The demand for more sustainable buildings is growing. The combined effects from growth in environmental legislation and the demand from tenants and shareholders to reduce environmental impacts are requiring property managers to both understand and take responsibility for the environmental performance of their facility. The best way to benchmark and report your building’s sustainability performance is through LEED Certification. In this article, we define LEED Certification, review the benefits of LEED Certification, and go over how to achieve LEED certification.
As summer comes to an end, college students will be moving into their dorms for the new school year. Students, as well as their parents, are excited and expecting a clean dorm room with minimal dirt, odors, or stains. This means you’re likely preparing your custodial staff or contracted cleaning crew to do a deep clean of the campus dorm facilities. The impression your facility leaves on students and parents is critical to ensuring they have a positive first night on campus and are satisfied with their new “home away from home”. Parents and students invest a lot of time and money deciding on the best college for them. If they arrive to a dirty dorm, this will lead to unhappy students and can even cause students to transfer. The few weeks before school starts are likely one of the only times, if not the only time, dorm rooms can be deep cleaned.
Slips and falls are the number one accident problem in commercial kitchens. Slips and falls are also a leading cause of workers’ compensation claims. 85% of worker’s compensation claims are attributed to employees slipping on slick floors. Greasy kitchen floors are a major contributor to this problem. Commercial kitchen floors present special challenges and require unique care to provide a safe and clean walking surface. In addition to an increased risk of injury and higher insurance premiums, dirty and slippery floors can lead to negative sanitation and safety reviews, both of which can easily ruin a food operation’s reputation.
Foul odors from dumpsters or compactors can turn a tenant or guest’s good experience into an unpleasant one. Offensive odors will create the wrong image of your facility, leaving guests with a negative impression of your business’ cleanliness. Any facility that is discarding waste in a dumpster or compactor is going to experience foul odors at one point or another, but when summer heat comes around it is likely intensifying the problem.
Industry-certified custodial training and certification is key to setting yourself apart from others in the commercial cleaning industry. If you are a manager, supervisor, lead custodian, or if you are looking to advance into a leadership role within your cleaning team, attending custodial training will provide you with the knowledge and skills to tackle a facility’s cleaning and maintenance challenges.
Abrasive soils are tracked through your facility every day, scratching and dulling your hard floors. A dull and dirty floor can hurt your business’ image and lead to increased customer complaints. It is important to the life and appearance of your resilient hard floor that you have a complete and practical floor care program including daily, periodic, and restorative maintenance procedures. Daily floor care is done every day. It includes the cheapest and least time-consuming cleaning procedures such as vacuuming, dust mopping, and damp mopping. Periodic floor care is done when traffic has caused a noticeable level of wear and tear on your floor finish. Scrubbing and recoating (sometimes referred to as shower scrubbing) is the best way to periodically maintain your hard, resilient flooring.
Maintaining a clean facility is key to attracting and retaining tenants. When you continually have new and existing tenants and guests evaluating your facility, it is critical that every cleaning procedure is performed correctly to produce the best possible results. Every cleaning procedure, from restroom cleaning to restorative floor care, plays a significant role in ensuring your facility looks great. A clean facility is important to tenant and guest satisfaction and an improved bottom line. One of the best ways to make sure the contracted cleaning staff is capable of achieving best-in-class results, with every cleaning procedure, is ensuring the custodial team has completed formal janitorial training.
Floors are the first thing people notice when they enter your facility. They are also a major investment in both time and money. Maintaining the appearance of your hard floors requires daily cleaning and maintenance to remove soil that is tracked into your facility, decrease damage to your floors, and reduce the frequency of periodic or restorative hard floor care procedures that are more time-consuming and expensive.
With the recent rise in microfiber products, many businesses are making the switch to microfiber mops. Microfiber mops offer increased cleaning power and more effective germ removal versus traditional wet mops. Microfiber can reduce bacteria on floors by 99% while conventional tools, like string mops, only reduce bacteria by 30%.
A major problem in commercial restrooms is foul odor. Restroom odors can leave your guests believing that you do not properly maintain your facility or that your facility is unclean. But what your guests do not realize is that even when you are performing consistent daily cleaning procedures, your facility can be plagued by foul restroom odors. In most facilities, 90% of restroom odors are caused by one common problem.
Candida auris, is a highly contagious infection, rapidly spreading throughout healthcare facilities on the East Coast. Candida auris is dangerous because it is easily spread, survives on surfaces for months, can be multi-drug resistant, and is difficult to detect so it is often misdiagnosed. As the director of EVS, keeping your guests and patients healthy and safe is a top priority.
