Factors That Affect Commercial Cleaning Quality

This article provides an overview of the most frequently overlooked factors that affect the consistency and quality of commercial cleaning.

Commercial cleaning is a field where consistency, efficiency, and quality directly impact not only the aesthetic appeal of a facility but also its operational productivity and safety. As the owner of a commercial cleaning company, I’ve seen firsthand the struggles that facility managers face, but more importantly, at Advantage Cleaning we know what it takes to address them.

Common Factors That Reduce Cleaning Quality

1. Overlooking the details when cleaning

Description: You step into your facility, and something feels off. The walls and ceilings, which should be gleaming, reveal a cobweb just out of reach. You move a piece of furniture slightly and discover a layer of dust hidden behind it. It’s these small oversights that gnaw at you, spoiling the ambiance and professionalism of the space.

Cause: Often, these inconsistencies are the result of a rushed job, lack of comprehensive training, or the absence of an exhaustive cleaning checklist tailored for each facility, which leaves the cleaners no other choice than to follow their own standards and experience.

2. Neglecting Safety – Safety & Slip-and-fall Incidents

As you walk across the freshly cleaned floors, you feel a slight stickiness beneath your shoes. On your way to the restroom, a shiny patch on the tiles catches your eye—a slip hazard waiting to happen. That polished look shouldn’t come at the cost of safety.

Cause: Improper or excessive use of cleaning agents, applying the correct floor cleaning process, or failing to buff floors adequately can lead to such hazards. Without proper continuous training, on-site supervisor AND cleaning task guidelines at hand, these things are unavoidable.

3. Not Addressing Health Hazards

The office appears spotless, but there’s a heavy scent of cleaning chemicals in the air, tinged with a faint bathroom odor that wasn’t entirely eradicated. One glance upwards and you spot dusty ceiling vents, a potential breeding ground for allergens.

Cause: Over-reliance on strong cleaning chemicals or overlooking less-obvious areas, such as ceiling vents can compromise air quality and overall hygiene. High-cleaning and dusting that may require ladders or stairs, and implies OSHA safety standards, may be left for “later” but then forgotten because time ran out.

4. Inefficient Allocation of Resources

At your workstation, the computer screen bears smudges from the previous day, and the keyboard still has those pesky crumbs lodged between keys. The lamps? They have a fine layer of dust, visible under the glow. It’s disheartening to see these details overlooked, especially in an era when cleanliness is synonymous with health.

Cause: Inadequate attention to personal workspaces or missing out on the smaller details can give germs and dirt a haven. If there is no strict list of cleaning tasks to be completed at each cleaning job, then when is cleaning done, what is missing? Quality inspection and a strict set of assigned cleaning tasks with specific cleaning standards, is necessary to ensure consistant expected results.

Our Way of Providing Consistently Excellent Commercial Cleaning

While the factors listed above might seem like an inevitable part of large-scale commercial cleaning operations, applying the right strategies can eliminate them almost entirely. By targeting the themes that are common across these challenges, we can efficiently address the sources of the biggest quality issues facing commercial cleaning. The following are several crucial requirements for avoiding these problems:

• Create detailed and organized task lists that are customized for each project and facility.
• Use both quality assurance and quality control techniques to identify your weak areas and ensure accountability.
• Provide targeted continuous training for workers based on their individual performance.
• Ensure clear and open communication.
• Always look for opportunities to improve.

At Advantage Cleaning, we’ve identified these as key considerations in our approach to providing consistent high-quality commercial cleaning. So how do we incorporate these concepts into our daily operations?

Measuring and Tracking Quality for Enhanced Results

Our Five-Step Process for Consistent Quality

Step #1 – Cleaning assignments

Cleaning assignments are delegated to team members using task assignment software where they will receive quality scores and be assigned corrective actions for tasks that need rework.

Step #2 – Weekly review of cleaning quality

Weekly review meetings are held to share performance feedback and discuss areas for improvement, including both team and individual actions.

Step #3 – Monthly quality evaluation

At the end of each month, our Building Service Coordinator will conduct a detailed assessment of each cleaning assignment and prepare a detailed KPI Report.

Step #4 – Quality inspections

Our quality control process includes five types of inspections:

• Urgent inspections – triggered by team or supervisor
• Inspection – triggered by client concern
• New cleaning technician inspections
• Fill-in inspections – substitute cleaners
• Weekly and monthly KPI inspections

Step #5 – Communication

The Advantage Cleaning app improves communication in two essential ways:

1. Allowing real-time communication between clients and the cleaning team.
2. Detailing quality inspection results and any necessary follow-up actions.

Final Thoughts

In my experience, the factors that compromise commercial cleaning quality are a common source of frustration for facility managers. Most commercial cleaners don’t have quality control systems in place, leading to recurring issues and underwhelming results.

Advantage Cleaning overcomes these challenges by fully committing to our quality systems and to Process-Improvement-Planning. If you are looking to level up your internal cleaning operation or are evaluating your next commercial cleaning contractor, contact us to see how we can help you.

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