Do they tackle one room at a time? Doing all the dusting, then hoovering, then mopping and emptying the bins before going on to do the exact same routine again in the room next door?
Complete Cleaning ContractsResearch has proven that up to 28% of time is lost by multitasking ineffectiveness, not to mention that multitaskers make more mistakes than non-multitaskers and suffer more stress as a result. pay holiday based on the number of hours our cleaning staff work and that is logged every month. This is totaled up across the year and the holiday time off is earned based on the number of hours they’ve actually done – not the hours they were contracted to do. So, if someone is a big fan of overtime and covers for a lot of other staff when they’re off then they’ll be rewarded with the extra pay for doing so plus the extra hours of holiday pay too. Our staff qualify for 28 days paid holiday per year and can take this whenever they choose. Often some staff will work in contracts that close over Christmas so, they may have to hold some time back for that but on the whole they’re free to be off when they like and we don’t put constraints on them such as they can’t be off when another member of their team is off. That would just be plain wrong. I hear of people in other companies losing their holidays because their boss won’t let them off because somebody else they work alongside is off too. That type of inflexible behavior has no place in our company and I’m disgusted to hear it’s still in practice in today’s modern world.
Our focus is always to be working on a task-specific basis – that way nothing gets missed and it keeps things simpler and allows us to get more done in less time. So, if we’re emptying bins at the start of a shift we’d go around the whole building first doing just that in every room, kitchen and bathroom. In the process of doing that we’ve also done a pre-clean inspection and know exactly what the focus is for the shift ahead – we know what rooms have been busy, the ones not been used that day at all and can work out where our efforts are best deployed.Did you get paid for an extra days work this year? Every single member of staff in our business did. After all they did work it so why not pay them for it? If you haven’t been paid for it – then maybe you need to ask your boss why not? I’d love to hear the answer you get.
If, for example, we spot the boardroom upstairs has 40 used cups, glasses and plates on the table plus pizza boxes and beer bottles lying around then we know the bulk of our time will be spent focussed there rather than hoovering the main stairwell that day.
Normally once the bins are taken care of we’ll move to dusting the whole building (all desks in all rooms across all floors) then it’s onto getting all the hoovering done then we move to kitchens and bathrooms. Working this way keeps things easy and we always know that everything is done.Lastly, do you work later than your contracted hours? Do you do this often? If so, why hasn’t your boss realised that maybe instead of over working you that they need to get some more people in? In my past careers I’d often work through my lunch and worked an extra hour or more most nights. Over a working month that would add up to an extra week that I’d worked without any extra pay. I did it because it was expected of me but why should anyone have to do this? None of our guys do. They get paid for what they do. I ask them all to leave on time and if they can’t – then they phone in and let one of our management team know why not. We’ll authorise the extra time which they’ll be paid for and we let the client know that there was an issue that required us to go over our time. It may not be something that we’ll bill on that occasion but at least we can have a discussion with the client about unexpected working hours popping up and can set up a procedure to deal with that in the future. The main thing being that people are being properly compensated for their time.
Working this way saves loose ends piling up, it speeds up cleaning schedules and it saves our clients money. An additional benefit is it keeps cleaners and clients happy. What’s not to like?Doing all of the above helps us retain our cleaning staff, which in turn means
happier clients
