This post will blend together some of three of the themes I've been thinking about this week: "Quality Process," "Co-opetition with janitors," and "Helping Clients Succeed." By the way, the "helping clients succeed" thinking that I have referred to a few times in this blog is the creative property of The Franklin Covey Sales Performance Group. The process is a principled approach to helping clients BUY what they really want and need instead of trying to manipulate them through sales strategy. They have some fantastic free tools, books, podcasts there as well from the people who brought you The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.® Public Disclaimer: Ken Walker is a happy alumni of Franklin Covey Canada, Ltd.
I've been collaborating with a new client that has some issues that are very common in smaller workplaces--protecting their company image and budget when you don't want to become (or need to become!) a cleaning systems expert. If your title is a variation on "Office Manager," this would be you. They are a innovative design-build and sales company in the home mobility industry; bringing creative, functional and well-engineered accessibility solutions to consumers so they can stay in their homes longer. Their office is compact and professional and a blending of sales, product design studio, administration and showroom.
The client had a flood last week from a backed up water line into their washroom that disrupted the office for several days. She has dealt with professionals from cleaning restoration on water damage, her evening janitor, and a commercial specialty cleaner all trying to help her solve her immediate and future cleaning needs. (Thanks to Paul Patterson at ServiceMaster of Hal-Dart Disaster Restoration, BTW.)
"Helping Clients Succeed" -- When the Toilet backs up into the Showroom
They have carpet that is part of the functional showcase for their products while at the same time providing comfortable footing and aesthetics to the office staff. And the engineers and modellers work in the pre-production area just outside an internal door in the plant area. Oh yeah, the manufacturing gets done there as well with some traffic walking in from that environment. And the sales people come and go throughout the day. Did I mention they have street access to the salt and sand loading parking lot?
This is a demanding office environment to keep well maintained and looking exceptional to customers. We were talking about what it will take to keep up appearances, in a tight delivery time-frame, within a reasonable budget. Remember project management constraints of Good, Fast and Cheap?
My client had just got an unplanned education on the wonders and risks of plumbing, the science of water-borne pathogens, insurance claims, building engineering, crisis management, negotiations, alternative dispute resolution, space planning, office re-modeling, salvage vs. corrective vs. maintenance cleaning systems and creative ways to answer the phone. Don't you wish you were Deanna? Now her management team want to deal with the overall appearance of the office. Deanna is motivated, purposeful and newly aware that there is more to "clean" than initially meets the eye. As a service partner my role is to help her meet her objectives:
- Great office appearance and a healthier inside environment
- Protecting the lifespan of carpet, flooring and furnishings
- Not breaking the bank
Co-opetition with Janitors
As a smaller office environment they don't have a full-service janitorial firm five nights a week cleaning their offices. I have alluded to the benign disrespect that janitors get from us in doing what they do to keep the office basically clean. The pay sucks, the hours suck, career advancement isn't a major prospect, and turnover of colleagues runs on average about 250% a year. Its hard to be them. Its also not nice to get surprised by "interesting" water flowing over carpet and vinyl tile. Day-to-day dust, grime and removing the garbage this is not.
It became apparent that our services were going to be helpful to meeting the above objectives--somewhat adding to what the janitors were doing for her and somewhat in competition with their business aspirations. We are two companies trying to maximize client value; but eyeing the same cleaning budget.
Heavy, specialty cleaning should not duplicate basic housekeeping functions, but bring extra service knowledge and skill to bear. The challenge to this is in routine vacuuming of the carpet. I would LOVE to be able to help the janitors get more money to invest is decent vacuuming equipment and training to do it right. Industry studies tell us that up to 80% of soil can be removed be effective vacuuming on a daily basis in a program that included good soil trapping matting in the entryways. A very large part of what my service techs do is dig out dry imbedded soil before its gets wet from cleaning and turns into mud. Then we do wet cleaning to remove spots and the "stickier" soil that builds up in the fibres.
The same issue occurs with resilient flooring like vinyl tile. Floor finishes today have amazing science behind them to protect the floor surface and be much easier for maintenance except for ingrained habits and beliefs. In my client's case, Deanna is paying to have the floors stripped and refinished far too often (4-6 times per year) instead of investing in a manufacturer-approved maintenance regime. Which leads us to Quality Process.
Quality Process Starts with a Value Map
My client solves problems for their end-users through elegantly simple engineering of household furnishings and appliances to bring comfort, confidence and dignity. That is not a bad set of values to apply to process for their own environment--and yours.
In the cleaning services industry providers rush in with often dated or untested "solutions" and then build a system that entrenches waste, or Muda, if you follow Lean Thinking. In Lean--a very valuable process improvement framework that compliments 6 Sigma quite nicely--the greatest break throughs come by making sure waste stays out of the process from the very beginning.
What is the biggest waste in office cleaning for Deanna (and you and me)? It is the dry soil that tracks into the facility when it shouldn't.
The second biggest waste is letting it spread and break down creating fine particulate dust.
What do you value in cleaning? Most of us value the assumed effort in cleaning process. Why not identify what to PREVENT and then map it out and test it. That is exactly what we at ServiceMaster have been learning and sharing with our programmed carpet and hard floor maintenance programs. In Canada alone we now have over 3000 businesses under carpet maintenance. And the janitors sometime don't like it.
They can get mad at us because the "add-on" cleaning projects are something they feel entitled too even if the competency is a little shaky. But they shouldn't. Because I tell my clients, like Deanna, to give them more money for better equipment, check out their training and reap the benefits.
What does your "Clean Map" look like? If you're intrigued give me an E-mail with a brief scenario of your situation and I'll get a network of local suppliers working with us on a prevention program for your office. And hopefully no "back ups" to inspire action.
Best regards,
Ken
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