Of course it’s always possible to cut your office cleaning service’s budget, but the real question is, can you reduce costs without your office cleaning going down the toilet? Or is it possible to reduce facility maintenance budgets while keeping service delivery acceptable? And if you are a Facility Manager of Building Manager facing pressure for reduced janitorial budgets and greater efficiencies, will your office cleaning company be a friend or foe in your effort to deliver value for your company?
Is it reasonable to ask your office cleaning company to deliver the exact same services they have been for less money? No, unless your janitorial services have built in huge margins, which is very unlikely, they will have hard costs that they must cover. And like you, they are also likely operating on thin margins. But the experienced, professional and even technologically savvy office cleaning companies can help you evaluate and adjust your services to in effect, do more with less.
We call this concept of doing more with less Smart Cleaning because it isn’t just about doing less strategically-- doing less of the right things. But here’s the challenge, in order to know which services can be reduced without it impacting acceptable facility maintenance, your commercial office cleaning services must take the time to know your facility and how it is used day to day. Your office cleaning company must also be experienced enough to understand which reduced tasks will add up to some measurable savings without having tenants or staff lining up to complain.
Labor costs typically make up the single largest component of Janitorial Pricing, so cutting costs usually means cutting labor. How do you get a Detroit office cleaning service to do more with less and still deliver an acceptable level of clean? In the past with sufficient office cleaning budgets and fully staffed janitorial teams, most office cleaning companies would complete a cleaning specification from top to bottom, every night. This often entailed vacuuming each floor and emptying every trash can whether it was needed or not. While a daily, thorough cleaning is ideal, reduced cleaning budgets have created situations in which we have competing needs we must balance. In this case it is the level of clean balanced with the need to meet budget requirements. With Smart Cleaning, your office cleaning services refocus where the need is the greatest, those areas of your building that are used most frequently and require the most attention are cleaned with the most frequency. While other areas that are less critical or less used are cleaned on a less frequent basis.
Smart Cleaning is the optimal method to get more for less out from your office cleaning budgets. Smart Cleaning comes down to understanding what your essentials services are, what are the non-essential but important services and areas you can intermittently do without. Smart Cleaning is also about having the right tools to deliver real value. Those janitorial companies with high tech, efficient equipment and management systems can both increase efficiencies and make sure that especially with some reductions in services, your office cleaning stays on track. That means things like regular janitorial inspections are being conducted and communication between you and your office cleaning service is efficient to communicate shifting needs quickly.
Can you get the office cleaning you need with the budget you have?
1. Yes, if your office cleaning company is experienced and willing to work with you to create a plan that works.
2. Yes, if your commercial cleaning company uses Smart Cleaning to make service cuts that make sense for the way your facility operates.
3. Yes, if your office cleaning services utilize high tech approaches to both cleaning and managing the process so you still get exactly what your office cleaning company has promised.
In order for office cleaners to approach your cleaning in this need-focused way, they must be sufficiently trained otherwise the work is sure to slip below an acceptable level. A Detroit office cleaning company that utilizes Smart Cleaning methods must help their teams determine critical services, adjust their cleaning specifications to reflect your reduced janitorial budgets and still hold their team accountable for the work you have promised. While reduced janitorial budgets are less than ideal, it is possible to work with your Michigan office cleaning company to identify vital services in order to develop a specification that will create a Smart Clean plan that delivers effective service that doesn’t sacrifice the overall quality and maintenance of your facility.