Archive for the ‘Tips & Tricks’ Category

Why Cleanliness = Productivity

We are all busy running our businesses. It’s easy to ignore the dust bunnies, smudges, and overflowing trash cans in favor of completing a deadline. Keep in mind, however, that it is a good business practice to maintain a clean office. Here are two benefits of keeping a clean workplace:

1. An office is more productive when it is clean. Employee morale is higher, and they have more pride in their workplace. They can also focus better and accomplish tasks more efficiently when their area is clean. Office cleanliness is a signal of work expectations, with dirty offices breeding chaotic work practices.

2. Your customers judge you on what they see. When your customers see a clean, tidy work environment, they have more confidence in your work standards, organizational skills, and even your brand.

Setting the Priorities

You have to start somewhere when instituting a cleaning regimen. The four most important areas to focus on are:

Restrooms: While the restroom accounts in size for only about 5% of most buildings, it is the source of 95% of all building cleanliness complaints. Keep your restrooms clean for your customers, employees, and yourself

Lobby/Reception Area: First impressions are powerful. Keep your windows clean, plants & counters dusted, and polish and vacuum frequently in this area. While this can be especially challenging in the hot, dusty months of summer, keep in mind that the foyer is the first area most of your customers will see. To ensure cleanliness in this area, make sure your cleaning company expresses an understanding of how critical it is to keep your entrance looking great at all times. Ask them questions about their process and standards for your foyer to make sure they have a plan for keeping your entrance crisp and providing a great first impression at all times.

Office & Desk Area: At minimum waste baskets should be emptied and the vacuum run on a daily basis. Encourage your employees to stay organized and keep clutter minimized.

Lunch/Dining Area: Often used, yet seldom cleaned, the employee eating area can quickly become a hotbed of germs and filth. This is a critical area to have a cleaning policy in place, for both your staff and your customers. Keeping it clean encourages the staff to respect the area, and it improves morale.

Choosing Eco Clean KC’s janitorial services you can be assured that your facility will be impeccably maintained and will reflect the professional image you wish to project to your clients and employees.

Call us today: (913)-912-3261

(913)-912 -ECO1

Fall Cleaning Checklist

Use Autumn’s brisk and breezy days to conquer deep-cleaning chores for a clean and comfortable winter home, and wrap up summer’s outdoor areas. Our Fall Cleaning Chore Checklist will help you prepare home and hearth for the coming of winter. Summer’s come and gone–and left its mark on outside the house. Time to come inside for winter! Outside the house tend to these autumn chores.

• Clean and store patio furniture, umbrellas, children’s summer toys.
• Touch up paint on trim, railings and decks. Use a wire brush to remove flaking paint; prime bare wood first.
• Check caulk around windows and doors. Follow manufacturer’s recommendations to re-caulk if needed.
• Inspect external doors and garage doors. Do they close tightly? Install weather-stripping, door thresholds if needed.
• Wash exterior windows.
• Drain and store garden hoses. Install insulating covers on exterior spigots. In hard-freeze areas, have sprinkler systems blown free of water.
• Check gutters and downspouts. Clear of debris if necessary. In cold-weather areas, consider installing heating cable to prevent ice dams.
• Have chimneys and flues inspected and cleaned if necessary.

Autumn’s the time for “spring cleaning”. Deep clean now to take advantage of good weather, and face the coming of winter and the approaching holidays with a clean and comfortable home.

• Focus on public rooms: living room, family room, entryway, guest bath.
• Clean from top to bottom. Vacuum drapes and window treatments. Clean window sills and window wells. Vacuum baseboards and corners.
• Vacuum upholstered furniture, or have professionally cleaned if needed. Move furniture and vacuum beneath and behind it.
• Wash interior windows.
• Turn mattresses front-to-back and end-to-end to equalize wear.
• Launder or clean all bedding: mattress pads, pillows, duvets, blankets, comforters. Tuck the family into a warm and cozy winter bed.
• Schedule professional carpet cleaning early this month! Warm October afternoons speed carpet drying. Carpet cleaning firms get busy by the end of October, so schedule now for best service.
• Prepare the kitchen for holiday cooking. Clean and organized kitchen cabinets, paying particular attention to baking supplies, pans and equipment.
• Clear kitchen counters of all appliances not used within the last week. Clear counters look cleaner–and provide more room for holiday cooking.
• Pull refrigerator away from the wall, and vacuum the condenser coils. For bottom-mounted coils, use a long, narrow brush to clean coils of dust and debris.
• Wash light-diffusing bowls from light fixtures.
• Inspect each appliance. Does it need supplies? Stock up on softener salt now, and avoid staggering over icy sidewalks with heavy bags.
• Check and empty the central vacuum’s collection area.
• Clean electronic air cleaner elements monthly for most efficient operation. Wash them in an empty dishwasher (consult manual for specific product recommendations).
• Clean or replace humidifier elements before the heating season begins.
• Inspect washer hoses for bulges, cracks or splits. Replace them every other year.
• Check dryer exhaust tube and vent for built-up lint, debris or birds’ nests! Make sure the exterior vent door closes tightly when not in use.
• Schedule fall furnace inspections now. Don’t wait for the first cold night!
• Buy a winter’s supply of furnace filters. Change filters monthly for maximum energy savings and indoor comfort. When the right filter is on hand, it’s an easy job!
• Drain sediment from hot water heaters.

Choosing Eco Clean KC’s janitorial services you can be assured that your facility will be impeccably maintained and will reflect the professional image you wish to project to your clients and employees. Call us today: (913)-912-3261 (913)-912 -ECO1

Choosing a Janitorial Services

Selecting a cleaning contractor is one of the more trying tasks a facilities manager can face. Choosing a contractor not well suited to your facility has many ramifications, not the least of which is unhappy tenants or employees.

Before you begin this process, identify precisely the janitorial services you need for your facility and the schedule that best suits your company or tenants. Getting the input of your departments who have unique/non-standard cleaning needs is beneficial to their longer term satisfaction. Having a clear idea of your janitorial service needs will make finding the right contractor much easier. Each facility is different and the best contractors will base their bid on a customized approach.

Issuing a Request for Proposal (RFP)

•  A tour date/time. You will need to determine if you will provide separate tours for each company, or if you will have one joint tour. A benefit to the individual tours is that you will be able to get a better feel for the contractor and will begin to build rapport with them. The drawback is that the private tours require a much greater time commitment than a group tour does. Be sure to include information on the tour date in your RFP.
•  Bid due dates and janitorial service start date. Typically bids are due two to three weeks after the tour, and service starts one month after the award.
• Specifications. By requiring all contractors to bid on the same specifications you will be able to compare apples to apples.
•  A required response format. Mandating how the pricing information is to be returned to you will allow you to easily compare the proposals. It is also wise to request information on the number of hours that will be committed to the job each day, as well as data on the wages and any benefits the janitors will receive. As nearly 80% of any janitorial service bill can be directly attributable to labor costs, differences in hours worked and wages paid can result in large
• differences in cleaning quotes.
•  Floor plans. If you are able to provide floor plans of your building drafted to scale, the tour will go much more quickly as the proposing firms will not need to measure every area. If such floor plans are not available, building layout schematics, such as those posted for emergency evacuation plans, are very helpful.

You have made the right choice if your janitorial service contractor proactively manages the relationship – meeting your expectations and addressing requests or concerns so you don’t have to.

Choosing Eco Clean KC’s janitorial services you can be assured that your facility will be impeccably maintained and will reflect the professional image you wish to project to your clients and employees.

Call us today: (913)-912-3261

Cleaning Freezers and Refrigerators

Have you been brave enough to pull everything out of your appliances and then clean them thoroughly? I am not just talking about the food, I am talking about the shelving and any removable parts? While this is a daunting task, it is one that doesn’t need to be tackled much more than once or twice a year (depending on the average dirt level of your appliances). The first thing you need to do is pull all of the food out. Throw out what is freezer burned or any condiments that you have used in the past 6 months or so. If you haven’t used it yet, chances are that you won’t. A good time to do this is when the contents are getting low (refrigerators are easier to do this way). Depending on the temperature in your area, you may want to put everything in a cooler. You will especially want to do this if your appliance is particularly dirty and will take you an extraordinary amount of time. If not, then you should be able to leave it out long enough to get everything shiny clean! After you remove the food, you will want to pull out anything that is removable in your fridge or freezer. I like to use a mixture of bleach and hot water (1/4 cup bleach to a sink full of water) and clean everything, including the interior of the refrigerator/freezer. This will kill any bacteria that might be lingering in the appliance. Once you have the interior of the fridge/freezer emptied of all removable parts, you will want to wash the interior of the refrigerator. You will want to look through your owners manual to make sure what you can/should use to clean. Some surfaces don’t handle ‘green scrubbers very well, as they get scratched. However, green scrubbers are my preferred ‘tool’ and I haven’t had any problems. It is easy to use and gets all of the pesky spills and drips cleaned up that have ‘stuck’ to the sides or rear of the appliance. So, make sure the tools and cleaners you use are ‘safe’ for YOUR appliance. Once you have the interior clean and the removable parts clean – it is time to replace everything. VOILA! A clean and sparkling appliance is your reward! Luckily you don’t need to do this very often – especially if you are cleaning up spills and messes as you go. Once a year is typically fine, unless you have let some accidents build up (or your children have and haven’t told you!)  

Spring Cleaning 101

What Is Spring Cleaning? Spring cleaning refers to the deep-cleaning chores that people may engage in during spring, after the winter months have made many jobs more difficult to do and thus more neglected. Spring cleaning jobs generally include things like washing windows, cleaning appliances, scrubbing floors, and washing sheets and linens (but hopefully you’re doing that year-round), as well as donating clothes, paring down, and putting organization systems in place.

Who Does Spring Cleaning? The obvious answer is that people who want a clean home are those who engage in spring cleaning. More specifically, though, 86% of women and 68% of men (77% of Americans) report regularly engage in spring cleaning, according to The Soap and Detergent Association’s (SDA) 2008 Spring Cleaning Survey. This is up 12% from 2007’s numbers, so it appears that spring cleaning is catching on.

How Does Spring Cleaning Relieve Stress? Spring cleaning creates a less cluttered, less dirty atmosphere, which can impact your stress levels more than you may realize. It can also be a time saver throughout the year, as you’ll have less trouble finding things you need if you’re more organized. See this article for several other ways that cleaning in general can be an excellent stress reliever.

Painless Strategies for Spring Cleaning Spring cleaning’s popularity, however, does not necessarily indicate that it’s a fun part of people’s lives: when asked what they would give up in order to avoid spring cleaning, a significant number of people said they’d pay $100, give up dining out for a month, or forego a weekend trip! If you find yourself dreading spring cleaning, fear not; it can actually be fun and an effective route to stress relief. This piece on clutter and stress can help you better understand the hidden cost of clutter, and make spring cleaning almost painless.

Shortcuts for 10 Household Chores

Dusting

• Try dusting cloth lampshades with a lint roller. It works quickly and effectively without the hassle of a vacuum.
• Slip an old unmatched sock on your hand and dust as you go.

Windows and Mirrors

• Use old newspapers to clean mirrors and windows. You’ll have a great disposable cleaning rag and be recycling at the same time.
• Vinegar is an inexpensive easy cleaner that can be used on windows and mirrors.
• To prevent streaking and extra rubbing, wait for an overcast day to clean your mirrors and windows.

Cleaning Out the Microwave

• Bring a cup of water to boil in the microwave, the steam will help loosen dried on particles making them easily wiped away.

Scrubbing the Toilet

• Put toilet cleaner in the toilet to soak while you wipe down the outside. The inside dirt and stains will be loosened and more easily cleaned.
• Buy a drop-in toilet cleaner dispenser, to increase the time between needed cleanings.

Cleaning Out the Refrigerator.

• Briefly clean out trash and bad food each trash day morning. It only takes a few minutes to dump the stuff, and will clear out space to make cleaning easier.
• Use baking soda to wipe down the inside of the refrigerator. It scrubs and eliminates odors without damaging surfaces.
• Make Cleaning the Refrigerator Easier

Cleaning Out the Oven.

• On nights when you get take out, take a few moments and spray the inside of the oven with oven cleaner. Then after dinner, or the next morning if your stains are tough, you”ll be able to wipe away the dirt and grime easily, without missing the use of your oven.

Filing Paperwork

• Make filing time coincide with a favorite show that you feel guilty for taking time to watch. Most filing can be done with little thinking, and you’ll get to watch your favorite show in the process. Sort the papers into categories based on your file names. Don’t forget to include trash. You’ll be surprised how much of the pile you won’t need to keep.

Laundry

• Make each person responsible for washing, drying, and putting away their own clothing. Write and post some basic instructions in the laundry room. Have a trial period where your trainees assist you with their clothing.
• If you get truly overwhelmed by your laundry, check out a local Laundromat that will wash, dry, and fold your loads for you. These services frequently charge by the pound for laundry and aren’t inexpensive, but may save you time and energy when life starts to overwhelm.

Washing Dishes

• Let the person who is in charge of washing the dishes, get to pick out dessert.
• When you begin cooking, run a sink of hot soapy water, and wash as you go. Food on dishes won’t have a chance to harden, and you’ll be that much ahead when the meal is done.
• Keep a supply of disposable plates, flatware, and cups. On nights when you’re overwhelmed by double-header Little League games on the same night as PTA, you won’t have to worry about dishes.
• Washing dishes can be a great time to have a parent interview with a child you need to reconnect with. The job may not go more quickly, but you’ll be accomplishing a lot more than clean dishes.

Clearing Clutter

• Find a local charity to donate items to prior to a clutter clearing session. Some charities may even be able to pick up your donations at a prearranged time, saving you a trip.
• Label various storage containers before you begin to sort your clutter. A label makes placing items in the right category a much easier task.
• Go through and grab obvious trash as the first step. Once the trash is gone, it makes it easier to see what you want to keep, and just how much stuff you’ll need to get rid of.

How to be less stressed at work

You are much more likely to get a promotion or a raise if you keep a clean orderly work area. When a survey was conducted on the importance of organization, 51% of bosses think that there is an important link between an employee’s effectiveness and the organization of their desk or office.

There is also real evidence that this is more than an impression. If your office is clean and organized you are more efficient. You do not loose things and you complete your tasks quicker and more accurately. Studies show that people with messy desks spend over one hour per day looking for missing things or being distracted by things.

Clutter also causes stress. The hormone cortisol is released when you are surrounded by a mess. If the level of cortisol is elevated consistently it will cause anxiety and agitation. This kind of stress speeds up the aging process and increases the risk of heart disease.

The good news is that in a clean area, endorphins are released. These make you feel great! Feeling stressed at work? Clean up your desk and you will immediately feel better!

Remember that a clean desk can still be cluttered. Remove all excess knick knacks, joke props and excessive personal pictures. They are seen as immature and a distraction by most employers. Use the rule of three. Only have three personal items visible. This means 2 pictures and 1 plant.

Your desk may also be a communal area. People come into your office, they touch things, they sneeze and they spread germs. Make sure to use cleaning spray or disinfectant on the common areas. This will keep you healthy. When you are healthy you are much more happy and productive at work. Making it easier to get that raise!

It is best to eat away from your desk. You never want old food or stains in your work area.

If you have clients at your desk, remember that you are a representative of the company. You need to look professional. Have a clean office and your customers will have more confidence in you. Have a great filing system where you can access things easily and they will be impressed with your efficiency. If you impress clients, you will impress your boss!