The underlying difference between doing your own janitorial and hiring a company to do I for you in the end comes down to one thing.
The inspector.
We have picked up contracts over time from frustrated building managers who cannot get the janitors to do the work that they were hired for. If the problem has gone on long enough there are sometimes multiple additional janitors that have been hired that still can never seem to get the job done. The problem is not in the janitors but with the lack of management. Without someone to guide the work and praise it when done well or correcting it when done poorly the Janitors begin to loss interest in the job. Why would they care when no one else does? They begin to do less and less work until all that is being done is the barest of essentials. Then when boss gets upset and talks to them about it, no one will admit to doing a less than great job. They deflect and say that more help is needed. It soon spirals out of control. I am not advocating spending your time managing the cleaning of your building. I would assume that you have better things to do. If your facility is big enough to hire a person to manage the cleaning, that is one solution. The other is to hire a service to clean for you.
When you hire a Janitorial service the premium you are paying is not for the janitor. It is for the management of the janitor. When a service takes over a new building’s cleaning the first this that should happen is a few veteran janitors should come in and get the cleaning up to the standard the customer expects. The next step is the foreman’s job. That person needs to time every step of the cleaning, so it is well known how long each thing takes (trash collection, sweeping, mopping, etc.). Only then is the new building ready to take on a regular janitor. Using the foreman’s timing a trainer will clean the building with the new janitor and stick with that person until they can do the job in the correct amount of time, to the correct level of quality.
The last step is the key to everything. From then on, the person who trained in the janitor should inspect the building weekly and give feedback as to how they are doing. If something starts to slip it can easily be corrected before it becomes a habit. If the janitor cuts corners on dust mopping for example the inspector should note this and bring it to their attention. With such a small correction the janitor can make a correction without too much fuss. Conversely if the janitor is consistently doing a good job the inspector should make specific complements about the job to them. Example, “your door glass always looks great, we appreciate that.”
With this method we have been able to consistently provide great service over a long period of time. Manage your labor, inspect the work, complement, and correct consistently. Your building will shine.
