The Budget Forecast
At Stathakis, we know that many southeastern Michigan businesses are dealing with reduced and even razor thin budgets in your facilities.
We also know that the last thing you need is your janitorial company causing problems, creating issues and generating extra work for you.
After all, the entire purpose of outsourcing janitorial services is to reduce your workload not add to it.
As the budget constricts, the number of things you have to do balloons.
Aside from supervising your facility, it is likely you are in charge of lease management, managing space and people, as well as understanding all the pertinent regulations that go with those tasks.
Not only do you have to go above and beyond, but it is entirely possible you may also be required to figure out how to do all of this more effectively on a significantly reduced budget.
Juggling more objects at an increasing speed, it would seem, is no longer just a circus act.
How Budget Reductions Impact You & Your Facility
The metaphoric hole in your budget isn’t going to go away.
In fact, increased competition and economic pressure may actually make it larger as businesses try to go farther on less.
While this may not be bad news for you, your job as Facility Manager is likely becoming, if it hasn’t already, a lot more complex and demanding than previously.
That being said, challenges and competition in industry is what drives the American economy and just like other businesses, the janitorial industry is changing to meet the needs of an evolving marketplace.
Working with less, professional janitorial companies and suppliers are working to cut down on waste and optimize processes to work cheaper and more effectively.
Now the task for you as the Facility Manager is finding which commercial cleaning provider is going to do this best.
While the current climate may necessitate working leaner, it is a sink or swim situation for a lot of companies.
Partnering with a commercial cleaning company that approaches these challenges with a plan and action to back it up is what will lead to a successful partnership.
Smart Cleaning Can Be Your Solution to Tighter Budgets
At Stathakis, Smart Cleaning is the name of the game when it comes to helping Facility Managers with their janitorial budgets and prevention of service drop offs.
“What is Smart Cleaning?”, you may ask.
With Smart Cleaning, we work with suboptimal janitorial budgets in a given facility and strategically choose which services are most beneficial to the cleanliness and function of the facility.
Services can then be ranked and delivered at a frequency that helps better manage your budget and makes sure your facility is still well-maintained from the perspective of your building’s occupants and visitors.
Our complete analysis asks the questions:
- “What tasks are we performing that might be unnecessary?”
- “What tasks and duties are must-haves that need to be included regardless of reduced budgets?”
- “What are we doing currently and does it make sense given your maintenance and budget needs?”
- “Where are the areas we might be able to get by with less?”
- “How can we use janitorial industry innovation, products, equipment & processes to better meet our customer's needs?”
- “What better, more efficient ways might there be to complete those things that are necessary?”
Partnerships Make Smart Cleaning a Success
You can’t just ask your commercial cleaning company to start Smart Cleaning and expect the problem to be solved.
If only it was as simple as asking service providers to do better work for cheaper.
Many companies don’t have the capability to further optimize their cleaning practices and asking them to do more for less is a great way to create problems with the work they do.
Smart Cleaning means that you need to sit down with your janitorial cleaning company and discuss which services are important and which are not while examining how they can be better fitted to your facility.
As a janitorial company, we need to know the ins and outs of your building to best customize our service for you.
We need to know exactly what your priorities are and what things can be given less attention.
Smart Cleaning is based on upfront communication between you and your commercial cleaning company.
It is nuanced and must be customized to your particular facility.
While it may require more work initially, in the long run it offers significant benefits to both you and your facility.
What Is Smart Cleaning?
Smart Cleaning isn’t just a word. It’s a set of ideas, processes and knowledge that together deliver better service for less money.
Many companies dismiss it because it seems complicated, but in reality it is a simple, common sense approach to cleaning.
There are a few key components that apply to any facility:
The Smart Clean Approach Requires:
- Site visits in order to look beyond simple square footage when determining work and pricing.
- A complete review of your needs to focus where attention is needed most.
- A real understanding of your facility and how it is used.
- A thorough understanding of your pain points with previous services or internal processes.
- A review of services to condense schedules without the appearance of reduced service.
- Leaner cleaning approaches through better training and tools like Team Cleaning.
- Clear communication to identify problems early.
- Use of advanced equipment that reduces labor hours while maintaining service quality.
It is important to remember that Smart Cleaning is not about doing less cleaning.
Instead, it focuses on prioritizing the services that have the greatest impact on the functioning of your facility.
Smart Cleaning eliminates overlap and inefficiencies so saved time can be redirected where it matters most.
This is the only way a janitorial company can reduce cost while maintaining professional service.
For that reason Smart Cleaning can only be successfully implemented by experienced companies.
The expertise, training and operational planning required means only highly experienced providers can deliver it effectively.
Could your facility benefit from Smart Cleaning? Are you working with a less than ideal building maintenance budget?
Here at Stathakis, we have over thirty years of experience building long-term relationships and delivering reliable service for businesses across southeastern Michigan.
If you are a Facility Manager in Ann Arbor, Detroit, Royal Oak, Farmington Hills, Farmington, Dearborn, Livonia, Troy, Auburn Hills, Novi, Plymouth, Downriver or surrounding areas and you are looking for janitorial services that deliver value without breaking the bank, contact us to learn more.