In my over ten years experience of managing successful commercial cleaning in Toronto and janitorial services in the Greater Toronto Area, one of the recurring challenges that I find property and facility managers have when preparing a request for a quote is determining how many hours their janitor should work in a day. This concern obviously is an important one as it directly affects the budget and also directly impacts the quality of the janitorial and commercial cleaning that the building gets.
To start, when it comes to how many hours a janitor should work, keep in mind that no one shoe fits all. We will be discussing various factors to consider when making this decision and understanding how whatever your final answer is will directly affect your satisfaction with your janitorial service provider and the cleanliness of your facility both in the long run as well as the short term.
Why Are Janitors Important?
Let’s establish one thing, janitors are important. That is not up for debate. When you hire Janitors like Daily Cleaning Services, you are giving yourself peace of mind when it comes to the sustained cleanliness of your facility, also you are hiring professionals who are committed to keeping your space safe by promptly addressing spills, leaks, or other hazards. The vigilance of janitors helps prevent accidents and injuries. Now to the money part, janitors contribute directly to preserving and improving the value of your property and also keeping everyone who works there productive. Research has proven that clean spaces improve productivity, and reduce the propensity of workers calling in sick as the space is healthier and germs are not spread easily. We recently published a very important blog post on 5 Benefits of a Clean Office: A Resource for Businesses and Commercial Property Managers in Toronto.
5 Factors to Consider When Deciding How Many Hours Your Janitor Should Work
Now to the reason why you are reading this article. How many hours your janitor is required on-site boils down to these five factors detailed below. Remember to contextualize each point to your need for the best results.
The Scope of Work
This factor is truly important because it must be a part of the RFQ you send out for janitorial services or commercial cleaning. Keep in mind that the scope of work can change over time and yo have to adjust the number of hours required as such.
For example, we have a client that we manage 4 different facilities for, and each facility has its own unique scope of work despite the client being in a niche industry. The difference is the number of the client's own staff that handle some of the items in the scope of work from facility one to another. This ultimately influences the number of contractual hours we work a day at each location. On one location, we work 24 hours with one staff on-site at any given time with three shifts revolving around the clock all 365 days a year. At another facility, we have two staff on site for 16 hours, and at another location, we have 2 staff on site for 12 hours every day of the year. We recently got an email for a change in the scope of work in two locations and there is a mutual acknowledgment that the number of hours and staff on-site will be adjusted to fit the new scope of work.
The Size and Type of Your Facility
There is a world of difference between a 12000 sqft warehouse facility and a 90,000 sqft hospital. The warehouse can work efficiently with 2 janitorial staff on site for 8 hours, while the hospital will need between 6-8 hours working around the clock, as there is no room to allow dirt, spillage, and other stuff to lie around as the risk for germs and diseases to spread is high.
On the other hand, a facility like an airport may need 30 janitors on-site or 4 janitors on-site, depending on if it is a large and busy airport like the Toronto Pearson International Airport or a small airport, like the Buttonville Municipal Airport where daily traffic and footprint is a fraction of the needs of the Toronto International Pearson Airport.
The Frequency of Cleaning You Desire and Need
The office buildings we maintain require us to clean the staff washrooms roughly 4-5 times a day, some require an hourly cleaning of high-touch areas such as elevators. Meanwhile, temporary homeless shelters in Toronto require us to clean dorms twice a day and dining areas a minimum of 4 times a day across 16 hours of work. This simply means that the minimum hours we are required on-site is 16 hours for the homeless shelter, meanwhile, the office building needs two staff on-site for 8-12 hours.
The main point here is this, the frequency of cleaning will determine how long your janitor will have to be around for. Keep in mind that they also have to take breaks as they are not machines. More on that in the next point.
The Efficiency and Productivity of Your Janitorial Team
Your janitorial team is ideally made up of humans, who are equipped with some machines and tools to be extra productive. However, it is important to remember that they are humans, not machines and as such they will require breaks to be efficient and productive. However, with that being said, you want to hire a team that has the right technology to make every hour count.
Earlier we discussed the number of hours depending on the scope of work and the size and type of facility. You guessed it, everything is connected. If you have a large facility that is understaffed, the productivity of the janitorial staff will be low even with the right technology. You need to ensure that they have enough hours to do their jobs properly.
The Budget: Do you have Budget Constraints?
Let’s address the elephant in the room. At Daily Cleaning Services, we have various ways that we price our janitorial and commercial cleaning services in Toronto and one of the most common is pricing per staff hour so we always have to ask, what is your budget?
For organizations with a larger budget for facility maintenance including cleaning and janitorial services, we can schedule more staff and budget more hours to ensure that your space is consistently clean, and in the case of medical facilities, shelters, and other spaces that require it, we also include frequent disinfecting and sanitization of high touch areas.
Regardless of which janitorial service you pick, the number one thing it boils down to is: how much money do you have in your budget for this purpose? It is also important to keep in mind that janitorial services in Toronto reward partners who have a large budget and are willing to have a long-term engagement. In our case at Daily Cleaning Services, we invest in placing modern janitorial technological equipment at facilities where we have long-term engagements.
With all that said, keep in mind that pricing and quotations are given on a case-by-case basis and should be occasionally negotiated so that all sides come out feeling victorious.
Conclusion
Janitors are important, and determining the number of hours your janitor should work or how many janitors you should have on-site at any given time, requires you to do an analysis of your space based on several factors, the most important of them being the scope of work, size of the space as well as what type of facility it is. Keep in mind that the frequency of cleaning you need and your budget will ultimately decide how many hours you can afford to hire a janitor.
Looking to hire a janitor or a commercial cleaning service in Toronto? Contact us today for a free quote and let us work with you to keep your space clean, safe, and productive.
