Meeting Increased Cleaning Demands

Hand-in-hand with increased disinfection frequencies is an elevated burden on facility cleaning departments and BSCs to complete more tasks — often with the same budget or staff as before the pandemic hit. End users are looking for ways to expand their capabilities, and with a proper facility assessment, distributors can help craft a plan through equipment recommendations, procedural suggestions and more.

While some customers don’t have the budget for the latest robotic equipment, Schneringer says the mechanization of certain cleaning tasks can pay major dividends in the time it takes to complete tasks such as floor care or restroom cleaning.

“Instead of mopping every day, for example, the use of a no-touch cleaning system can get a job done in a third of the time, while being 60 times more effective at removing microbes and pathogens typically found in restrooms that can serve as germ transfer stations in any given facility,” says Schneringer. “To help end users justify upfront price and pitch their case for automated equipment — and the hours it frees up to do other tasks — distributors can step in with data that outlines the return on investment.”

Other methods to meet elevated demands involve the reallocation of cleaning tasks, McGarvey notes. In particular, building occupants can take on responsibilities that previously fell to the custodian — freeing up the cleaning staff to focus on higher priority tasks such as touchpoint disinfection without needing more hours.

In understanding the scope of an end users facility, distributors can play an integral role in helping to determine which tasks can best be shifted to occupants.

“Something as simple as reducing the frequency of trash collection, or even centralizing it to one location, can pay major dividends from a time management standpoint,” says McGarvey. “If the template for facility tasks was assigned years back and continues to be copied and pasted, perhaps it’s time for a second look.”

While some new protocols may be temporary, many cleaning standards have experienced a permanent shift in expectations. As a result, the pressure is on more than ever for facility cleaning managers and BSCs to answer the call — and they will be relying on distributors as a trusted source to do so.

“The good news is, cleaning has never been viewed quite this way before. The bad news is, well, cleaning has never been viewed quite this way before,” says McGarvey. “It’s a double-edged sword. It’s incumbent upon all cleaning service providers to up their game.”