Cleaning for building health and safety has become crucial to building owners and building service contractors. Finding new ways to improve cleaning staff productivity and efficiency are key in meeting new expectations, stricter guidelines and tougher standards.

How a clean workspace contributes to productivity

Having a clean workspace aid in the productivity of all staff. A clean environment helps staff stay healthier (resulting in less sick time), keeps technology and equipment clean (fewer breakdowns and malfunctions), and employees often report feeling happier and more productive when their space is clean. All these things rely on efficient and productive cleaning staff.

As businesses spend thousands of rands a year hiring staff to keep work environments clean, the cleaning industry is expected to keep growing.

Clarifying efficiency

Efficiency means achieving the maximum level of productivity while expending the least amount of energy. Efficiency is something we all strive for – the art of getting a job done to the best of our ability with the least amount of effort. Employers are faced with having to help their cleaning staff to become more efficient and productive while taking on new standards and meeting new guidelines.

Measuring cleaning efficiency

We measure cleaning standards through the appearance of a space, customer satisfaction, measuring the amount of space cleaned during a set amount of time, employee absenteeism, etc. These things can be hard to track, especially when trying to keep up with ever-changing needs depending on foot traffic, or the number of people working in a space.

Setting KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) for a cleaning team allows a business to determine where improvement is needed to make a space cleaner and safer.

Fleet tracking technology can be very beneficial for measuring efficiency. When using these robots, they can navigate complex and dynamic environments and identify obstacles that appear in their path. The robot can reroute, avoid collision and all the while collects data for future work. The tracking of this data allows an employer to assess a route and come up with improved KPI’s

How to improve staff efficiency

Important ways to improving staff efficiency:

• Setting clear KPI’s is vital in holding staff accountable. Managers should outline clear expectations, cite all areas that need attention, and set benchmarks for how each task should be completed and what the outcome should look like.
• Appropriate staffing is the right number of people for the scope of the job to ensure the job will be done. This helps staff to feel supported knowing they are working as a team towards a common goal, which in turn boosts morale and overall productivity of staff.
• Easy access to all necessary materials. Management should always keep the supply closet stocked with appropriate materials.

The role technology plays

Technology is going to play a crucial role in empowering cleaning staff to be productive and efficient while meeting stricter standards and guidelines and automation is one way to do this.

Adding autonomous technology as part of the cleaning team allows tasks like floor cleaning to become routine and standardised across multiple teams or departments. Autonomous equipment will follow a set route regularly and consistently and can be more effective because it can be deployed more often leading to standardised cleaning.

How does technology improve workers’ productivity and make them more efficient?

Having the right size staff is important, however, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a staff of humans. Increasingly, technology is a solution to some of our largest societal demands. Adding an autonomous vacuum sweeper can help employers free up cleaning staff to focus on higher-value tasks.

Adding a robot to the team can improve the frequency and quality of the job as well, especially because they can take on repetitive tasks like cleaning floors. Robotic cleaning equipment is an important counterpart in building health and safety and an important asset because they take on repetitive and routine cleaning, increase frequency by following standardised cleaning routes, get the job done without ever calling in sick, and report data back to management that can result in improved KPI’s and working conditions.

Showing support for your cleaning staff

Our society increasingly focuses on health and well-being and our indoor environments play a crucial role. The cleaning staff feels the pressure. To reduce the turnover of cleaning staff and to manage the demand for cleaner spaces, technology is key.

Full acknowledgment and thanks go to https://emea.icecobotics.com for the information in this editorial.

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