In the last 12 months, cleaning has become a key area of focus for every organisation. In our latest blog, APP UK Managing Director Caroline Demouplied provides advice on how to optimise the cleaning service you receive via the ongoing monitoring and evaluation of your cleaning contractor’s performance.

 After going to the trouble of selecting your chosen commercial cleaning contractor, the day to day liaison with that company can often be forgotten about or delegated to a junior staff member and cleaning standards are often overlooked until something goes wrong. 

It is so important to have dialogue with your cleaning contractor’s management team and to evaluate standards regularly to ensure that the business relationship stays fresh and up to standard. Below we give some top tips on how to evaluate your cleaning contractor performance.

1. A defined cleaning specification. Always make sure you have a defined cleaning specification. Identify specific spaces you want cleaned on a daily, weekly, monthly, and deep clean periodic basis. Agree this with the cleaning contractor so that both parties understand what is expected

2. Stringent service evaluation criteria. Agree with your service provider the service evaluation criteria. This doesn’t have to be complex and we give some examples of key cleaning audit performance indicators below. By doing this, it is possible to carry out audits in an objective way because the outcomes are clear, predefined and unambiguous.

3. Regular meetings at management team level. Ensure you have regular meetings with the management team of your cleaning company to discuss the KPI and audit findings, and review service delivery.

4. Monitor flexibility, agility and adaptability. Monitor the flexibility of your contractor, their agility when responding to emergency situations and their ability to adapt cleaning protocols to changing needs.

5. Sophistication of approach. For example how do they manage time and attendance and do they proactively provide management information when needed?

By paying attending to these five core areas, you are more likely to have a successful and long- term business relationship safe in the knowledge that you are also getting value for money.

When it comes to the creation of ongoing KPIs against which your cleaning team should be measured, there are also some vital areas to which cleaning operatives, your cleaning providers and your organisation should pay attention. For guidance, see our Example Cleaning KPI Audit below.

Cleaning Audit pdf

Members of our expert team can also be contacted for specific guidance by emailing (insert email address) or calling (insert tel no). We would be pleased to help you ensure your cleaning service is the very best it can be and is appropriate for the needs of your organisation.

ENDS