tasks to be performed as well as an objective level of clean for each area, while defining what constitutes an area as “clean.” ■ Frequency minimums: Develop a risk assessment of the areas to be cleaned. Some areas, such as an entryway, breakroom or restroom, carry a high risk; other areas, such as office cubi-cles, carry a lower risk and may allow for reduced frequency depending on the desired level of clean. ■ Applying production rates: Industry production rate standards are available to establish acceptable cleaning rates for achieving a desired result so use them. Try standards such as ISSA’s 447 Cleaning Times , ISSA’s Info Clean or APPA‘s estimates of clean to determine the necessary FTEs to effectively clean every area in the facility. these jumbo products are not user friendly and result in tremendous waste and user dissatisfaction, which means more occupant complaints. The extra waste in the stalls created by the jumbo roll tissue requires more hours cleaning and replacing the rolls and, therefore, higher labor costs. There are several coreless systems available that not only allow for a more user friendly experi-ence, but also reduce mess and waste. ■ Seemingly inexpensive, low priced trash liners are often well under the worker’s desired specifications and inappropriate for the application. The workers then compensate for the poor performance by using a larger, more costly bag — or the dreaded double bagging approach. Both result in more consumption and waste. tools, high productivity stripping pads and bucketless mop systems that dramatically in-crease efficiencies and allow managers to ac-complish more cleaning with fewer workers. Training Programs Once you’ve decided to implement new pro-cesses, procedures and products, you need to educate your staff. An efficient and effective cleaning pro-gram cannot be achieved without a properly trained workforce. A comprehensive training program helps a staff achieve its productivity potential. Through one-on-one meetings, super-visor training, videos, manuals and wall charts, workers will better understand the products, tools, cleaning sequences and correct procedures, resulting in improved quality of work and results. Training is an important and an ongoing process that will help improve the chances that workers don’t just revert to old ways of completing their tasks and wasting your budget. We all know that keeping a facility clean, safe and healthy on an ever decreasing bud-get is a difficult challenge to overcome, but it’s time to stop focusing on the wrong areas by wasting time and money on lower qual-ity products and inefficient cleaning proce-dures. By analyzing and improving current practices, organizations can achieve long-term savings above and beyond product price, while also helping to make a build-ing cleaner and safer as well as enhancing productivity. Focus on your biggest time consumers and find ways to better allocate those min-utes and hours. CM Neal Duffy, senior manager of technical training at Staples Facility Solutions, is a 30-plus-year veteran of the JanSan industry with a back-ground in consulting with facility managers on development, training and implementation of custodial practices, including healthy, high-performance, sustainable and high-productivity cleaning. Neal is a registered environmental health specialist and sanitarian as well as an ISSA-certified expert in Cleaning Industry Management Standards -Green Buildings. He is an Advisory Member of the board of directors for the U.S. Green Building Council Upstate New York Chapter, and has completed the Ashkin Group’s Green Cleaning University. www.cmmonline.com Product Consolidation Did you know that most facilities can be cleaned daily with as few as two to four cleaning products? Consolidating your products reduces the need to acquire, manage, train, distribute and store duplicate cleaners and provides the op-portunity to eliminate potentially unsafe, un-sustainable and unnecessary products. Replacing duplicates with more efficient, multi-purpose products can also reduce the amount of time spent training workers, help supply required personal protective equip-ment, ease ordering and receiving shipments and decrease the need for multiple vendors. Procedure Improvement There are ways to reduce the time cleaning tasks require with process and procedure improvements. By analyzing and altering a few common practices that many facilities currently imple-ment, it is possible to dramatically reduce consumption and costs associated with ev-eryday money wasters. While you may think that lower cost product options are saving you money, it’s important to consider the overall labor costs associated when dealing with that particular product. Here are a few examples of common is-sues facilities face that significantly impact the hours spent cleaning and maintaining a building, along with overall appearance and wellness, with products that may seem like money savers: ■ Folded towels may seem less expen-sive than other towel systems, but “controlled” roll towel systems reduce outages and complaints as well as reduce refill times. The more time spent on reacting to outage complaints and refills means added work and increased labor costs. With a controlled roll towel system, you can have more hand dries in an efficient dispenser with a stub roll transfer system, eliminating product waste and reducing complaints as well. ■ Jumbo roll toilet tissue is often used in an effort to increase capacity, reduce outages and lower costs. However, Innovative Products And Tools With the cost of labor accounting for such a large part of an operation’s budget, it’s im-portant to pay careful attention to areas that can lessen your staff’s workload. As mentioned earlier, organizations try to cut corners with a lower priced product, which can lead to an increase in labor costs. In addition to cleaning products, this also means choosing the right equipment and cleaning tools. For example, consider backpack vacuums; they can allow workers to effectively clean more than twice the area, while minimizing the long-term negative health effects caused by often inefficient “cheap” uprights and the repetitive motions of traditional vacuums. Other seemingly simple, but effective in-novations include quality microfiber cleaning 43
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