6 Ways to Save money on janitorial service

There is no denying it, janitorial service can be expensive. If you have ever received a janitorial service quote and got sticker shock, you are not alone. Or maybe you’re evaluating business expenses and want to trim down on what’s being spent on services. The good news is that there is a way to bring down the costs of janitorial services. With some strategy and flexibility, you can achieve the goal of saving money on janitorial expenses while still having a clean office.  

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We’ve helped many businesses create a janitorial service plan that fits within a reasonable budget and meets a high standard of cleanliness. It wasn’t nearly as difficult as many clients thought. That’s because when it comes to saving money on janitorial service costs, there are many tools and strategies at your disposal. In this article, we will share six of the most common ways to save on the cost of janitorial services. These are practical solutions that you can put into action today.

1. Decrease How Often Your Office is Cleaned

​Cleaning frequency, how often your office is cleaned, will impact how much you pay for janitorial services. In general, the less frequently the cleaning crew visits your office, the less you’ll pay. However, skipping out on daily janitorial services may not be a workable solution for every business. Before slashing your office cleaning frequency consider: 
 

• The type of business that you operate. 

• Your expectations of cleanliness. 
• The willingness of your team to clean up after themselves in common areas such as breakrooms and restrooms.  
• Facility traffic and usage.  
   

If you determine that your building could still maintain a clean appearance with fewer service days, then this could be a money saving option.

2. Use Trash Stations Instead of Individual Trash Cans

The driver behind janitorial service cost is labor hours. The more time it takes to clean a building, the more it will cost. Tasks such as emptying trash add to cleaning hours, especially if you have a building with lots of trash cans. Even more so if your building has individual recycling bins at desks.  
 
A cost saving solution is to eliminate all the desk trash cans and opt for trash and recycle stations. Trash and recycle stations centralize trash collection. All employees discard their trash in designated areas as opposed to at their desks. This change can save a significant amount of time, and therefore money on your janitorial service. If your building has a substantial number of cubicles and offices with individual trash cans, this one change can have a money saving impact on your janitorial service. 
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3. Make Employees Responsible for Their Desks

Shifting the responsibility for keeping workstations clean to employees can be a cost saver with your janitorial service expenses. Employees can easily keep their own desks tidy. They may even be more motivated to do so. Another added benefit is that with employees being responsible for the maintenance of their own desks, the risk of items on desks being accidentally broken is significantly reduced.

​Removing the task of dusting and cleaning individual desks from the janitorial service crew will reduce cleaning time or allow more time to be spent on important common areas like restrooms, break rooms and client facing areas.  ​

4. Leave Out Extras

Often the cleaning crew is assigned tasks that no one else wants to do or will do. It certainly is nice to have the cleaning crew take care of things like washing dishes and cleaning out the refrigerator. These are office tasks that need to be done, but no one really likes doing them.  
 
Giving these responsibilities to the cleaning crew takes the stress off office managers who otherwise would have to monitor a system to keep up these tasks or do them. But if decreasing janitorial service expenses is the goal, eliminating these types of extra services could make an enormous difference in what you pay to have your office cleaned. Remember, everything with janitorial service pricing is about time. The more time required, the more your janitorial service will cost each month.  
 
Instead, of including extra cleaning services in your tasks list, get your team on board with maintaining troublesome common areas. Encourage employees to wash their dishes after use instead of leaving them in the sink. Provide a means to cover plates when heated in the microwave to keep the inside clean. You could also arrange for periodic cleaning by the cleaning crew for a more detailed clean. With a bit of strategy, you can find a way to get these tasks done without unnecessarily inflating your janitorial service cleaning expenses.

5. Manage Task Frequency

Task frequency is simply how often you want a specific cleaning task done. Often the answer is simple, every day. Of course, perform every cleaning task every single cleaning service day. While that may seem ideal, it may not always be necessary to maintain a clean office or the best solution for your facility. It also may not be the best for your budget.  
 
How often cleaning tasks are performed is a major factor in how much time the cleaning crew will spend cleaning your building. If the goal is to reduce costs, reducing task frequency must also be considered. When planning your scope of work, consider what needs to be done daily or per service, and what can be done less often. Cleaning related to health and safety like removal of trash and restrooms would be prioritized for daily tasks, as opposed to dusting which could easily be done a few times a month. 
 
Work with you team and janitorial service provider to give primary focus of cleaning to areas of most importance, and space out frequency of lower priority or more time-consuming cleaning tasks like vacuuming. ​

6. Have all Locked Offices Keyed to a Master Key

Locking and unlocking office doors seems easy enough to do. It is, but it will add to cleaning time as opposed to doors that are left open and unlocked. Even more time is added when the cleaning staff must fumble through a ring full of keys to find keys to individually keyed locks. Multiple that time the number of offices, then the number of times your facility is cleaned, and it adds up.  
 
While some offices absolutely need to be locked and in some multi-time tenant situations cannot be avoided, time spent locking and unlocking doors can be reduced. The solution is to use a master key. Every door can be keyed to a single key. That means the cleaning crew only needs to use one key as opposed to a key ring full keys to do enter and do their work. A master key system will save a significant amount of time, which can mean you save on office cleaning.

Janitorial costs for any facility can be managed while still maintaining a high level of cleanliness. With some thought and strategy, a cleaning plan that prioritizes the critical needs of the business within a realistic budget can be achieved. A partnership with a reliable and knowledgeable janitorial service company can also help guide you in making decisions that will best use your janitorial services budget.  

About Quality Maintenance & Repair Service Inc 
 
Quality Maintenance & Repair Service Inc is a full service commercial janitorial company. We provide office cleaning, medical office cleaning multi-tenant office cleaning for in Jacksonville Florida and surrounding areas. In additional to janitorial service, we can help you easily maintain your building in excellent condition with maintenance services such as window cleaning, carpet cleaning and tile cleaning services.  
 
Get in touch. 
Office: 904-388-8790  Fax: 904-388-8799 Email: [email protected] 
www.qualitymaintenance.co ​