Benchmarks

Educational Markets:
Keeping up with growing schools
— By Kristine Hansen
Who better to look to for tips on custodial growth planning, than a district serving the fastest growing city in the U.S.?

The latest census reports Las Vegas’ population has exploded to 1.3 million people, a 62 percent increase from 1990 and the largest for any metro area in the country.

About 205,000 students attend the Clark County School District, with a crew of 1,000 custodians supporting their needs. This summer, the district — which includes Las Vegas, a few smaller neighboring cities and Laughlin — will add seven elementary schools, five middle schools and two high schools to its roster.

When news of the expansion broke, the district devised a system to calculate how many custodians would join their ranks. First they determined the number of new classrooms and restrooms.

“Supervisors and trainers go out and walk the sites. Every facility has a unique situation,” says Alice Favella, acting director of operations. “We have a basic way of cleaning but then we make an adjustment based on special needs.” If a school has after-school sports programs or hosts community events, this requires additional cleaning.

One of the secrets to maintaining sanitation and sanity through the expansion was to develop a team-cleaning approach with a trio of specialists working in succession through each building.

It takes about eight minutes to clean a classroom, she says — four minutes each for a light duty and a vacuum duty specialist. Cleaning a portable classroom takes about 12 minutes — six minutes for each specialist, due to the extra time it takes to haul equipment up stairs.

Cleaning a restroom can vary, but basically it’s four minutes for a restroom specialist and 2.5 minutes for each fixture.

Cleaning equipment and supplies were recently updated to accommodate the expansion and the toll it might have on custodians. Two-way carpet cleaners — a luxury item in the district — recently were purchased. Backpack vacuums and a color-coded system of pre-measured cleaning products and buckets also are some tools that help get the job done.

To further foster teamwork among the custodians, the Clark County School District launched its Custodial Grounds Staff Development Day in December. It will be offered a second time, in April, during the district’s spring break. Custodians can attend classes in topics such as “stress management,” “cleaning tile and floors” and “energy management.” Then attend lunch and an evening social.

For other school districts nervously looking down more dirty hallways to clean, Favella recommends they “research, test and evaluate new equipment — things that make the facilities safer for the staff.”

Flex staffing is the most important management tool an environmental services (ES) manager uses to meet financial goals of the department during times of fluctuating revenues. Flexing down does not have to mean lower quality, just a reduction in costs. Surfaces will be less dirty under less activity, requiring fewer workers. However, department managers must be careful not to increase health risks due to decreased services or additional physical burdens on ES staff.

A flex staffing plan must monitor departmental staffing based on information provided by the facility leadership — every day. This will require full collaboration with key departments.

A daily occupied-bed count from admitting should be provided to the ES department by the beginning of the day shift. This will determine the workload of occupied patient rooms and probable patient discharges for the day. A daily surgery schedule from outpatient and regular surgery services should be provided, as well as a daily C-section schedule from labor and delivery services. Banquet and meeting rooms services also need to provide a daily schedule for set-ups.

Then you must schedule “core activities” that do not depend on daily census. Full-time employees should handle these duties to reduce training and turnover time. Core activities could include: corridor floor maintenance; cleaning public areas; trash removal; linen distribution; kitchen/cafeteria cleaning; elevator/stairwell cleaning; laboratory areas; and ER services.

The “flex activities” of the department vary depending on the number of patients being served. These activities can be assigned to temporary employees. However, try to only supplementing full-time staff with temporary workers during full-occupancy periods.

Flex activities could include: labor and delivery areas; outpatient surgery areas; offices and administration; regular surgery areas; conference/classroom areas; patient room areas; CCU and ICU areas.

Next, define three levels of cleaning, depending on frequency and occupancy: acute care and full service, which is full cleaning; light cleaning, which eliminates some routine cleaning steps; police cleaning, which is general appearance cleaning and check-up.

Then, have all work assignments well defined by the beginning of the first shift of the day so temporary staff can call into a hotline for a pre-recorded update on their work status.

— By Thomas S. Svendsen, an environmental services consultant from B.E.S.T. Solutions, Baltimore.

Daytime cleaning is not a new concept, but it is one that more commercial cleaning operations are considering. It especially is of interest to those companies facing current energy crunches and trying to find ways to reduce costs, such as shutting off lighting overnight when cleaners would traditionally work.

Companies that have switched to day-time cleaning have experienced the following benefits:

Security: Theft reports dropped dramatically during daytime cleaning. One reason was that employees lost the ability to blame the cleaning crew for their own actions.

Accountability: One company found cleaning staff worked harder with extra eyes in the building, and the same situation helped reduce the number of necessary cleaning supervisors.

Utilities: One company cut utility costs when it didn’t have to run the HVAC system or have lights on after 6:00 p.m.

Communication/Morale: The increased interaction between tenants and cleaners enhanced communication and cooperation to the point that one company had a dramatic drop in complaints. Working face-to-face with customers also had a positive impact on employee morale.

Turnover: Along with higher morale comes a feeling of belonging that helps reduce turnover. Several facilities also have found a different labor market of high-quality employees willing to work both part- and full-time positions during the day.

— By Steve Spencer,
senior specialist, cleaning and interior maintenance for State Farm Insurance

The International Sanitary Supply Association recently announced its annual trade show and convention, ISSA/Interclean-USA 2001, will be open to housekeeping professionals and contract cleaners every year. Previously the industry’s largest trade show was closed to end users every other year.

This year, the show will be held Oct. 16-19 in Orlando, Fla. In-house housekeeping seminars covering training, workloading and operations management issues will be offered on Oct. 18, along with a panel discussion of top industry decision makers.