Commercial Cleaning Blindspots Learned From COVID

In the aftermath of COVID during 2019 and 2020 commercial cleaning services have seen spikes throughout the country in Washington, Oregon, Wyoming, Virginia, Tennessee, New York and Maine are just some of the hot spot regions right now. Businesses are critically focusing on doing everything they can to provide safe environments for employees and customers. This is just one of the many factors they have to deal with, many are faced with revamping how they process and sell their merchandise and services because of COVID. Some disinfecting services can have more of an impact than others.

Many business owners are investing more time and more money into making sure their processes are working, but without two to three decades of experience in commercial cleaning and disinfecting, results are missing the mark or are as effective as they could be. Here are three areas that business owners could be missing the mark with the best of intentions in keeping their staff and customers safe.

Number One: You’re Overdoing It

Most would think that the more illnesses that are present at a facility, would warrant more cleaning and disinfecting as long as COVID is still around. It makes sense to raise the level of cleaning staff that is present when guests are in your facility so they are seeing surfaces get wiped down. This gives your employees and customers peace of mind knowing that people are on-site, making health and safety a priority.

But is this really the best course of action? Doing more is not always better. Using too much of a cleaning agent can cause severe adverse side effects and waste resources. One of the biggest concerns when using cleaning agents is ventilation while you are cleaning and while people are present.

Number Two: You Overlooked That Spot

Surfaces in your facility for commercial cleaning get all the attention. One overlooked part of cleaning and disinfecting is air quality. Air quality is important for reducing virus threats like SARS-CoV-2 and influenza. These viruses can remain on surfaces for a short period of time between cleanings. Like many other airborne viruses, you are more likely to breathe one of these viruses in than contract them through contact on a contaminated surface. Facility managers can improve safety by cycling the air quality in your building more often.

Another overlooked part of your business are the devices that are used throughout your facility. Whether it is you, your team or your customers using them, it’s the devices like phones, cash registers, keyboards, copiers, staplers, and more that see a lot of fingers touching these surfaces. It will help if you provide sanitizing wipes at these stations with the equipment and remind employees to wipe them down after using each device.

Number Three: Personnel Overconfidence

Every cleaning and disinfecting plan that you put in place may work fairly well if everyone was 100% reliable and perfect in their role in the process of cleaning and disinfecting your facility. We all hope for the best, but the reality is that most employees are only 83% effective on a daily basis. Most business owners know that excellence takes time, energy and training, all factors that many small or medium businesses struggle through or can’t afford.

If training doesn’t happen on a regular basis and innovating to keep your janitorial staff up to date with the latest techniques and tools to properly clean and disinfect your facility, it may be time to look at outsourcing your in-house janitorial services.

Questions to ponder:

1. Do any of these cleaning and disinfecting pitfalls need more attention in your facility?
2. Are you able to keep up with constant training and purchasing on new cleaning equipment?
3. How effective is your in-house janitorial team? (Are they productive or costing your more in lost time?)
4. Who oversees your facility cleaning process on a daily, weekly, monthly basis?

If you are not sure you don’t know some of the answers to these questions, please give us a call. We have been servicing businesses and government in the Metro East, St. Louis region for more than twenty years.