Has Your Commercial Office Cleaning Company Fallen Behind

We often see office cleaning companies that start a race strong with a commitment to delivering the highest quality service and slowly lose steam and sight of that commitment. Maybe you have noticed your office cleaning service slowing down, or maybe they were never running a good race to begin with. If you are considering looking into a new office cleaning service, there are some things you should be on the lookout for to help you find an office cleaning service that will help you finish strong. 

In order to know the right direction to go, you must be equipped with better information when it comes to selecting from the crowded and often confusing janitorial services marketplace. It can be all too easy to convince yourself that all office janitorial services are the same when you’ve seen company after company that can’t keep a steady pace and deliver on their promises. And even if you were to find a professional office cleaning service, could you even afford it? Lucky for you, effective, professional, responsive office cleaning companies do exist and with the right information you can find one that meets your needs and your budget.

The Mistake Of Too Many Mistakes

People make mistakes and your office cleaning company is made up of people, so mistakes are bound to happen. The critical point is when your office cleaning company goes off course, do they course correct or just keep going off in the wrong direction? And at what point are mistakes being made so frequently that it is detrimental to your service and not worth the money you are paying? The following are some big red flags that we hear from Facility Managers all the time that might tell you that it is time to start looking for a new office cleaning company.

Fuzzy Office Cleaning Prices Are A Bad Sign

The first sign your office cleaning service isn’t capable and/or committed to delivering on what they promised is if it's difficult to tell what they promised in the first place. Fuzzy pricing can make it challenging for you to compare different bids and get an idea of what is best for your facility. On top of that, not having a clear plan in place of what your prospective cleaning company has agreed to do makes it difficult to hold them accountable. Don’t get thrown of course and settle for a company that can’t offer a clear and detailed bid.

Don’t Stand For A Slow Response Time From Your Office Cleaning Service

Another significant problem Facility Managers frequently deal with is a lack of responsiveness. Of course mistakes are going to happen from time to time, but if your Detroit office cleaning company isn’t quick to alert you of them and take control of the problem, things can spiral out of control in short order. All too often office cleaning companies will brush off problems only to have them come up again and again. It isn’t your job to micromanage your cleaning company, so don’t settle for an office cleaning company that will force you to do so. Any solid commercial cleaning company will have a system in place to handle problems and to allow easy communication between you and your cleaning company. Those that do offer a sign that they take your business seriously and know how to handle problems in an efficient and professional manner.

You Can’t Win the Race Without The Right Equipment

You wouldn’t start a marathon in work boots or high heels would you? To be effective you must have the right equipment. In the last decade, the cleaning industry has made huge strides in more effective, green, and efficient solutions and equipment. Having the right equipment for the job can save you time and money and more often than not, older equipment simply doesn't do the job as well. So, if your office cleaning service isn’t using up to date, properly serviced equipment, you aren’t getting the cleaning that you should be.

Keep Your Personal Problems Out Of The Office

Like many other businesses, the quality of the service you and your facility receive is dictated by the quality of the people that your cleaning company employs. If your office cleaning company takes shortcuts when it comes to their hiring and training process, you can be sure they will take shortcuts in any other number of areas. Further, far too many commercial cleaning companies will turn to illegal hiring, illegal subcontracting and subpar employee screening to try to make their numbers work. This not only sets you up for poor cleaning, but has major security implications as well. Having poorly screened cleaning staff in your building after hours is a recipe for disaster. It is the responsibility of your commercial cleaning company to provide full background and drug tests, not yours. Finally, poor hiring practices often increase turnover rates, further reducing the level of the service you receive. Paying employees under the table and not providing benefits is a good way to burn out staff quickly. So, before you partner with a prospective office cleaning company, for the sake of your service and safety, ask about their hiring and training practices. If they are in it to win it, they will be happy to share their plan and practices with you.

What Is Professionalism And Why Should I Care?

It may seem like common sense but professionalism isn’t guaranteed even when it’s promised. So, what does professionalism look like in the office cleaning industry? It starts with having well trained and well equipped teams that take a serious and effective approach to cleaning you building properly. It's also having open lines of communication to help deal with problems as they come up and to keep you in the loop about what is going on. It is having a thorough screening system and easy to identify uniforms and badges. It’s offering great people the training and management to really win at work. A company that does not operate on a professional level is bound to have other problems that bleed into your service.

Professional Office Cleaning Requires Professional Training

Marathon runners don’t just show up for marathon day without any training. Can you imagine? It would be a disaster. Cleaning has evolved from the time of the mop and bucket, it is now built on the foundation of science and the knowledge of what creates a clean and healthy workspace. To be an effective cleaner, you need this general knowledge of how to clean for health and specific industry training. Cleaning for a school versus a hospital versus a general office or industrial plant are all drastically different from each other. Whether it’s best practices, safe chemical use and storage, effective Smart Cleaning strategies or more, solid training benefits you the customer and changes the way people feel about their work, which in turn fosters a more professional attitude. Everyone wins!

Commercial Office Cleaning Services Require Accountability        

No matter what you are paying for, even if your budgets are below where they perhaps should be, you can still secure solid, professional office cleaning services. It all comes down to how your cleaning service holds their staff accountable to the work they agreed to do. The best office cleaning companies will often conduct regular janitorial inspections to make sure the work is being done consistently and to the highest possible level. On top of that, they will often meet with their customers to adjust what they are doing to better meet their needs. You and your facility deserve responsive service and accountability from your office cleaning company.

Partner With The Company That Knows How To Be A Professional

You are going to come across many commercial cleaning companies that just can’t get it right no matter what they do. Fortunately, there are companies that are professional and effective cleaners that will set you up to finish strong. What are these companies doing to help you get to the finish line? They know how to communicate and how to be responsive to your needs. The best commercial janitorial services know that people are the starting point of effective service delivery and they make their people processes a priority in order to find, hire, retain and manage great people who are a natural fit for the work. They know that investing in high quality equipment and cleaning solutions will benefit you and them in the long run along with improving the quality of their cleaning and the health of your facility. They perform frequent inspections of their frontline staff to make sure they deliver consistently high quality results. Finding an office cleaning service like won’t be easy, but it will be worth it.

Many of your fellow Facility Managers have already likely determined the solid benefits of having an effective, professional, reliable commercial office cleaning service provider. Unfortunately, there are still Facility Managers who have all but given up hope of good service settling instead for a below-standard janitorial company. Is it that they don’t want better cleaning services? Fewer complaints? A better value? Of course not, it’s likely more a function of either feeling like all commercial cleaning companies delver poor service or not having an understanding of how to tell the good cleaning companies from the bad.

Why is it worth putting in the extra time and work to hire a professional, reputable commercial office cleaning service? With ever tightening budgets, you can’t afford to throw good money out the window on a cleaning service that just isn’t delivering. With a more effective building services contractor, not only can office cleaning be affordable, if can even save you money by increasing employee productivity, morale and helping to attract new customers. Having a commercial cleaning company that you trust and that provides real value is a excellent way to save money in the long run and keep your facility looking its best. As such, being saddled with an incompetent commercial cleaning service may end up being what costs you.

Don’t Try to Give Your Employees Cleaning Duties

If you are already running on tight budgets, it can be tempting to delegate some cleaning to your staff. This eliminates the need for a commercial cleaning company, right? Especially in smaller offices, far too many managers will try to enlist help from certain employees to keep the facility cleaner. As it turns out, your receptionist won’t be particularly happy to have to clean up the toilets after colleagues use them. Now cleaning isn’t any more or less important than any other job, but for an employee that was hired specifically for one set of tasks, it may feel that way. On top of this, cleaning tasks are always going to be put on the back burner for the work that your staff was hired to do. This leaves most building cleaning and maintenance poorly done or abandoned all together. Often this will lead to an unclean work environment that stems from a lack of proper cleaning causing higher absenteeism, lower job satisfaction and generally more problems between employees.

An In-House Cleaning Service Gives You More Work Without Tangible Improvements

You may also be thinking that it would be a better idea to hire your own cleaning team for your facility. At least then you have some control over it right? Sure, if you really prepared to wholeheartedly take on another full time job of cleaning management, background checks, training, firing, as well as all of the administrative work that goes into managing cleaning staff? More often than not, you will be certainly be better off devoting this time and energy into improving your own chosen business and bottom. Between healthcare costs and the money and time involved in administration of more employees, there are significant costs associated with employing over contracting. Similarly, running a cleaning service is going to have some very different skill sets and responsibilities than your chosen industry. Even if you understand what it takes, it is likely better to devote your limited time towards other important areas.

Find the Right Commercial Cleaning Company & Let Them Do What They Were Hired To Do

Successful business people understand that there are major advantages to hiring an expert. The more experience a business accumulates, the more they know. It is as simple as this. When you partner with a professional, effective cleaning service, you will get professional, effective cleaning in your building. As an added bonus, such cleaning might even be cheaper than you think it is. As it turns out, more experienced companies know how to more accurately price their service and have had years to work with other Facility Managers on a budget.. As such, they have honed their service to be effective even when your cleaning budget is less than optimal. Similarly, through scale they get cost saving measures you would not running a smaller in-house cleaning operation. Another important aspect to consider is that a professional, experienced commercial cleaning companies have a more clear understanding of federal and state regulations that govern them. While it may seem obvious, this means that you don’t have to waste time familiarizing yourself with these various regulations.

Commercial Cleaning Equipment Presents a Cost You Don’t Need

When a company is primarily focused on cleaning as their core business, they have likely spent the time and energy needed to secure the best prices on the quality supplies and equipment to keep your offices sparkling clean. As such, you can avoid expensive chemicals and cleaning equipment that can cost you thousands for even the most basic models and let your commercial cleaning company handle it. Even better, it means that you are not responsible for servicing, repairing and storing said equipment. Of course, you are going to need to work with your commercial cleaning company at first to get things running smoothly and work out any kinks. However, the most professional cleaning companies will quickly get on their feet and do their best work in your facility. On top of this, many of these companies will have added services that can be really useful. For instance, carpet cleaning, hard floor stripping and resurfacing, drywall repair, painting, carpet cleaning and more. It can be very helpful and efficient as you have a one-stop-shop for the bulk of your building maintenance needs. 

Your Time And Effort Belongs To Your Facility

For many Facility Managers, running a commercial cleaning company isn’t a lifelong dream just waiting to be realized. Let a solid, professional commercial cleaning company meet the maintenance and cleaning needs of your facility. Having your own cleaning staff is time consuming and requires a lot of resources that are better directed towards your facility. Hiring a commercial office cleaning company will give you and your employees more time to focus on tasks and issues central to your business and the bottom line.

Finding the right office cleaning company to partner with in your facility can be a big ask. CIMS can help clear a path that while not making the process easy, at least makes it easier. Here at Stathakis, we have spent over thirty years developing a standard of service delivery. We have worked hard to create lasting relationships with our customers and offer the businesses of southeastern Michigan the service they deserve. We are proudly CIMS certified and committed to the continual improvement that has made us a valued partner to the businesses of 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 commercial cleaning services, office cleaning, school cleaning, industrial cleaning, medical cleaning or other building services, please contact us to learn more about how we can help make your job at least a little easier and make your facility shine. To find an office company in your area ISSA CIMS-GB certified, visit the ISSA here.

Is a Constant Influx Of Complaints Piling Up?

When your inbox is bombarded by complaints about cleaning, cleaning that has not been finished and restrooms that haven’t been cleaned properly, it’s a pretty good indication that you have a problem with your commercial office cleaning company. As Facility Manager, you likely outsourced your cleaning to what you thought was a professional office cleaning company so that you wouldn’t have to deal with such problems, not to make them more frequent. If it seems like your office cleaning company has been asleep at the wheel, and your inbox is a steady stream of grievances against your office cleaning company, it is time to find a real solution.

How To Tell If Your Commercial Cleaning Company Is A Mess In Itself

Are unclean restrooms and low performance noticeably reducing the quality of service in your facility? The problem could be related to the turnover rate of your professional cleaning service provider. If your commercial office cleaning services have a constant influx of new staff replacing more experienced staff, you’ll find that the quality of your office cleaning is reduced significantly. It takes time to train new employees and even longer for them to become acquainted with your facility and its specific needs. The most effective commercial cleaning company is proactive rather than reactive. A proactive office cleaning service will perform inspections regularly to keep an eye on their own people. Further, if they see a trend of poor service as a result of high turnover, poor training or poor fit, they will take steps to address the problem before it becomes an ongoing issue. The most effective cleaning companies in the industry have solid communication skills to address problems.

Where Office Cleaning Companies Go Off Track

Some Detroit office cleaning companies are just after your money with little thought to excelling at service, but typically, the common problems of cleaning come down to a lack of systems in place to assure quality rather than a lack of good intentions. Being a professional in the office cleaning industry is no easier than any other business and as such should never be left to the inexperienced. Still, startup costs of office cleaning can be on the lower end, creating the overcrowded marketplace you are bound to see when looking for such a company. Still, office cleaning requires no less skill or care. Partnering with inexperienced office cleaning companies will almost always yield the same result. You will get unclear pricing as they are still learning to accurately price their services, inconsistent results, high turnover, poorly trained employees and a lack of communication. Every cleaning company has been there but the more experienced among them have already worked these kinks out.

Finding the Office Cleaning Company That Really Stacks Up

When company after commercial cleaning company delivers consistently poor levels of service, it can feel like they are all the same. In reality, however, they are not. In fact, there are a number of quality commercial cleaning companies that consistently deliver the highest levels of service. So, what is the trick to finding office janitorial service that measure up to what your facility needs? First, you have to look for value over cost. Naturally, you don’t want to over pay for your cleaning service and you have budgets to meet, however, no amount of cost savings can make up for a company that simply isn’t doing the job. Second, the most effective and most professional Michigan office cleaning services should have procedures, processes and systems in place to assure effective, consistent, responsive office cleaning service, including:

• Regular inspections of janitorial and commercial cleaning services in your facility
• A thorough understanding of the security needs of your facility as well as a clear, well documented employee screening and training system
• A comprehensive Green cleaning solution that fits in your facility
• A complete system and set of procedures to make sure your cleaning service is meeting its commitments
• The ISSA’s CIMS certification or another relevant industry accreditation to demonstrate a commitment to a high level of service
• The manpower to meet your changing needs
• Solid communication skills to address problems and changes as they come up

When Is It Time to Sack Your Office Cleaning Company & Start Over?

If your office cleaning service isn’t meeting their commitments or just generally causing headaches in your facility, it is time to make a choice. One path you could follow is to sit down with your current service provider and rework your contract so that you can get your cleaning plan back where it is supposed to be. This usually works best with companies that started with a quality service and slowly went off track. However, if you have been unsatisfied with the performance of your office cleaning company for some time now and you have already communicated that with little or no change in service, it is time to find a new company. Finding the right company for your facility to ensure a consistent level of service is probably the smartest decision you can make for your facility.

Finding an Office Cleaning Company That Will Deliver

If you have gotten this far then you have decided it is time to start from the top and partner with a new commercial cleaning company. As such, you must be wondering, “how do I find an office cleaning company that fits the needs of my facility, my budget and will help me avoid frequent complaints I am getting about facility cleaning?” The process of finding a new cleaning company can be daunting, especially because there are so many cleaning companies that come in all different types and sizes. You have everything from your national janitorial companies to your mom and pop cleaning services, and everyone in between. Sure, you can ask around, check references and do the due diligence it takes to weed out the fakers but that all takes time, the one thing we are pretty sure you don’t have enough of. If you are anticipating a changing of the guard with your office cleaners, you should know about the ISSA’s CIMS or Certified Industry Management Standard. The CIMS accreditation is an industry specific certification wherein the research needed to vet prospective cleaning companies has been done for you. Looking for this certification can help you find the partner that will provide a high level of service in your facility and help cut down on the number of complaints that you have been getting.

The best way to make sure that your office cleaning delivers is to have a professional, effective, and most importantly responsive Detroit office cleaning and janitorial company. Here at Stathakis, we work with all types of businesses to keep their workplaces clean and healthy. We utilize industry best practices to offer our customers an exceptional level of service. We also understand that the people that clean your facility are as important as how they clean your facility. As such, we go well beyond industry requirements when it comes to screening, hiring and training our teams. Can we help you? If you would like to learn how we help Facility Managers just like you with effective janitorial services all while staying on budget, please contact us at (800) 278-1884.

Stathakis proudly serves the Southeastern businesses of Ann Arbor, including Detroit, Royal Oak, Farmington Hills, Downriver, Farmington, Dearborn, Livonia, Troy, Auburn Hills, Novi, and Plymouth.

'Tis the Season....For Colds & Flus

‘Tis the season for holiday cheer, merriment and celebration, but it is also flu and cold season. When a cold or flu gets a foothold in your facility, it can really dampen holiday spirits. According to the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), this time of year has much higher rates of influenza and other respiratory illness than any other. Not only is the flu’s intensity much worse than any other time, the CDC tells us that “between December and peaking in January and February we expect to see the highest rate of respiratory illness and positive tests for respiratory influenza.”

The cold and flu season is a long one and can have a major impact on workplaces throughout the country. Federal and State governments spend a large amount of time and money trying to minimize the impact of colds, flus and other communicable illnesses, but what can YOU do to protect yourself and your employees to minimize the impact of the cold and flu seasons on your bottom line and staff? Absenteeism is a large problem on its own, so it can be especially damaging when it is exacerbated by illness. What steps should you be taking to mitigate the effects of colds and flus in your workplace and what can you do yourself to protect yourself and your employees?

Enlist Your Office Cleaning Company to Help Prevent the Spread of Illness in the Workplace

When your facility is getting cleaned, especially during cold and flu season, it cannot simply be to make it look nice. Your office cleaning company isn’t very effective if your office looks good but is teeming with disease causing germs. Your cleaning company needs to actively invest in making sure your facility is properly sanitized to protect you and your employees from the various colds and flus that makes their rounds this time of year. Cleaning for health has measurable, positive outcomes in your facility that can affect the morale, productivity and attrition rates of your staff.  Cleaning for health has very specific meanings with methods and procedures attached to it. So, what kinds of things do commercial cleaning companies do when they clean for health?

1. Cleaners observe dwell times and other relevant product instructions so that cleaning products work as intended to eradicate disease causing germs.
2. They use a color-coded rag system that helps minimize cross-contamination between different cleaning sites.
3. Cleaners are familiar with different areas of your facility and apply the correct cleaning method to each area.
4. Cleaners understand the importance of touch points and hotspots and how to properly clean them to reduce the risk of illness around the workspace.

But what are touch points and how does a color-coded rag system help reduce the spread of disease? First, touch points are areas around the office that are touched more often than any other. Some examples might be: light switches, work phones, computer mice, and door handles. Because of the high traffic they receive, they store exponentially more bacteria and other pathogens than other surfaces and are responsible for the majority of illness around the office. Understanding which objects are touch points and how to clean them is critical to employee health. Second, the color-coded cleaning cloth system is as simple as it sounds. Your cleaning staff has a number of different colored rags that are designated for specific areas around the office so that the rag used on the toilet seat isn’t used on the conference room table. While not the only methods your commercial cleaning company should be using to protect your health, they are both good starting points for keeping you and your employees healthy during the cold and flu season.

What Definitely NOT to Do When You’re Sick

Many of us feel that missing a day of work is unthinkable, especially with large workloads and important deadlines to meet. But coming to work sick is a pointless endeavor. Not only are you going to be unproductive and get little work done, you are risking getting your peers sick and further reducing productivity in the office. No one will think that you are tough or strong willed when you come to the office sick, when your feeling sick, stay home and rest so that when you come back your ready to work.

What You CAN Do to Prevent Illness in the Workplace

“Make sure to wash your hands” is a phrase most of our mothers harangued us about constantly, but it isn’t bad advice at all. What's unfortunate is the number of adults that never learned how and when to wash their hands properly. Your hands are the perfect carrier for all manner of bacteria and other pathogens that make people sick. So, it is important to wash them before eating, after using the restroom, and after touching high traffic objects. Effective hand washing should be your first line of defense against workplace illness and should be done by all employees throughout the day. Another important step to keeping you and your staff healthy is coughing or sneezing into your arm instead of your hand. While you shouldn’t be at work if your coughing or sneezing with any degree of frequency, this simple change in habit can help protect others from illness.

Knowing that hand to hand contact is such an easy way to spread illness, another common sense thing to do is keep your hands away from your eyes and mouth at all costs. It is impossible to make sure one's hands are clean all the time and putting them near your mucous membranes is the perfect opportunity for bacteria to invade your body. Finally, when a sink and soap aren’t available, make sure that you have some hand sanitizer on hand (no pun intended). Hand sanitizer solutions with a least 60% alcohol content are effective at removing all manner of bacteria from your hands and can help keep you clean when you can’t wash your hands. Keeping in mind these simple tips about your hands can help spare you and your co-workers illness during the peak of flu season.

When in Doubt, Vaccine it Out

Another basic step you can take to help keep yourself healthy during the cold and flu season is the flu vaccine. While it isn’t and never has been a sure fire way to completely protect yourself from the flu, it has been shown to be upwards of 90% effective. It's a cheap, safe way to protect yourself against the season so it might be a good idea to ask your doctor if the flu shot might be right for you. Getting the flu shot can help protect you from the most prevalent strains of influenza as well reduce your chances of getting your co-workers sick.  

If you need help with medical cleaning, day porter services, school cleaning, commercial handyman services, restroom sanitation services or more, please call Stathakis at 1-800-278-1884.

How Do Your Office Cleaning Prices & Service Add Up?

Is the difficulty of trying to find a new commercial cleaning company beginning to feel reminiscent of your college algebra course? Does it seem like no matter what you do, you can’t ever seem to find the right solution? Finding the right office cleaning company for your facility can feel like a seemingly insurmountable task. For every professional, effective office cleaning company, there are probably at least twenty cleaning companies just treading water. Fortunately for you, although this task can feel Sisyphean or even impossible, there is a tried and true formula (no algebra we promise) for finding high quality, effective, responsive office cleaning without too much suffering on your part. By looking at a few core aspects of office cleaning and what takes it from poor to good to great, you can see what makes a company effective and those qualities that add real value to the service you receive.

Fuzzy Pricing is a Major Red Flag

Forget the algebra, this isn’t rocket science, but if you did the math on your prospective cleaning companies bid and things just aren’t adding up it might be time to look for another office cleaning company. An imprecise bid has a number of inherent problems with it. First, if the pricing isn’t clear, it can be difficult to see what it is your actually paying for. Without being able to determine the value of a service, it can be difficult to decide if a commercial cleaning company is right for your facility. Further, fuzzy pricing can be a function of hidden fees and other upcharges, which can further damaged an already reduced budget and throw careful planning into a tailspin. Second, without a clear price point it is impossible to compare different companies to each other. As a Facility Manager, you are always looking to get the best deal for your company, so not having the tools to do so can create a significant handicap. The most experienced, professional companies will always give you a detailed and crystal clear bid. They want to set a benchmark and consistently perform at that level so that you continue to give them business.

The Equation is Fairly Simple, Good People = Good Service

Any service business’s most important asset is the people that they employee. The best commercial cleaning companies understand this concept and work around the clock to attract, hire, and retain the best staff for getting your facility cleaned properly. A good gauge of the quality of any prospective commercial cleaning company is their understanding of the value of their staff. Ask them how they attract, screen, hire, train and retain their top talent. The best companies will show you clear, well thought through and developed processes that make them shine above the rest of the competition. What is even more encouraging about these companies is that they didn’t just stumble across their techniques to this particular challenge. Any company that dedicates themselves to finding the right employees and implementing pre-qualifications such as background checks and drug checks is going to take cleaning your facility just as seriously. Partnering with a company that shows a passionate interest in the quality of their company culture is always going to perform better than a company that is not interested in the people that they hire.

The Solution Lies in the Right Office Cleaning Company

Communication is another important trait of any successful commercial cleaning service provider. These companies recognize the need to have the right people in place in order to deliver the most effective service as well as respond to your requests and suggestions as they come up.  As you likely know as a Facility Manager, being responsive to your customer’s requests is one of the foremost priorities of any service business.  The reality is that people are performing a service and people are only human after all. Even the most effective, professional office cleaner will need some feedback to fine-tune their work to your particular requirements. It is never a question of if your commercial cleaning company is going to make a mistake, it is a question of how they are going to address it and how smoothly the issue can be resolved. The cream of the crop companies will communicate how they are going to solve the problem and then quickly implement their solution.

Take Advantage of a Couple of Industry Shortcuts

Finding the right cleaning company as a Facility Manager can seem like a giant headache full of numbers, computations and promises that may or may not hold water. Fortunately for you, there is a useful shortcut you can take advantage of to help cut down on the time you have to look for the right company. As a Facility Manager, why wouldn’t you avail yourself of any and all advantages you could in finding and hiring a solid, consistent and quick to respond office cleaning service? One means to get to the answers to your office cleaning problems faster and more effectively is to put industry certifications to use in creating your short-list of qualified, professional office cleaning companies. Taking advantage of such certifications as the ISSA CIMS offers an effective way to winnow down this list given the rigor and prestige of such a certification. Companies that are CIMS certified are often the best in their industry committed to excellence and innovation. When looking for your next partner in cleaning, take advantage of this free tool to help make the search for your next office cleaning company easier and more effective.

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year… to Help Your Office Cleaning Company Help You

We all know that the winter months and bevy of holidays be a time of shifting needs with regard to our office cleaning. This time of year can present both challenges and opportunities for both you and your commercial office cleaning company. Often you will find that with more employees taking vacation time, your needs shift. You may need less service or even more service from your office cleaners depending on the nature of your business. And sometimes, with so many people out of the office, it is a good time to get some deep cleaning done. But there are some factors that can get in the way of a clean building and even your office cleaner’s ability to make the most of the seasonal down times. How can you take advantage and make the most of the downtime in your building to make sure you offices look their best?

#1: Keep Desks Organized to Help Out Cleaning Staff

Your commercial cleaning company can’t clean the desks if they are covered in paperwork and other important things that they don’t know what to do with. Further, any trash, cups or other items can make it near impossible to get to the surfaces beneath. As Facility Manager, it can be helpful to remind your employees to clean their desk and other communal areas before they leave for holiday to allow the cleaning staff to effectively get their job done and get as deep and thorough a cleaning as possible.

#2: Prevent the ‘Holiday Fridge’ From Becoming a Biohazard 

When people start leaving for the holidays, your communal refrigerator can quickly becomes a biohazard if some steps aren’t taken to prevent it. How often have you looked into the office fridge post holiday party to find a Jenga of foil cartons threatening to tumble and assorted sundries left behind after the merriment si over? The danger (not to mention the smell) of the three-week-old salmon and the platters of party goodies that no one took with them in the haste to start their holidays can quickly become ideal hosts for molds and other unpleasantness. If you ignore this problem your office fridge may become the worst smelling thing in the office. The trick to solving this all to common problem, is getting employees to take responsibility for the week old Chinese or half finished soda. The most effective solution, we have found, is to create a regularly cleaning schedule so that anything that isn’t claimed within a certain time period is disposed of before it can become a problem. This eliminates any risks associated with leaving food in the fridge for too long and gives cleaners an opportunity to deep clean and minimize odors.

Tip #3 Winter Means Cold and Flu

The holiday season also coincides with another less pleasant season, cold and flu season. As such, your Michigan janitorial company should be doing everything in their power to keep touch points and hotspots regularly cleaned to help reduce the risk of bacterial and viral infections and assure you have a healthy work environment. Is your office cleaning company cleaning for health?

It isn’t solely on your cleaning service, their are some things that you should remind your employees of:

• Wash your hands correctly to stop the spread of pathogens
• Don’t come to work sick, you won’t be an effective employee and it can potentially get other people sick
• Regularly use hand sanitizer and wash hands as well as to keep hands away from the face. It may sound like something you here in a kindergarten classroom, but science has shown time and time again that this is the most effective way to prevent illness
• Understand practices that help reduce the risk of spreading disease such as how to cough and sneeze

TIP #4:Use Winter Downtime to Your Advantage to Get Some of That Deep Cleaning and Maintenance Done

Most offices are busy, bustling places so deep cleaning and other intensive maintenance tasks are often pushed to the side or delayed longer than they should be. However, during the holiday season, take advantage of the reduced number of people to catch up and even do some preventative maintenance to prepare for the busy months ahead. Many office cleaning services not only offer cleaning but other services such as HVAC care, plumbing painting, electrical, carpet and window washing, among other things that you can use to care for your facility. Need carpets cleaned? Need floors stripped and recoated? Need some other extras? The holidays present a rare opportunity to get these things done, unobstructed by high traffic.

Tip #5 It is the Season of Giving, so Give Yourself an Effective, Professional Commercial Cleaning Company

The holiday season is a time of giving, so give yourself the right office cleaning service provider for your facility. Maybe you’ve had it with your current cleaning company and are looking to try something else. Or, perhaps you are new to the janitorial market and are trying to decide who can help keep your facility looking fresh and clean. Either way, if you are looking for quality, consistent, responsive, professional service for you and your building, there is a company out there that can fill your needs.

The winter holidays can present a good time to transition to a new, better office cleaning company. So often in talking to Facility Managers we are finding that as budgets remain tight or even reduced, demands go up leaving many Facility Managers struggling to get their buildings cleaned effectively AND within budget.

The time of reduced office budgets have been here and it doesn't look like it will be changing anytime soon so you need a company that will give you value for your dollar and that will be committed to working with your budget and giving you consistent, effective services. Thoughtful winter maintenance, planning and even bringing on a new more adept office cleaning company can be the answer to assuring your office is clean and ready to go during winter months and all through the year.

Don’t Take the Hit For Poor Office Cleaning

If your office is in a constant state of disorder, you’ll find that your employees attitudes tend to match. While office cleaning can seem like a insignificant part of your business, most of your employees appreciate when they work in a clean, fresh space. As such, when your facility is left in disarray or poorly cleaned, you are sending the message to your staff that subpar work is acceptable. 

It makes a lot of sense when you think about it, if you don’t require an acceptable level of service from your commercial office cleaning company, why would you require it from your employees? An unkempt office building can also impact the financial health of your business. For instance, try attracting high performing employees with a dirty building. Odds are, they will take one look at your facility and opt to align with a company that they perceive has higher quality standards.

If you care about having top talent, an engaged employee base, as well as reduced a and attrition, it’s important to assure that your office cleaning company is doing an effective job keeping your facility looking its best.

Are Your Office Cleaners Really Giving Everything They Got?

Does your office fridge look like something that belongs in a CDC lab? Do your restrooms look and smell more like stadium restrooms than office restrooms? Is a revolving door of office cleaners netting you ineffective cleaning as they are continually in training mode? What it comes down to is, are you and your facility getting the service that you need for the price that you are paying? Is your office cleaning company being responsive in managing issues in service you bring to their attention? If your commercial cleaning company is failing to deliver on contract promises time and time again, it may be time to look for a commercial cleaning company that can really deliver value for your dollar. With any service company, they should always strive to provide work that exceeds your expectations.

Are Your Office Cleaning Services Top of the Heap or Bottom of the Heap?

As you can imagine, professional office cleaning companies are all different. So, what is the difference between a solid office cleaner and one that performs below the bar? First, the best companies understand the need for security and put into place hiring and screening processes to make sure the people that make up their staff are a good fit for your facility. Companies that are committed to delivering the highest quality of service will often pursue the CIMS certification to show their ability to work using the industries best practices.

Professional companies will also demonstrate a track record and in-depth knowledge of their industry’s best practices. They don’t only promise quality work, they have systems in place to guarantee it. No one is perfect all the time and even the best commercial cleaning companies get it wrong sometimes. The difference is that when things go wrong, they are quick to address and rectify problems.

Where to Look to Get Effective Commercial Office Cleaning Services

Companies don’t just stumble into great service, there is always a plan involved. Even companies with the best intentions and the highest level of staff and equipment can’t compete with those companies that come prepared with a strategy. What good are intentions and equipment if there isn’t a clear path to implementing them. Think about it, there are so many things that can’t be done without a plan. For instance, how will your Detroit cleaning company find and keep good people? How do they create choice and set expectations for their customers with clear pricing? Are they committed to green cleaning, cleaning for health and using technology to advance their industry? Have they been awarded the CIMS certification? While it isn’t easy, asking questions will help you avoid getting saddled with a company that does not know what they are doing.

People Are The Cornerstone Of Standout Office Cleaning Services

When it comes to any service business, it is their people that will make or break service. After all, the office cleaning staff, day porters, medical cleaners, janitors and other support staff are the ones directly caring for your building. As such, it is incredibly important that you commercial cleaning company work to recruit, train, and retain their staff. Ask your prospective commercial cleaning service provider how their people processes work and encourage them to show you how they have led to success. Ask about their janitorial turnover. Any company with a solid people system in place will have low janitorial turnover increasing the quality of the service you receive. Further, the companies that invest time and energy into their people will differentiate themselves from other companies by simply being better at what they do.

A Professional Office Cleaning Company Provides You With Transparent Pricing

When looking at your list of prospective commercial cleaning companies, the largest red flag any of them can give you is a cleaning bid that isn’t well-defined in terms of both services offered and clear pricing. One of the most important things a janitorial bid allows you to do is to compare different companies side by side. So, when you receive a bid that is confusing and imprecise, it takes away your ability to do this. Further, cleaning costs often take a large portion of your budget, so it is important to know exactly where your funds are going. On top of that, companies that don’t offer a clear price point are often trying to hide fees and other upcharges, or, simply aren’t experienced enough to give a proper bid. Either way, pricing problems start of the relationship with a new cleaning company on the wrong foot and point to trouble ahead.

Does Your Office Cleaning Company Have A Commitment to Industry Proven Practices?

Proper office cleaning isn’t just cleaning a surface so that it looks clean, it is cleaning a surface so that it is clean. If your office cleaners don't understand cleaning for health, rather than just cleaning for appearance, then you and your staff are at a higher risk for contracting any of the number of communicable diseases that make the rounds. The best commercial cleaning companies understand cleaning for health, touch points, hotspots, dwell times, green cleaning and the most common forms of bacterial transmission. They take advantage of industry techniques such as color-coded cleaning cloths, procedures to avoid cross-contamination and critical health based cleaning training for all their staff. Remember, a company that properly trains their staff to clean for health can keep your building sparking and help you maintain a healthy workplace. 

Make Life Just a Little Simpler With Effective Office Cleaning 

Finding the right commercial cleaning company for your facility is never going to be the easiest task in the world, but it can be done and better yet, it’s worth it. Getting referrals from other professionals you trust, asking the right questions and following up with your prospective cleaning and maintenance contractor can help ensure that you get a high quality service and value for your dollar. Understanding the processes the use to hire, train, and retain their staff as well as what systems they have in place to address and resolve problems is also important to consider. With a cleaning company that is right fit for your building, you will feel like you have a great partner in the care and maintenance of your facility.

It is that time of year again. The beginning of the cold and flu ramps up threatening to leave your team a combination of the walking wounded and terrified germaphobes hoping not to get sick. While most of us recover, colds and flus can be serious business for the very young, the very old and those people who are already healthy compromised. Not only do colds and flus spell disaster for people and their noses, chests and stomachs, they can spell disaster for your bottom line. 

If your commercial cleaning service isn’t on the ball, you’re about to have an office full of sick people rather than a case here and there. Poor cleaning processes and practices coupled with employees not properly washing their hands can quickly make any building into a nexus of contagion. And the rates of infection increase exponentially. The more people get sick, the more they can spread disease-causing germs around getting others ill. So, what should you and your employees be doing to protect themselves and how can your Detroit janitorial company do to help keep infection rates down in your facility?

You Are The First & Best Defense Against Office Illness 

The first and often most effective step you can take to protect your employees health is to encourage them never to come to work sick. Coming to work sick will only result in an upward trend in absenteeism reducing work output, not increasing it. Another step you as the Facility Manager can take is to remind your employees of how to correctly wash their hands. Even posting guidelines is shown to increase correct hand washing compliance. At food establishments, it’s the law but hand washing after using the restroom is a good practice for all of us.

It can be surprising how few people actually know how to. Here are the times the U.S. Centers For Disease Control (CDC) advocates hand washing:

• Before eating food
• Before and after treating an open wound, cut or abrasion
• After changing diapers or cleaning up a child who has used the toilet
• Before and after caring for a person or people who are sick
• After touching an animal, animal feed, or animal waste
• After touching garbage
• After using the toilet
• Before, during, and after food preparation
• After blowing your nose, coughing, or sneezing

Knowing when to wash your hands isn’t the only important aspect of hand washing, however. Knowing how to wash your hands can be just as, if not more important. So, here is what the CDC recommends for non-medical hand washing practices:

1. Wet your hands with clean, running water, and apply soap.
2. Lather your hands by rubbing them together with the soap. Be sure to lather the backs of your hands, between your fingers, and under your nails.
3. Scrub your hands for at least 20 seconds
4. Rinse your hands well under clean, running water.
5. Dry your hands using a clean towel or air-dry them.

Your Commercial Cleaning Company Might be Doing More Harm than Good

Now that you know what your part is in keeping your facility healthy, what should your commercial cleaning company be doing to back you up? Certainly not cleaning your restrooms and desks with the same towel. Nor should they be using the same mop and bucket in the restroom anywhere else in the facility. Cross-contamination is one of the most overlooked problems in health cleaning practices and noticeably contributes to poor cleaning, poor outcomes and even employee absenteeism. The reality of the situation is that your cleaning companies practices are going to determine the effects of the cold and flu season on your facility. So here are some industry-proven practices that your commercial cleaning comapny should be following for the best, most effective results.

• Frequently change mop heads and mop waters, especially after cleaning restrooms, to help reduce cross-contamination risks.
• Implement a color-coded rag system to eliminate the risk of cross-contamination on surfaces.
• Use the right cleaning product for the work at hand. For instance, use a lightweight cleaner on low-risk surfaces and a strong disinfectant on touch points and hotspots.
• Install entryway mats to help reduce the amount of foreign materials that enter the building.
• Following the practices you set for your employees, your cleaning staff should frequently and correctly wash hands,
• Keep the janitorial closet in a clean, working order with cleaning supplies neatly and safely stored and equipment and supplies kept clean.
• All equipment should be well maintained so that is operational.

Why You Need to be Cleaning for Health

There is an important difference between cleaning for appearance and cleaning for health, and your commercial cleaning company has to understand how to do both effectively. As you know, we cannot see the disease causing bacteria and viruses that lurk on surfaces in our office like influenza, the various strains of E. coli, C. difficile, MRSA and other retroviruses. While it is easy to overlook these things because we cannot see them, proper cleaning for health does impact infection rates in your office.

Companies that take the lead protecting your staff will use industry best practices like color-coded rags, use appropriate chemical cleaners for various situations, take advantage of industry specific innovations like HEPA vacuum cleaners to improve air quality and follow manufacturer recommendations like dwell times and effective usage to get you optimal results. If you cleaning company is ignoring these tried and proven practices, they are putting your facility at risk.

Understanding Why Touch Points & Hot Spots Are Vital To Health

When it comes to cleaning for health, touch points and hot spots are critical to employee health and by default, your bottom line. Touch points and hot spots are things like door handles, computer equipment, touchpads, faucet handles, telephones and things like these. They are essentially any common surface that becomes a hotspot for disease because of the number of people that touch and use it on a day to day basis. While it is impossible to keep these surfaces completely clean all the time, regularly cleaning them can help reduce the total germ load and thus the spread of disease in your facility. Make sure that when you partner with a commercial cleaning company that they have a thorough understanding of what it means to clean for health. If your commercial cleaning company is phoning it in or simply doesn’t understand the requirements of the work, when cold and flu season rolls around, you may have a lot of sick employees.

Is it Time to Find A New Commercial Cleaning Partner for the Sake of Health?

No matter what type of cleaning service you are looking for, office cleaning, medical cleaning, industrial cleaning, hospital or other medical cleaning, or just general cleaning, you need to have a partner that has the know-how to clean your facility with the health of your employees in mind. Not only that, they need to implement proven industry practices to insure the proper cleaning of your building. If you aren’t sure what your office cleaning service provider is doing to protect the health of you and your employees, just ask them. If what they tell you does not involve hotspots, reducing the risk of cross-contamination, and dwell times, it might be time to start shopping the commercial cleaning marketplace for something that does. 

Zone Cleaning Isn’t Effective

In theory, multitasking sounds like a great idea, but like many other theories, it doesn't stand up in practice. As it turns out, people aren’t amazing at juggling a variety of tasks. While sometimes this is an unavoidable consequence of work, studies have shown that better, more consistent results are delivered when someone specializes in one area. Knowing this, it is no surprise that zone cleaning, that is, assigning a single person to all the tasks in a room, has been shown to be less effective than team cleaning.

Team Cleaning Is More Efficient, More Effective & Saves Money

So, what is team cleaning and how does its stack up to zone cleaning? A cleaning service that uses zone cleaning has to equip each of their staff members for cleaning every part of a room resulting in the unnecessary duplication, storage and maintenance of items. Further, because zone cleaning is an extreme form of multi-tasking and task switching, the quality of the work is often poor and requires more labor hours overall. In contrast, team cleaning has each person on a team doing a specific cleaning task or small subset of tasks in a building. For instance, one person would be tasked with vacuuming and another with restrooms. This way, there is minimal duplication of equipment and each person is allowed to focus on a specific set of tasks resulting in better task mastery and amore effective, faster cleaning of your facility.

Why Zone Cleaning Fails to Deliver

For certain smaller buildings, it can make sense to have a single person clean the entire office, however, with nearly all larger facilities, having a team for office cleaning offers a number of advantages to you. For instance:

• Team cleaning streamlines training, makes it easier to fill in for a missing member and improves work consistency.
• Promotes teamwork to help balance responsibilities.
• Specialization results in task mastery, consistently higher quality work and reduced labor hours.
• Reduces the cost of purchasing, servicing and storaging costly duplicate equipment.
• Different cleaning solutions such as Green Cleaning are easy to implement with a more centralized staff.
• Easy to customize to the needs of your facility.
• Overall reduction in the cost to you will reducing the number of labor hours needed to manage the cleaning and maintenance of your facility.

Team Cleaning Offers Clear Cost Advantages

Almost every Facility Manager is trying to figure out how to hold steady the costs of their facility maintenance. Maybe you have overall reduced budgets or maybe you had a costly unplanned maintenance issue that threw your carefully planned budget into a tailspin. Whatever the reason, reducing services can’t come at the cost of proper facility cleaning, cuts have to be strategic to still maintain acceptable cleanliness while keeping costs steady or even reducing the overall price of the service.

One of the best ways to do this is by taking advantage of team cleaning. Take for example a light duties specialist, this individual typically dusts and cleans all surfaces, clean windows and doors, empties trash and stacks trash for pickup by different team member to collect. These teams will often include specialist in everything from vacuuming to utilities. Such specialization has a number of benefits to you and your budget. First, it helps reduce the risk of cross-contamination. Second, it helps improve consistency and the quality of service, giving you more value for your dollar. Finally, it makes sure the responsibilities are laid out and that each person is aware of what needs to get done.

How Team Cleaning Mitigates the Impact of the Rising Minimum Wage

Janitorial and commercial cleaning prices are on the rise largely due to the increasing minimum wage here in Michigan. As the single largest hard cost to any office cleaning company, the cost of labor has a serious impact on our pricing. The second largest contributor to hard costs is the price of buying and maintaining equipment. Team cleaning helps address both of these factors. Not only does it reduce labor hours, by minimizing the amount of duplicated equipment, team cleaning can significantly reduce the price of having your facility regularly cleaned without significantly reducing the quality of cleaning. 

Are You Looking for a Step Up in Your Commercial Cleaning Services?

As Facility Manager, you know how the quality and consistency of your janitorial and commercial cleaning service can positively or negatively impact your workload as well as the function of your facility. If your cleaning service is a constant thorn in your side, it might be time to look for a new prospective cleaning company. Companies that provide a cost-effective service without causing problems in your facility do exist. You can have a high quality service without bankrupting your building.

Here at Stathakis, we provide consistent, responsive, effective service and a solid value for businesses all across southeastern Michigan. We have been in the industry more than 30 years and have developed a consistent standard of service that our customers are all willing to vouch for. We will work hard to develop a lasting partnership with you and your facility as well as to deliver the highest quality of service to your facility. If you are a Facility Manager in Royal Oak, Ann Arbor, Detroit, Farmington Hills, Farmington, Dearborn, Novi, Livonia, Troy, Auburn Hills, Plymouth, Downriver or any areas close to those and you are looking for commercial cleaning services, office cleaning, school cleaning, industrial cleaning, medical cleaning or a janitorial company, please contact us so we can help your facility look its best and work to meet your specific needs.

Ensuring Office Safety is as Important as Making Sure It Is Cleaned Well

With many large office buildings there are so many people going in and out over the course of the day. These days, increased security is paramount and that means we need to have an idea about who is entering our facilities as well as some degree of trust that they are safe. We would all like to think that each and every person that we meet is generally a good person, but recently the news has been filling up with headlines like “Maryland Office Shooting Suspect Had a History of Workplace Violence” and “Chef Killed by Coworker” raising real concerns for companies all across the country in terms of workplace safety.  

Safety & Your Commercial Cleaning Company’s Staff

Thankfully although these events understandably grab headlines, they are not as common as it can sometimes feel. However, they raise important safety questions about why these events happen, what we can do to prevent them or at least reduce their likelihood and common sense ways we can make our workplaces safer. So when it comes to your janitorial services company, you want to know who is coming and going and you want to know that they are safe. No one likes a constant stream of new faces in and out of your building at all hours of the day.

Assuring Fit & Suitability In Office Cleaners Requires Some Effort

It all comes down to comprehensiveness and effectiveness of the background checks implemented by the cleaning company in question. Your janitorial services company needs to perform comprehensive background checks on ANY employee that enters YOUR facility. Many companies neglect to be diligent about background checks and drug screening and perhaps fail to appreciate the real risk that presents you your employee and your facility. As time goes on, it is becoming more and more evident that halfhearted, occasional screening isn’t enough to make sure the workplace is safe for you and your employees.  What is needed? There are a couple of key areas that need to be thoroughly examined when performing background checks, not limited to just criminal and drug history. For instance, education, verifying employment history, and reference verifications are all important aspects of someone's employability. Some companies will go beyond and do more to assure office cleaners are a good fit for the work.

What to be on the Lookout When it Comes to Hiring Verifications

Before you decide to outsource you office cleaning to just any building services contractor, make sure you know enough about them. In the cleaning industry, many businesses having a revolving door of staff as a result of an inadequate pool of talent. To err is human, so at some point your office cleaning company will hire the wrong person, and that is ok. But, if your commercial office cleaning company is consistently ignoring or overlooking references, criminal histories, and drug tests because of the cost and time required to check a double check their people, then it is time to find a new partner or move on in your search for effective and safe office cleaning services. Don’t put you or your employees at risk, make sure your office cleaning company is following through with their background checks.

• Criminal Background check (nationwide not just state)
• E-Verify
• Education Verification
• References Follow Up
• Drug Screening
• Employment History Verification

What We do Differently Here At Stathakis

Here at STATHAKIS, we go against the grain when it comes to providing janitorial and commercial cleaning services. Cleaning goes beyond just the task of mopping the floor, taking out the trash, and dusting surfaces, though we do that and do it well. It is about providing the highest quality of overall service, everything from cleaning to helping do our part to assure your workplace is safe. We believe in building relationships with our clients and good relationships are built on trust. We utilize extensive and stringent verification methods when we hire new employees to make sure that they are not only skilled cleaners, but a good addition to your work environment. After all, our business is only as good as our people.