Words: Madeleine Swain
New flooring materials and techniques are released and updated all the time, which means advice tied to specific products or treatments can quickly become outdated. A simple four-step process, however, provides a reliable way to prevent floor care failures in every case.
As with most facility management tasks and procedures, to ensure ongoing compliance and the satisfaction of a job well done, perhaps the very first and most useful piece of advice is to pretend you’re a boy scout and simply ‘be prepared’. Great preparation can be broken down into getting the following right:
- client liaison
- understanding the environment
- creating a schedule
- training the team
Client liaison
Putting a floor cleaning process into action in your own facility is one thing, but as an FM or cleaning provider undertaking a contract with other organisations, the first thing to do with any floor cleaning process is talk to the client.
Michelle and Phil Spoor are the co-owners of Absolute Carpet Care, based in Capalaba in Queensland. Their advice is straightforward. “Ask questions and listen. But it’s not that simple, they say. “The client may not know what they want or, more likely, may not know or understand what is available in the cleaning industry at the moment.”
They suggest FM or cleaning providers go further. They strongly recommend digging deeper with prospective clients. “Ask them what they have done previously and whether it worked. Were they happy with the results? If not, why? Was it equipment, personnel or process, etc,” Phil advises.
Michelle shares an example of a recent quotation they provided for a school cleaning contract. “We found that by digging down, the business manager was looking to change companies because the [previous] personnel were not security-conscious and left buildings open. In our walk-around, there was an opportunity to speak to a teacher. We found her greatest concern with the carpet was the large amount of times it had been vomited on!”
Understanding the environment
When it comes to the flooring materials that will require cleaning, very few facilities or organisations have only one type. Even a warehouse with a concrete floor will usually have offices and other areas that may be carpeted or have other types of flooring elsewhere. When taking on any new facility contract, a sensible approach is to undertake a thorough inventory of every type of flooring within the space.
Once the inventory is complete, a cleaning regime for each different floor type will need to be drawn up. This will entail detailed research and regular discussion with a trusted product supplier to ensure FM providers are always on top of the latest and most efficient products and tools.
Referencing manufacturers’ instructions for each type of flooring will enable the FM provider or cleaning team to allocate the correct and most appropriate product every time. This is vital, as any incompatible or harsh chemicals in cleaning products can cause irreparable damage to floors.
It’s not just getting the right product, it’s also about getting the application right. Some products will require dilution or application in limited quantities. Instructions for application need to be followed rigorously, diligently adhering to manufacturers’ instructions.
In a similar vein, using incorrect machinery or tools for any given environment can have a detrimental effect. All equipment, such as vacuum cleaners, scrubbers and buffers, needs to be appropriate for the flooring material at hand. Using a machine that is too heavy for the particular area being cleaned can lead to the flooring being scratched, warped or otherwise damaged.
The inventory should also note areas that need special attention and may be neglected unless the schedule stipulates their particular care, such as high-traffic areas that wear out more quickly. Entry zones generally come under this category. These areas can lead to damaged floors if their matting is insufficient or not robust enough. Appropriate and hard-wearing entry mats will ensure that moisture and dirt are collected before reaching the regular flooring.
Creating a schedule
Equally as important as utilising the correct products and processes to avoid floor care fails is getting the schedule right. If a slapdash approach to maintenance is applied, with routine cleaning skipped in favour of an ad hoc response, there will be a build-up of dirt and premature wear and tear.
Good floor maintenance entails drawing up a schedule for tasks that need to be completed daily, weekly, monthly or even quarterly. Likewise, it’s necessary to implement a routine and comprehensive inspection schedule. Problems such as cracks, tears, loose tiles or warps will only worsen over time and can not only lead to ongoing damage to flooring but also become OH&S issues if not addressed and fixed promptly.
Apart from the regular maintenance, however, some of the most harmful floor maintenance issues arise from accidents or unexpected events. A superior maintenance regime ensures spill response protocols are in place, with supplies and instructions readily available at all times. If these are not attended to promptly, floor damage and entrenched staining may ensue, to say nothing of the risk of slips and falls.
Training your team
We’ve all heard the expression ‘a bad worker blames their tools’. Notice how the worker component comes first in that saying? That makes sense, because no matter how great your tools and products are, if the person wielding them doesn’t know what they’re doing, you’re already on a hiding to nowhere.
Comprehensive and ongoing training for your team of cleaners, maintenance workers or janitorial staff will ensure that they all understand the different floor surfaces they will be working on, what each surface requires in terms of products and equipment and how often those areas need to be cleaned.
Regular refresher training is necessary, both to keep newcomers to the team apprised of requirements and best practices and to ensure existing team members are kept up-to-date with improved systems and new products.
“This is especially important when new equipment and chemicals come online,” say the Spoors. “Follow-up training can be used to understand what has stuck and what challenges they are finding.”
Getting the correct products and techniques for all different floor surfaces is vital, but in the end, the most important element of all really does relate back to those doing the work.
When it comes to the absolute top mistake made when cleaning commercial floors, the Spoors nominate the human angle. “Personnel whose capability is not up to the capacity required to bring the desired result [for the task] assigned to them,” they say, “thus making it no better or even worse [than when they started].”
