Though they sound like exact opposites, day cleaning is not just a mirrored version of night cleaning. When you take your janitorial department and have them clean during daylight hours while employees and guests are in the building, changes take place financially, environmentally, and culturally — for the better.
Of course, day cleaning isn’t a magical cure for every facet of the following issues, but making the switch can make a perceptible move toward positive change.
1. High Operating Costs
Turn off those lights at night! According to BOMA’s Building Energy Efficiency Program, after-hours janitorial work accounts for almost 25% of a business’s weekly lighting use, which comes to about 7% of total building energy use.
But while lights are the most obvious energy-drain associated with night cleaning, there are other factors to consider, too: the life of light bulbs and ballasts, elevator use, HVAC systems, and security costs. When a building operates during the night, it goes through energy-related consumables more quickly, and leads to more frequent maintenance.
2. High Carbon Footprint
Day cleaning can significantly reduce a building’s energy consumption – anywhere from 4-8%. In addition to the cost savings, this lessens a building’s environmental footprint. For this reason, day cleaning is increasingly becoming part of business’ corporate responsibility and environmental management strategies.
It’s about more than just energy, too. When cleaning a full building during the daytime, special care has to be given to the choice of cleaning products. Certified green cleaning products are better not just for the environment, but for indoor air quality and human health as well. Day cleaning may be a catalyst for janitorial departments to make the switch to cleaning products that give employees’ respiratory systems a break.
3. Security Concerns
Day cleaning is safer for both the cleaners and the building. Security concerns increase at night after business hours, not to mention the risks of driving to and from work in the dark. Cleaners are less vulnerable to security threats when they work in the daytime with everyone else in the building, and the building is more secure when people aren’t exiting and entering during the wee hours of the night.
4. Employee Disrespect for Office Space
People feel more confident about a building’s cleanliness when they see it being physically cleaned. Even if they know, logically, that the building is cleaned at night, actually seeing the work performed has a profound psychological affect.
Plus, people like being able to know the cleaning staff personally. This leads to employees being more respectful of their space and the building. If you know Mary the cleaner, you’re more likely to be considerate and make sure all your trash is in the bin before she comes by, or you’ll clean up your spilled coffee in the kitchen because you respect her and her time.
While opponents of day cleaning argue that the cost savings of day cleaning aren’t worth the hazards and interruptions – wet floors, closed bathrooms, loud vacuums, etc. – these problems can be solved. With proper scheduling, including starting tasks before employees arrive and keeping regular and predictable bathroom cleaning times, these issues can be managed. The safety and comfort of employees does not have to be sacrificed when making the switch to day cleaning.
5. High Cleaner Turnover
Turnover is undoubtedly one of the toughest challenges facing janitorial contractors and in-house staff. Night cleaning makes janitorial work thankless, and the hours are often incompatible with family life. Day cleaning, however, offers cleaners more full-time jobs with hours that allow them to spend time with family. And being personally thanked by the building’s occupants goes a long way toward job satisfaction, too. Happier employees means less turnover, which means stabilized cleaning services and less labor and resources spent on hiring and training. It’s a win-win.
