subject: Keeping Your Janitorial Management Costs Under Control! [print this page] Getting a handle on your janitorial management contract costs requires that you first completely understand what expenses take up the biggest part of your budget. The most basic answer to that question is of course labor. Nevertheless, in order to truly have an effect on your labor dollar you must be able to break down your labor dollars into smaller pieces. This article is intended to do just that.
Creating assignment sheets, although very basic, is an essential element and must be addressed. Assignment sheets are a list of areas to be cleaned along with the duties associated with them and time frame to be accomplished. For example you would identify cleaning a restroom from 2:00 pm to 2:30 pm. The tasks included in cleaning the restroom should also be listed. Adjust the time allotted for cleaning the restroom to fit your facility.
Take a look at what order your housekeepers are performing their work assignments. Do they go about doing these tasks in a productive way? For instance are they cleaning a restroom on one side of the building and then going to something on the other side, or are they progressing through the building in a systematic way. This is a time killer and will cost you a lot of money. So as you make out your task lists don't have them jumping all over the place.
Additional things to think about would be team cleaning, newer equipment, and more productive chemicals. As an example team cleaning reduces the number of times your housekeepers will start and stop a task. Switching between tasks eats up productive time. Often times the newer equipment is a huge way to reduce the cleaning times of certain tasks. Maybe it's as simple as getting a wider vacuum. Making sure you are making use of the right chemical on the job you are doing can save on the cleaning times. Being profitable in the janitorial cleaning business can be tough which means you must continually challenge yourself to consider all your options.
The bottom line is that you can not let your labor costs get out of control. You must manage your janitorial cleaning business closely. You must be able to identify ways to shave time off of every duty your staff has.