your janitorial company must find, hire, train and retain people that are trustworthy, a good fit, and set them up for success. So ask any prospective medical office cleaning service or general office cleaning company, tell me about your people processes. Ask them to tell you how they find, screen, hire, train and manage effective teams. Solid systems lower janitorial turnover, which then significantly increases the value of what you are getting. Any office janitorial contractor that has taken the time to invest in their people will be excited to demonstrate to you what makes their teams so much different than those of other Building Services Contractors.
When it comes to janitorial pricing, you want cleaning bids that are straightforward, clear and comprehensible. Transparent pricing benefits you as a Facility Manager in a number of ways. First, clear cleaning bids allow you to compare apples to apples in a meaningful way. When janitorial bids are fuzzy and unclear, it can be hard to compare the value you are getting from potential contractors. Second, commercial cleaning is a big part of your budget and thus you should always have a clear idea of what you are getting for your money. And finally, transparent pricing and a clear cleaning bid help you and your Michigan janitorial companies agree on precisely what work is being done for what price. This can make accountability easier as there is no confusion over what is expected.
The best office cleaning isn’t simply about surface clean, it’s about the science of cleaning and keeping your building’s occupants healthy. Does your office cleaning company understand touch points, hot spots, green cleaning, cleaning for health, clean restrooms, dwell times and reduction of disease spreading germs in clean office restrooms? Does your office cleaning services utilize color-coded cloth technology? Does your cleaning and maintenance company offer critical training of cleaning for health to all of their office cleaners? Properly trained and managed office cleaners keep your building sparkling and can help keep the occupants healthier.
While finding the right janitorial services company isn’t a slam dunk, it is possible. Get referrals, ask the right questions, make your cleaning contractor show you not just tell you how they deliver great service day in and day out. And examine their processes whether it’s their people processes like hiring and training or their service assuring procedures like janitorial inspections and quick response guarantees to solve problems when they do come up. Put in the work upfront and you can find a cleaning company that won’t make you feel like you are held hostage by bad service. With the right office cleaning company you should feel like you have a great partner in the care and maintenance of your facility.