There is a moment within facilities management that operations managers are likely to be familiar with. A cleaning contract is up for renewal, and three quotes have arrived. The difference in cost between the lowest and highest quotes is important. The work that needs to be done is the same; the building needs to be cleaned. Why should the facilities manager pay for the more expensive cleaning contract?
The outcome of the contract, however, is rarely identical to what was promised when the contract was entered into. The gap between what was promised and what was delivered by the company is often revealed gradually over time. While the decision to enter into the contract may not have seemed wrong when the contract was first entered into, the costs of that decision have become apparent over time.
Cleaning contracts are priced according to the requirements of the specification. A lower price almost always means either a lower specification for the cleaning company (less cleaning, less frequently) or less time spent on-site (if they are to clean a larger property) or both. The contractor that wins on price but delivers the required cleaning is providing a reduced level of cleaning compared to what was quoted to others. The contractor that offers the same cleaning at a lower price is either losing money on the job (which creates its own set of problems) or finding ways to clean more efficiently but compromising on the quality of the cleaning (which may not show up immediately). For Commercial Carpet Cleaners Tewkesbury, visit https://intocleaning.co.uk/contract-cleaning-services/commercial-carpet-cleaners/tewkesbury/
Where does this show up in practice?
It is visible in areas that are cleaned every day but not sanitised properly, areas that are missed due to the time allocated to the cleaning task, and consumables that are not replaced between cleaning tasks. These issues do not impact the business catastrophically, but they do contribute to the hygiene standards of the business falling below the specified hygiene standards for the workplace.
The staff notices the cleanliness of the workplace before the management does. The cleanliness of the workplace is a sign of how much the company cares about the staff and the environment in which they work forty hours per week. If the workplace is consistently dirty, it shows that the company is generally of a lower standard than it should be. This is a difficult variable to measure in relation to the company, but it is completely real.
