Corinne Zudonyi

Across all industries, businesses are struggling with labor, materials, services and overall price of goods. Over the last two years, facility managers, too, have faced one challenge after another when it comes to purchasing, staffing and executing elevated cleaning frequency expectations. Not since the Great Recession has an event re-shaped the cleaning industry quite like the coronavirus pandemic has.

To review just how much departments have been impacted by COVID-19 — specifically their cleaning costs and frequencies — Facility Cleaning Decisions, along with our sister brands Contracting Profits and fnPrime, and the Building Service Contractors Association International, surveyed nearly 500 facility executives in various facility types to create the "2021 Cleaning Costs & Frequencies Report."

The research outlines current cleaning price-per-square-foot averages in commercial offices, K-12 schools, colleges/universities, healthcare facilities, stadiums, government buildings and more. It is also broken out by geographical region as cost of living varies across the country and will impact pricing levels.

This data will help managers compare their departments to others across the country, and it will provide metrics of facility operations when it comes time to fight for increased budgets or staffing.

To further aid with labor challenges, the report also presents data on frontline staff numbers. Broken out into night-time janitors, day porters or day-time janitors, and project workers, the data identifies staff averages based on facility size.

Those staffing levels will also impact frequencies of various cleaning tasks. In this report, we evaluated changes that occurred after the Great Recession and compared those to the demands that have evolved since the height of the pandemic. The report breaks down the frequencies for 16 cleaning tasks in six specific facility types: corporate offices, multi-tenant offices, K-12 schools, colleges/universities, hospitals/long-term care facilities and government facilities.

For the entire report, visit CleanLink.com/lp/1121-Cleaning-Cost-Frequency-Report.