Professional Cleaning Companies are they an unnecessary business expense?

With the recession or credit crunch or any name you want to give to the current economic issues we all face today I have come across a number of people who tell me they are cutting back on business costs.

One of the ways some are looking at is to do their own office cleaning in Aberdeen using existing office based staff. This seems at first a logical method of saving the overheads of the professional office cleaning company but would it work in practice?

Obviously your staff may not be happy about having this extra duty placed on them when they may already feel under pressure to do their normal job. But what other issues do we need to consider?

For example if you wanted to clean your office you would need to buy a number of different cleaning products and equipment. That brings up the issue that someone will have to take responsibility for monitoring stock levels and take time to purchase more stock as needed and you may be surprised just how fast some cleaning products get used.The professional cleaning service in Aberdeen will already have a stock of their own professional grade cleaning products that are used for a number of jobs.

If you are not going to hire an extra person to do the work then it is likely you will be utilising one of your existing admin staff members taking them away from their regular duties. This could have an extra cost effect on your business if their normal work is not being done effectively and on time.

If that person is not proficient on cleaning duties it will need to be done again an added expense and once again your office staff would not be using their skills and training in your business.

In addition the potential for damage to your office interiors increases as the person does not understand the use of some materials and the surfaces being cleaned. I recall going into one office complex and seeing that the cleaner (also employed as a book-keeper) had squirted some strong bleach on a floor and it had burnt the floor almost beyond economic repair. Are you aware of the dangers of mixing cleaning chemicals (even household strength cleaning products)? Did you know mixing some toilet cleaners together can give off poisonous Chlorine gas?

• Have you all the skills in house to develop all the health and safety guidance in-house? Or will you to pay to outsource it?
• Do you know enough about the role to do a professional Risk Assessment as required by law?
• Do you have copies of the COSHH data sheets for every single cleaning product your staff purchase in the event of an incident? Your local superstore will not supply them for the general household products they sell!| Can you be certain that you have the required COSSH safety data sheets for every single cleaning product your staff purchase? Your local supermarket or corner store will not be able to supply these legal documents and you will need them on site in case of an safety incident.}

If the choice was down to me as an office manager I would be asking myself the following questions

• “Are the extra costs of employing professional office cleaning cheaper than the risk of staff not focussing on my business and losing more money?”

• “What is the cost of not doing the job properly and having to repeat the work, do expensive repairs or facing legal issues over health and safety? ”

Those issues are dealt with best by hiring a professional cleaning company in Coatbridge just as you consult a lawyer, an accountant or any other specialist worker for the business.

 

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This entry was posted on Monday, July 6th, 2009 at 5:32 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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