Tips for Implementing Service Reductions in Cleaning Operations

Scenario: Your administration has just informed you that your institution is now facing budget cuts, and you need to develop plans for reductions in your operating budget equivalent to between 5 and 20 percent. The operational budget of a cleaning operation consists of 90 to 95 percent labor wages and benefits. To achieve even the slightest budget reduction means fewer people will be cleaning and servicing buildings. I’ve previously written about leading people through difficulties like budget cuts, but for this column I want to share high-level strategies for reducing services that correlate with the budget reductions. Ideally, this will allow you to set reasonable expectations and sustain your professional standing.    

1. Make sure you understand the big picture of why budget cuts and services reductions are being imposed. This can include loss of revenue, funding reductions, institutional overspending, budget projection miscalculations, and more. This is important so that you can explain (with confidence) to your team why service reductions are necessary. You will also want to understand how the budget reductions are being implemented throughout the organization.  
Cleaning operations do not directly generate revenue, therefore, reducing this overhead expense seems like an easy choice for organizations. As the leader, you must articulate the potential health and long-term maintenance challenges that come with allowing facility cleanliness to deteriorate. 

2. Master and communicate the data and metrics of your labor distribution. Start with the basics. What is the current cleanable square footage per cleaning worker? What is the correlating service level being achieved based on your objective visual inspections? What is the occupant’s perspective of facility cleanliness?  
Depending on the staffing reduction, it is critical that you explain what you project the facility to look like depending on the reduction percentage. Explain that the occupants can expect to see dust accumulation and soiled surfaces more frequently, for example.

3. Promote cooperative community cleaning. Individual offices, breakrooms, and common workspaces can be cleaned and maintained by the people occupying those spaces. It will add just a few minutes and give people a sense of responsibility for the upkeep of the environment. Make it easy for people to dispose of their daily waste into centralized containers and provide access to vacuums and other cleaning supplies.  
This can be a major culture shift, which may be met with resistance by some who feel that cleaning is not in their job description. However, if people are faced with the facts, they will eventually come around or delegate the cleaning to others within their specific department.  

4. Negotiate and obtain an agreement. You may have some buildings that have very few occupants and are underutilized compared to others. These spaces can be placed on an as-needed or by-request cleaning schedule. Gather input from everyone from department heads to the cleaning workers. The cleaning workers have the experience and knowledge of which waste receptables get filled every day and which ones rarely are full. They can alter their daily cleaning schedules accordingly.   

5. Retraining the cleaning worker. It is disheartening for cleaning workers when they no longer have the time to clean and service spaces the way that they were accustomed to because they now have more square footage to cover. It is important that they are empowered and supported to not attempt to do more than is humanly possible or sustainable on a daily basis. Rewrite job descriptions and standards and post broadly so that everyone understands. It will take time for the cleaning workers to break their previous cleaning routine and habits, so positive reinforcement by leaders as they adjust to the new standards is a must.  

Examples of service reductions and frequencies:  
Cleaning Priorities: 
  Daily services like disinfecting and complete cleaning 
  Restrooms  
  Patient care spaces 
  Learning spaces/classrooms 
  Spaces that have a high daily population 
  Prestige and politically sensitive locations. 
  Libraries and high human touch spaces 

Weekly or As-Requested Services: 
  Vacuuming  
  Dusting 
  Waste removal in select spaces 

Elimination of Services and/or Project Work: 
  Carpet cleaning 
  Window washing 
  Furniture cleaning 
  Special event support 
  Office cleaning 
  Breakrooms  

Service reductions always have a broad impact but can be an opportunity to educate your community and customers about the importance of cleaning and what it takes to maintain a healthy and safe environment. It also is a time when everyone can increase their participation in cleaning and maintaining the environment instead of relying solely on the cleaning worker. 

Gene Woodard, R.E.H., spent more than 45 years in the cleaning industry, retiring as the director of building services at the University of Washington, before which he spent almost a decade at Emanual Hospital in Portland, Oregon. Gene was also a founding member of the Healthy Green Schools & Colleges Steering Committee and served for many years as an advisory board member of Facility Cleaning Decisions magazine.