If you're a small business owner, then you know that keeping costs down is one of the most important goals you have to ensure your business survives. Because you don't have many employees yet, you may be wondering why you should have cleaning services to take care of your offices; can't the tea lady do it just as effectively? But there's a lot more coming out of your pocket to facilitate in-house cleaning than you know, and maybe you should reconsider before discarding the idea of hiring commercial janitorial services.
1. Equipment and cleaning supplies
With in-house cleaning services, material and equipment costs fall squarely on your shoulders. You'll need to invest in the right equipment to ensure the job is done well, including vacuum cleaners for carpeting, buffers and cloths for dusting, and soaps, detergents and chemicals for various cleaning tasks. You need to have someone in charge of making these purchases and regulating how they're used, or else you'll have plenty of wastage whose expense will trickle back to you.
2. Employee remuneration benefits
Paying a salaried full-time employee means paying for their health insurance, benefits that other employees are entitled to and other incidental allowances depending on work circumstances. If in the course of duty the employee gets injured, compensation, which can reach hefty sums, falls on your shoulders once again. Commercial cleaning services bear the burden of employee remuneration.
3. Lost employee man-hours
Let's be honest, since offices are typically cleaned early in the morning, late in the evening or during lunch hour to avoid disrupting work, what are your employees doing the rest of the time? Sure, you can hand them miscellaneous duties that arise, like messengers' work, but really, you'll be paying heftily for someone who works a few hours every day. Is that something you can really afford?
4. Lost training and supervisory man-hours
Bear in mind that before they start working, in-house employees will need to be trained on various organizational protocols. It'll take a little more than just "dust surfaces, mop floors and sanitize lavatories". This is especially true for sensitive areas of the business where they must be informed about possible hazards and procedures for handling them. You will need to designate someone or take someone away from regular duties to supervise their work. This is time that would have been spent contributing directly to your bottom-line.
5. Employee morale
Maybe you think you're safe because you don't have designated cleaners; your current employees simply take turns to ensure the office is clean. Have you thought about what this does to their morale and performance at work? Janitorial work in any environment is held with little respect, even though it's extremely important. When you ask your trained and qualified personnel to add that to their tasks, you may be subtly communicating that you don't value them and the knowledge/expertise they bring to your business. In time, their performance can be affected and so will your bottom-line.
Share