a clean sweep Image courtesy of Rusty Fuller, REH, director of custodial services at Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools Taking The Necessary STEPS By: Brant Insero, CMI training specialist View ongoing training and education as an investment and your employees will continue to develop the skills they need to exceed. Dedication to employee development is a clear sign that an organization is taking the right steps in preparing individuals for suc-cess and advancement. On April 2-4, 2013, Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools participated in their own Train the Trainer course through Cleaning Manage-ment Institute (CMI). This three-day course, which is usually designated to specific locations, has been growing in popularity as an on-site training option. Cleaning Management Institute’s Marion Ivey worked with the group of 12 to get them through a curriculum that covered both the Basic and Advanced curriculum. Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools is located in the Charlotte, North Carolina, area and is host to 159 schools from kindergarten through 12 th grade. This massive district is one of the largest employers in Mecklenburg County providing careers for nearly 19,000 teachers, support staff and administrators. Continually working to help improve your organization has shown lasting results which leads to positive responses from employees and stakeholders. This includes not just worker satisfac-tion in understanding their tasks further but also direct bottom-line results through a de-crease in labor and material expenditures. Preparing employees, especially leads and supervisors, to engage their subordi-nates in on-the-job training is essential to truly establishing a standardized training program. As one attendee noted, “….what we learned this week will definitely help us in our cleaning practices and we will be able to share [this information] with cleaning staff.” Training through distributors and other suppliers assists in preparing workers for the field and variable tasks they will need to be successful. However, to truly engage employees re-quires them to understand why they are cleaning with certain chemicals or equip-ment. These values are constantly reinforced during training to prepare attendees to then follow the training up by conducting their own sessions, “…we have always done many of the cleaning techniques mentioned in class, but this training helped us understand WHY we do the cleaning the way we do.” The Train the Trainer course is dedicated to the technical skills needed in the clean-ing industry covering the topics of: Chem-istry of Cleaning, Above Floor Cleaning, Carpet Care, Hard Floor Care and Rest-room Care. As part of its sustainability initiatives, CMI has added in specific areas of content to include information about “green” cleaning and organizational standards such as Clean-ing Industry Management Standards (CIMS) and Green Seal (GS)-42 standards. Train the Trainer is presented in a unique style that finds the middle ground between both learning the technical skills needed and the applied skills of teaching others. With a background in education Marion Ivey, lead creator of the program, brings en-thusiasm and knowledge to the three days; attendees say Marion brings a “…wealth of knowledge and is an instructor who kept us all focused for three days. He is very pas-sionate about this training.” D Tooting Their Horn CMI Master Trainers, like Ivey, are located throughout the country, including: Bill Mc-Garvey from Philip Rousenau, Bill Griffin of Cleaning Consultants, Charles “Mickey” Crowe of NISH South Region and Carl Bow-man of Ohio State University. This commitment is one that raises the in-dustry standard for education to set a higher bar for employees, or contractors. CMI has long been a provider of training services throughout the country, and inter-nationally. With Master Trainers throughout the country they are able to reach any facility and fulfill any need. These needs include anything from di-rect hands-on training to full consulting services, workloading, scheduling, equip-ment evaluation, building measurements, quality assurance and contract/project management. Their accolades have been received from nearly every industry segment, through work with such establishments as Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, the Library of Congress, Ohio State University, Nike, the National Security Agency and many more. CM Obtaining True Training Many organizations claim to have a training program implemented, but what is lacking is true integration with the tasks and organiza-tional strategies. 8 CM/Cleaning & Maintenance Management ® • May 2013
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