Scheduling 101

School days start with breakfast, study groups and band practice. Then comes a string of gym classes, art classes and academics. There’s lunch, club meetings and an assembly in the afternoon. After school, gymnasiums and cafeterias hold sports practices and games, potlucks, dances or city council meetings, while the drama club gets ready to put on a performance in the theater.

Faced with these schedules, schools and universities defy a “daily cleaning routine.” With careful planning and organization, and clear goals in mind, cleaning managers can stay on top of their game.

Sante Fe Trail School District
The maintenance and operations department at the Sante Fe Trail School District (Carbondale, Kan.) starts with reviewing a district-wide annual calendar of activities and special events that is published in late July.

“It’s a matter of learning to juggle [events] and be flexible with activities — especially with evening activities,” says Corky Green, assistant director of maintenance and operations for the district.

The district’s basketball season, for example, makes for tight scheduling because the basketball court also serves as the school’s lunchroom. This year, the district’s basketball team made it to the sub-state playoffs, so many other activities usually held in the gymnasium had to be rescheduled.

Many custodians have been with the district for at least 10 to 20 years. These long-term employees have accrued a lot of vacation time, which makes scheduling especially challenging in the summer months when employees tend to use their vacation time the most.

Building use does not slow down much during summer. For instance, a federally funded program called Fast Lane provides activities for kids 11 hours a day during the month of June.

“Before, we only had summer school,” he says. “Now we have to keep people in buildings with a short staff, and with vacations it’s more difficult. We still do renovations June through July. Then, a couple of weeks before school starts, we do minor maintenance like repairing lockers, replacing washers in sinks and that sort of thing.”

Kansas State University
The Kansas State University (Manhattan, Kan.) cleaning supervisors learn of special events when facilities management or the planning department submit a paper form detailing the event. The form includes contacts, space requirements, times, audio-visual and electrical needs, chairs, tables and everything else the department requires to know to help the event run smoothly.

Staff get overtime pay for noncyclical weekend events such as occasional theatrical productions or rodeos in the university’s agricultural arena. It’s not difficult to staff those events because workers are attracted to the additional income, says John Woods, director of facilities services.

Each supervisor is responsible for prioritizing tasks for their individual crews, ensuring key areas like classrooms, restrooms, main offices and trash are consistently tended to.
“They have a manual, but it doesn’t include scheduling because they do their own with their manager’s approval,” says Woods. “It’s left kind of loose for a reason.”

University of Arizona-Tucson
Scheduling begins at the University of Arizona-Tucson with a computer spreadsheet to map out cleaning schedules. The organization’s quality standards set the procedures for daily, weekly, monthly and yearly cleaning.

Staff is broken into teams of a supervisor and 20 custodians, and each custodian covers 28,000 square feet per day. Formal quality-assurance inspections are performed monthly and tracked in a database.

Additionally, a monthly report summarizes key operational issues. It includes productive time vs. nonproductive time off, temporary employees, corrective actions, accidents, training and safety, among other things.

“You can look at the report and say, ‘I’m going to have an issue at that building,’” says Chris Kopach, associate director of facilities management.

Kopach says recent budget cuts and the addition of new buildings add to workload. Staff, supervisors and managers are encouraged to discuss issues on a routine basis to get through workloading issues.

Over a two-year period, Kopach remapped cleaning schedules seven times as attrition allowed staff numbers to drop by 49 employees. He says training and good communication are what helped keep morale high, and the university’s cleaning schedules on track.

LA Unified School District
The first step in tackling cleaning responsibilities is prioritizing everyday cleaning tasks, based on health and safety issues, says Robert Hamm, deputy director of maintenance and operations, Los Angeles Unified School District.

“Restrooms and food-service areas are the highest priorities,” he says. “Then, we work with the principals to prioritize the types and frequencies of things done to ensure adequate frequency.”

Approximately eight years ago, the custodial department, with the help of plant managers, conducted time and motion studies and cross-referenced them to the Association for Higher Education Facilities Officers (APPA) “Custodial Service Levels.” APPA’s “levels” are designed to help custodial managers assess the cleanliness of specific areas based on the number of square feet of a particular area type cleaned per worker.

Today the plant managers use the studies’ results as reference tools for scheduling staff. In addition, every day is customized based on school principals’ requests, the peculiarities of each building and the activities planned for that day.

Revisit schedules and goals
While it is often helpful to benchmark with other facilities, cleaning managers should schedule cleaning based on their organization’s building types, sizes and levels of use.
Schools and universities also should regularly re-examine their cleaning priorities and schedules — especially when there are changes in staff, budgets or buildings.