Continually Track Your Cleaning And Travel Times

Many times we get so involved in day-to-day challenges that we forget about Custodial Best Practices and end up paying for it. In my workshops across the country, I continue to repeat certain key principles that apply regardless of the size of your company or your level of experience. These principles include the concept of effectively workloading and scheduling all your contracts. 

For this example we are going to assume that you operate a relatively small startup business with one van that allows you to service small one-, two- and three-day contracts such as insurance offices, small car dealerships, a small bank/savings and loan, law firms and possibly even a doctor’s office or two. Your route work must be scheduled to allow you to start your work late enough to avoid too many tenants, yet early enough to allow you to perform the tasks involved. Since it is just you and your family providing the service you also need to take into account their schedules and obligations as well.

You bid the contract on one to three hours per visit total regardless of whether you have help or not. You are performing Blended Cleaning in that you utilize a portable cart for trash collection, a utility bucket to hold your sprays, cloths, etc., a one use microfiber mop system to avoid the need for mop buckets and in most cases, a backpack vacuum even if it is a lighter 2-quart version for flexibility.

Periodically you should use a timer/stop watch to track how long you spend travel to/from, set up/take down, onsite work and a separate number for infrequent project work such as stripping/recoating, carpet cleaning, etc. 

If you follow these suggestions you will have a much better idea of what a contract is actually costing you so that as you grow you can assign the work to others and know how long and how much each should take. 

Your comments and questions are important. 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.