Cleaning Your Home Vs. Cleaning Professionally

I oftentimes hear a supervisor direct a new hire to “clean the way you would clean your house.” This is usually a sign the supervisor has never been trained on how to supervise and direct, but it also has other implications that go beyond how the worker will respond.

As to office cleaning, the challenges to a new hire (especially if they are new to commercial cleaning) are multi-fold. For instance, what kind of vacuum cleaning system do they have at home? What kind of chemicals are they using to clean their house or apartment? How often do they clean to an office standard? And most important, do they do a good job cleaning their home or are they slobs?

Training new hires (inexperienced or veteran cleaners) should entail the XYZ Company way of cleaning which may be similar to other companies but can vary in many important ways. Brand and type of equipment, tools, chemicals, cloths and other differences can have an impact on how the cleaning process is performed. In addition, the type account and the specifications can have a serious impact on productivity as well as customer satisfaction. For these reasons and more, it is important that a new hire go through an orientation, on the job training and regular follow up if they are to succeed at their new assignment.

Another important aspect is whether the company allows Zone Cleaning or Team Cleaning. In Zone Cleaning the worker performs all the tasks in their assigned zone. This means they pull trash, dust, vacuum, sweep, damp mop, spot clean, service rest rooms, maintain the entrance and perhaps service the exterior. Zone Cleaning can be practical in some accounts such as small offices on a route where it would be impractical to have a traditional team of four (Trash, Vacuum, Restrooms and Utility) to travel to the site and perform their tasks.

We will continue these thoughts in a future article. 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