Review Your Cleaning Service

The cleaning service comes at night when no one is around. The bill is paid by your bookkeeper. It is an overhead expense that can slip by without notice.  Take a look at the service in the light of day and see if you are getting what you need at a fair price and minimizing the risk of having workers who you may not even know in your work place.

Do you have a contract? How often is the cleaning being done? Can you get by with once a week instead of three times a week? Does your store need to be cleaned more often in winter? Can employees do some of this work in down times between customers? What is the scope of work; vacuuming, dusting, cleaning desks, annual rug shampoo? Who furnishes the cleaning supplies?

Does your cleaning service clean desks that contain private or proprietary information? We once had a cleaner who hated messy desks. He would straighten desks and neatly stack paperwork often interrupting the work process. He was so intent on straightening desks that we made up a sign that said "Please do not clean desk." An employee who was working on a project and did not want the desk disturbed would leave the sign on his or her desk.

Who cleans the stock or inventory? If you have a retail store even with great turn over the racks and shelves can get dusty. Are your retail employees cleaning these items as they rotate stock? Do they know they are required to do this?

Are supplies, equipment, inventory, cash registers and petty cash secured? What about bank account numbers, credit card numbers? What about files or data? If a computer or storage device is accidentally unplugged while cleaning will critical data be lost? Do you have back up procedures to prevent these loses?

This is a small piece of your corporate puzzle but it is also easy to fix it needed. Take a look at this often invisible service and see if it can better.

Original Content Copyright 2010 Thomas Robinson