Answering Eight Cleaning Challenges

I am always humbled and amazed at the response to some of my articles, since my readers are far smarter and adept at this than I will ever be. Following is a brain teaser for those of you who like to solve challenges. Please note, the following is a composite of issues I have dealt with in the past and does not reflect any one account; however, I have come close:

1. Your company has had this account for four years and had a great working relationship with the past management who recently was replaced by a new team that is not satisfied with the service being provided especially with the recent increase in billing.

2. The current supervisor is the latest of a revolving door with no one lasting more than three months and usually leave for better pay and working conditions.

3. The staff show up and sign in for each other to cover absenteeism with no set time to start or end the work.

4. Overtime is becoming a challenge since records indicate that full staffing should be able to cover the building at about 3,500 square feet per hour.

5. Zone cleaning has resulted in workers fighting over supply carts, a working vacuum cleaner and even areas to clean each night.

6. Workers bring in their own chemicals from home since they like to use pine scent, bleach and their own air fresheners since the company is usually late on supply delivery.

7. There also seems to be a lot of pilferage since the company are experiencing expendable and consumable supply costs much higher than average.

8. Quality control inspections are fabricated by rotating nine old ones and writing in new dates and times. All the inspections note Sat regardless of the specifications.

Please submit your ideas of how you would address one or more of these issues by number. In a future article, we will take this same account and respond to a 20 percent reduction.

Your comments and feedback are always appreciated. 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.