5 indicators to assess the performance of your cleaning contract

AdviceSeptember 13, 2023
A man selecting options on a screen.

You are the Facility manager responsible for the look and feel of the office. You have hired a cleaning company who say they do scheduled cleaning as agreed with your company. However, how exactly are you checking and monitoring their activities. How are you measuring your return on investment. Yes, I am describing the service provided to your company as an investment.

Let’s think about it. You are paying for services not only so you can return to a clean office every day, which is important. The other part of it, which I consider even more crucial, is that you are investing in the health and well being of your staff. Investing in disease prevention and limiting the spread of infection as well. If an infection were to break out, we immediately put thousands of dollars and potentially hundreds of billable hours at risk.

Now that we have a little more insight on the value of your investment, let’s talk about how we are ensuring its paying dividends. You should ensure you are receiving the dividends from your significant investment by regularly evaluating the performance of those you have entrusted to clean your facility. It is important to ask the right questions to ensure they are delivering exactly what they promised your company at the start.

As a buyer of cleaning services, how do you hold your provider accountable? In other words, what Key Performance Indicators help you understand how well your facility is being cleaned?

What is a KPI?

KPIs, or Key Performance Indicators, are established quantifiable measures an organization uses to determine how well it is meeting its operational and strategic goals.

As a facility manager, Key Performance Indicators tell you a story about the effectiveness of your service provider relative to your agreed cleaning requirements. The following KPI’s are very valuable in assessing the performance of your cleaning vendors and highlighting areas of improvement.

1. Quality of Service

  • Information derived from inspections conducted to determine performance deficits and areas of improvement at specific locations
  • Information derived from observed activities to determine if specific services (i.e. cob web removal) needs improvement
  • Results of audits conducted to identify the performance of individuals or teams stationed at specific work locations are performing up to standards

2. Client Satisfaction Survey

  • Results of customer surveys and implementation of action points required
  • Number of complaints received and speed of resolution
  • Monitoring special requests received and successfully completed by janitorial team

3. Janitorial Team

  • Determining employee productivity by measuring each cleaner’s productivity rate per hour and comparing it to a pre-determined benchmark
  • Monitoring employee job satisfaction, job delivery and absenteeism
  • Monitoring the execution of training manuals on-site for new employees on procedures and adherence to safety regulations and policies

4. Safety

  • Monitoring number of accidents during a work shift
  • Monitoring lost workdays due to accidents during a work shift
  • Measuring floor safety by conducting floor slip resistance testing and determining number of slip/fall accidents
  • Monitoring number of OHSA incidents, if any, during a work shift

5. Financial

  • Auditing budgeted cleaning expenses for janitorial services compared to actual cost, including labor, equipment cost, chemical cost, and consumables cost

Although KPIs can vary from customer to customer, Managers purchasing the service require useful realistic and productive metrics to assess the service received regularly.

At Perfect Scrub Cleaning, our approach to quality assurance stems from our desire to maintain loyalty to our customers one clean at a time. We therefore take performance measurement and evaluation as cardinal points within our service delivery. We measure results and outcomes daily, weekly, and monthly and with this data we continue to refine and improve our services to you.

That’s why we are confident that we can deliver safe, reliable, and sustainable cleaning solutions for your business. To learn more, give us a call or contact us.