Gauging Efficiency

Are the cleaning employees working as hard — or as smart — as they could be? Without workloading, the answer is probably 'no,' and that's a risk housekeeping managers can't afford to take. In this economy, everyone must to do more with less — or face the consequences.

"If you don't become more efficient where you can, there's a contractor lying in wait ready to do it for you," says Ian Greig, CEO of Daniels Associates in Phoenix.

The only way to be certain the department is as efficient as it should be is to collect and evaluate measurable data. Hunches and anecdotes just don't cut it. Workloading is a systematic approach to determining the number of staff required to maintain a facility and, from this, the cost of cleaning.

"The current economy forces management to account for every penny," says John Vogelsang, director of facilities services at Illinois Central College in East Peoria, Ill. "Increasing efficiency is the heart and soul of a business and facilities services have to look at themselves as a business."

Housekeeping departments are constantly asked to do the same — or more — with less money and fewer staff. Meeting those demands can only happen by using every dollar and labor hour to its fullest.

Currently, most cleaners in office settings are expected to clean about 5,000 square feet an hour. That number could be doable, Greig says, if managers developed smarter workloading strategies. For example, he recently helped a client cut daily vacuuming times from six hours to less than one by switching to more efficient equipment.

"The housekeeping manager had initially been against the idea, but later she admitted she was wrong," Greig says. "There's no other business I know of that is 80 percent labor, which is why it is even more important that we reevaluate the equipment and how its use can make cleaners more efficient."

Mining And Managing Data

Workloading starts with data gathering. There are many variables that affect staffing levels, from the building's size to its finishes. This information is critical in determining how many square feet each janitor cleans. And that's a dollar figure every housekeeping manager should have at his fingertips.

"You can only improve what you measure," says Vogelsang, who was shocked recently to learn that many colleges in his area don't know their costs of cleaning. "How do you know if you are efficient? You need to be able to compare your numbers to others in the industry."

Getting an accurate picture of the building starts with mapping it out. Original building drawings will include square footage, which should be broken down into various cleaning categories, such as office space and restrooms.

Next, the housekeeping manager must identify the specific tasks required to clean each space. This evaluation should address variable factors such as flooring types, traffic patterns and available equipment. Each task should be assigned a cleaning time; industry associations can provide standard times based on best practices.

With square footage, tasks and times, managers can get accurate estimates of staffing needs: task multiplied by time equals labor. For example, if it takes three minutes to clean a toilet (as per ISSA's 447 Cleaning Times), a manager must allow 30 minutes for that task in a restroom with 10 toilets. Add to that the results of calculations for every other surface in the space (mirrors, floors, partitions, etc.) to determine the total time necessary to clean that restroom.

"Our competition is the contractor. When they walk into a facility, they use workloading software on their computers to immediately spit out how much they would charge for a job," Vogelsang says. "That's something we need to be able to do."

With a workload report in hand, a cleaning manager can correctly assess whether he/she has assigned too many or too few workers to a particular area or task and make adjustments to boost efficiency.

Workloading can also help establish best practices for a facility. Use the information to create a detailed task list that clearly outlines expectations (times, frequencies and appearance levels) for every job.

Estimating Accurately

Workloading data can be managed in any spreadsheet, but most housekeeping managers choose to invest in industry-specific software that calculates automatically (many programs come preset with standard times, frequencies and appearance levels) and offers more options than do-it-yourself methods.

"The plethora of workloading software makes this process much simpler than when we had to do calculations by hand," says Steve Mack, director of facilities management at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. "The software takes it beyond simple calculations. The options are almost endless."

Mack uses his workloading software not only to figure staffing needs and cleaning costs, but also to establish work routines and task lists, to create training manuals, and to calculate supply needs so he can consolidate purchasing and negotiate better pricing.

One of the best features of workloading software is its ability to quickly run "what if" scenarios before making sweeping changes. These cause-and-effect exercises can pinpoint exactly how much time or money can be saved through various changes to a cleaning program.

With just a few tweaks, a cleaning manager can quickly determine budget savings for reducing cleaning frequencies in a particular area. Software can also identify how those changes would affect appearance levels.

"Using the software models, I can say what would happen if we did a certain task three days a week instead of five," Greig says. "That's awfully difficult math to do without a computer."

The software can also be used to show the cost-saving benefits of purchasing new equipment. For example, if managers budget four hours to clean restrooms once a day, but tell cleaners they must now clean them twice a day with no additional staff, how can this be accomplished? Use workloading software to quickly see how a new, high-tech machine would affect cleaning times.

This type of calculation is how Greig's company was able to help a housekeeping manager drastically reduce her vacuuming times. She was happy with basic 12-inch uprights until she saw concrete evidence of how much time — and therefore money — would be saved by switching to 27-inch walk-behind, battery-operated vacuums.

"For many of our clients, we'll do a double 'comparison' workload to illustrate what they currently do versus what it would take using new equipment," Greig says. "The difference is usually 25 to 35 percent less. Workloading is about evaluating what we need to do and incorporating the right equipment to enable us to do it as efficiently as possible."

Proof In Numbers

Workloading reports provide housekeeping managers with concrete data, which can go a long way toward helping them illustrate their departments' worth to upper management.

"Workloading is an invaluable tool to justify the performance of in-house staffs," Mack says.

Gone are the days when managers can say to higher-ups, "Trust me, I know what I'm doing." In today's bottom-line-driven marketplace, decision makers expect everyone to come to budget meetings with facts and figures, not instincts. Janitorial is often a facility's largest expense yet management rarely knows much about it. Housekeeping managers are the experts in their field and workloading data can help them prove their professionalism.

With data in hand, housekeeping can educate facility managers on how budget cuts affect the cleanliness of a building. Or, the information can be used to justify an expensive piece of equipment by clearly illustrating how quickly the investment will pay for itself in efficiency savings.

After seeing a new orbital riding scrubber being used at another university, Vogelsang was certain the machine could make his own operations more efficient. At $10,000, however, he needed proof — and was able to get it using workloading software.

"It was not a small investment, but I could show that the labor and chemical savings would pay for the machine in a year and a half," Vogelsang says. "We used it for the first time last summer and got more done in less time with the same results."

Workloading software can also help managers plan staffing levels for new buildings. Or, it can be used to determine whether outsourcing a particular project is a budget-friendly idea (and then to develop the proper specs for the job to control quality).

"Statistics gleaned from proper workloading can help in-house staffs determine if they have the labor to undertake a special project and what it cost to do the work themselves," Mack says. "Only then can managers weigh that against contracting out the work."

As with any new system or tool, workloading only works if management buys in and staff is trained on its benefits, as well as how it works. With those measures in place, however, workloading can help housekeeping managers protect their turf by showing their value.

"You are qualifying what you do and how efficient you are," Vogelsang says. "If you can lower the cost of cleaning per square foot, you can do more with the same money. Increasing efficiency is the heart of any great program."

Becky Mollenkamp is a freelance writer based near DesMoines, Iowa.