The vast majority of commercial cleaning companies start their work when you end yours. When your building it empty, they get to work. No worries about noise or getting in the way of the business of business. Still, for a variety of reasons, nighttime cleaning isn’t always the right solution or sufficient. Day cleaning is essentially moving your cleaning and janitorial services to the workday, in line with your normal hours of operation.
Perhaps you are looking to save on electricity and security costs by moving your cleaning service to overlap with your facility's normal functions. Maybe you want more coverage or extra help tackling issues that come up during the day rather than waiting to have them solved at night. Maybe you want a visible cleaning presence and the ability to communicate with your cleaners in real time. Whatever your reasons may be, there can be significant advantages to adding or moving to day cleaning.
There are a number of benefits to using a day cleaning service to clean and maintain your facility. First, day cleaning increases the visibility of the facilities team and benefit of those services to your employees. Employees see for themselves that you and your day cleaning team are working to keep the building clean. This can lead to fewer complaints, as employees are aware the cleaning is being done and have interaction with frontline cleaners. Even communicating needs and changes can happen in real time leading employees to view the cleaning services as more responsive and efficient.
Second, your facility can experience a significant reduction in energy costs. When you leave the lights on and HVAC system running for your building to be cleaned when your staff is not working, this costs money. Having a day cleaning service can save you money because you no longer have to pay for after hours electricity usage and security. We’ve found that on average, you can save around 6% on energy costs, although it does vary from building to building. Daytime cleaning can be a great way for facilities to meet their sustainability goals.
Third, a day cleaning service can also reduce security concerns. This is because day cleaning avoids having your building opened during non-business hours. There is no longer a need for the cleaning team to access your facility after hours or be responsible for securing it when their work is complete. The work is completed during normal business hours allowing you to close and secure your facility as you normally would.
Fourth and finally, day cleaning is good for your cleaning staff too, which can benefit you in terms of lower turnover and higher output. Many cleaners who work a daytime schedule report greater satisfaction with the hours as it allows them to be home with their families and not have to travel to work sites at night. While many facilities still benefit from or require night cleaning, the transition to day cleaning has potential significant benefits all around.
To make day cleaning work to your advantage, you need to consider how it is implemented and executed. This requires some planning by both your and your commercial cleaning company. But, done correctly, it can lead to a rather seamless transition to the new day cleaning service. It isn’t a simple as moving the cleaning schedule, you need to figure out which areas of your facility get high traffic when and what activities can’t be interrupted for cleaning. Deciding which areas to clean when and how to clean them is critical to your cleaning team and staff getting along. Some things you may want to consider are noise restrictions during certain times of the day and which bathrooms get a lot of traffic when. By planning around these things you can integrate your cleaning into the daily routine rather than have it obstruct your daily routine. Knowing the optimal cleaning times for different areas of your building is key to success.
Moving from nighttime to daytime cleaning can be challenging, especially because cleaning can get in your way if not carefully planned and executed. It starts with communicating to your employees that you are making the change and that it may present some new things that need to be worked around. This also means that you need to work with cleaning staff that are more flexible and personable, as they will be working more directly with your employees. Some will be more than fine with the change, and others may have difficulty adapting. If you plan on changing to a day cleaning service, let your cleaning company know well in advance so that they can start working on getting the right people into your building.
You can also take advantage of industry innovation to make the transition easier on the people that work there. Quiet or noiseless vacuums are a good way to start as they help reduce noise and make it easier for cleaners to work around the needs of your business. This allows you to keep the office clean and is one more job that you don’t need to save for later because it is distracting. Something else to keep in mind is that your cleaning teams will be using their chemical solutions closer to your staff. Using environmentally safe solutions are a must to safeguard the health of your staff.
Is Day Cleaning the Answer?
In order to have a successful day cleaning service, there are a number of important factors to consider. Is day cleaning right for your facility? Would you benefit from the energy cost savings? Will day cleaning get you closer to your sustainability goals? Would your employees benefit from seeing and getting to know the cleaning team? Do you have security concerns about your building being open when you are not there? If any of these ring true for you, day cleaning might be just what you need.