Marketing Your Cleaning Program

Custodial work primarily deals with cleanliness, which plays an important role in any facility. People feel more comfortable and are more productive in facilities that are clean.

There are two types of cleaning. One is reactive cleaning, where someone points out that an area looks dirty and needs cleaning. Then there is marketing-approached cleaning, or cleaning that is performed because it brings value to a facility’s core business. In a marketing approach to cleaning, workers perform the normal tasks — emptying the trash, filling the dispensers, dusting, vacuuming and washing the floors, but also shine up the finer details — the corners, baseboards, glass doors, handles and so on.

The importance of a marketing approach to cleaning cannot be under-estimated. Imagine going to the doctor’s office and having smudged glass and a sticky door handle be the first thing you see. Then, once in the lobby, you encounter a stained carpet and a layer of dust on the tables. How would that impact your impression of that facility?

With a marketing approach to cleaning, custodians regularly address these things. They don’t wait for the facility to appear dirty. If things need to shine, custodial workers make sure they are shiny. If there is carpet in the lobby, staff makes sure spots are removed. In essence, custodians proactively clean the facility. 

This is something janitorial leadership can sell. They can say: “We do this because we are concerned about the way the company is presented. We take responsibility because we want people to have a good first impression when they enter the building.”

Sustainability is another example of an important and critical endeavor that often gets slipped under the rug. While it’s common for custodial operations to have a green program, few operations promote it. And if they do mention it, they share that becausetell others that because they use vacuums with HEPA filters, microfiber and green chemicals; they increase custodians’ productivity, a phrase that is easily turned against them when it’s time to trim staff. If you’re more productive, doesn’t that mean you need less people to do the job?

In a marketing-based approach, custodial leaders share how these tools capture fine dust,thedust, the particles that cannot be seen but can have a negative impact on people’s health, in a facility. They tell company leadership that sustainable tools and green chemicals increase everyone’s productivity because they improve indoor air quality. They then cite documentation that proves how important indoor air quality is to people’s health.
 
“It is important to understand that sustainability is not the same as green cleaning,” says David Holly, director, The Ashkin Group LLC. “The easiest way to think of this is that green cleaning is a small, but important, part of the overall sustainability of an organization. So, first we want to be sure we are doing everything we can to maximize our green cleaning efforts. An excellent next step would be to minimize our impact on the organization’s sustainability footprint. We can do this by choosing products that are not only green, but manufactured and distributed in a way that maximizes sustainability — your vendor can be a big help with this.”

He continues, “You might also consider looking at some of the new technologies that use ozone or electrolyzed water. This type of product has positive impacts on the entire supply chain.”

Finally, he adds, “It is important to train our cleaning staff to be looking for and reducing waste throughout the operation — from water, to electricity. Identifying leaks or equipment (computers, etc.) that are left on that could be powered down at night can have significant impacts on reducing resource consumption and cost.”

Many in house custodial departments are already pursuing these sustainability initiatives, unfortunately few people are aware of these activities outside the department.

RON SEGURA is the president of Segura & Associates, a consulting firm that provides services to all segments of the cleaning industry.