Dealing with Cuts: Quadrant Cleaning

A major hurdle in developing and enforcing a Plan B is to identify what areas to clean and how often. Although the CEO’s office will still require an Executive Level of cleaning with daily dusting, most other areas can be hit often enough to minimize dust while not over cleaning. We all know of well-meaning workers who boast that they clean “just like I clean at home” forgetting to mention that they only clean their homes weekly or even less often.  

Organizing your crews to know what to clean, when to clean and how to clean is very important in developing an effective Plan B. Quadrant Cleaning can help achieve that goal if implemented correctly. Using Quadrant Cleaning may necessitate implementation of job cards and other communication tools. Of course, the first person who must understand and embrace this process is the onsite supervisor since they must be willing and able to enforce the concept. 

Simply put, Quadrant Cleaning first identifies daily tasks such as pulling trash, vacuuming, etc. Then Detail or Less Frequent tasks are identified such as high dusting, cleaning corners, damp wiping the trash can, etc. Oftentimes a worker will either attempt to “detail” the entire area each night resulting in low productivity or they will put off the detail work until the end of the month and then try to catch up resulting in frustration.  

The term “Quadrant Cleaning” has to do with breaking an area into four or more sections that are serviced on a rotating basis while covering the regular or daily tasks each visit. The benefit with such a process is that key tasks are performed each visit while the detail work is completed incrementally resulting in less labor per visit.  Project work is usually scheduled the four Fridays of each month.

With Quadrant Cleaning, Plan B will need to be adjusted from tasks being performed once per week to once every two (or more) weeks while achieving the same goal of not putting off work too long and then having to play catch up.  

I hope to hear from you soon.  Until then, keep it clean…..

Mickey Crowe has been involved in the industry for over 35 years. He is a trainer, speaker and consultant. You can reach Mickey at 678.314.2171 or CTCG50@comcast.net.