The Janitors' Closet

Contractors turning away from LEED...

...highlights aspects of building and marketing a building based on guarantees of LEED certification, in a Journal of Commerce article by Jean Sorensen.  I found it in a post by Lisa over at Contracting Profits.

With our cutting edge Health and Enviromental friendly janitorial program, I've helped the occasional client achieve LEED certification on a new purpose-build facility, but (I admit) I'd not considered the situation of a developer building for sale of lease.  Clearly, a major reason one builds to LEED standards is to be able to better market the building, or its suites, to potential end users, who might be more willing to buy, or to pay a premium, for the health, enviromental and energy efficiency benefits that come with LEED.

But certification only comes after the project's completion - sometimes much after.  The article mentions two year delays.  So how does one pre-lease, or sell upon completion, based on a giving the end user a guarantee of an eventual LEED certification, that you've no assurances of being able to deliver?  How "green" is it, to leave a new building vacant (perhaps for years) while waiting for certification, so that one can begin to market it?

These unintended consequence things are tricky.

Vacuuming Programs Should Include Hard Floors, Vertical Surfaces

Just opened Cleanlink's e-newsletter "Focus on Vacuums", and was pleasantly surprised to see that they'd re-published my article on vacuuming hard floors and vertical surfaces.

I focus on indoor air quality benefits and worker efficiency, and include a bit more information than I've published in recent blogs.  I think I'll have my crew sit down and re-read it.  Enjoy!

Quantifying germ removal

Good article in Cleaning & Maintenance Management, Feb. 2012, on the above.

The magazine's editor, Aaron Baunee, gives a useful overview on ATP measurement ("measures an energy molecule found in all living - or once living - organisms"), ultraviolet light inspections (UV, or black-light, causes bodily fluids to fluoresce - just like OJ's footprints), and airborne particle counters (to measure fine airborne dust, including germs).  Was a bit startled to find myself quoted on the latter; I'd forgotten I'd given them a quick interview.

We have ATP measurement available for critical surfaces - think preschool and grade-school desktops.  We also use UV lights extensively.  We recently started having all of our crews use them to inspect their own work; we had been using them just at the supervisory and customer service level.  Our crews bought into the program easily; it's given us a major improvement in restroom detail work in particular.  We do a number of small "draw centers" - medical offices that draw blood and take urine tests.  You'd be surprised where-all a bit of urine over-spray can hide.

Each quantifying method has its drawbacks.  ATP measurement cannot tell if the offending organism is dead or alive, only if it's been removed, so you can get a positive reading on a surface that's been disinfected by killing the germs.  UV light fluoresces substances other than bodily fluids (some restroom caulk, for instance), so one needs to look a bit further to see it you've really got a problem.  And indoor air quality measuring counts the number of particles per unit of air, but does not tell you how many of those particle are germs, or spores, or of what variety.

But, used in conjunction, and with a bit of common sense, one can identify, and remedy, cleaning and sanitation issues.

Self Check - USCIS

"Self Check" is a handy little service introduced recently by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.  It allows an individual to check his own name/Social Security number combination, before doing a job interview, and so head off "no match" issues before hand.  Besides the obvious ID theft issues, it's amazing how many records bounce because of clerical mistakes - misspelled names and so on.

Good idea for the prospective employer to provide the e-mail address of the service to folks they are looking at interviewing, again to speed up the process.

"USCIS is releasing the Self Check service in phases. At this point the service is offered only to users that maintain an address in Arizona, California, Colorado, the District of Colombia, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, or Washington. The availability of Self Check will be limited for the initial launch as the service is tested and improved upon based on the outcomes of the initial implementation."

As a charter member of ICE's IMAGE program, we take pride in thoroughly screening our folks.  The Self Check program can only help.

Cleaning house the aerobic way

Once again, in "Exercise in Utility", the Wall Street Journal has showcased my janitorial industry with a front page article (Jan 24, 2012).

Steve Markovitx "does squats while washing windows. He performs lunges and hip twists while using the vacuum cleaner, 'the most versatile exercise machine' he knows. He burns so many calories that he can forgive himself for occasional indulgences, such as vanilla ice cream slathered with peanut butter."

Without commenting on the bit about slathering ice cream with peanut butter, I can verify the exercise content.  My janitorial crews are almost universally fit; those past workers I've stayed in contact with are largely "large".

And, truth be told, I need to get out with my crews a bit more often.

In the same article, a Carol Torgan "suggests 'doing toe raises to strengthen the calves while vacuuming, washing dishes or brushing your teeth.' Still, she warns that the overzealous could hobble themselves with such ailments as knee bursitis—also known as housemaid's knee—or suffer from "increased inhalation of chemical fumes from cleaning agents.' "

Sounds like all they need is a people friendly chemical kit.

Phoenix GoGreen 11

We at CBN Building Maintenance are quite proud to have been a sponsor of, and an exhibitor at, Phoenix's GoGreen '11 Conference, joining our friends at the City of Phoenix, our Chamber of Commerce, Harmon Solar (who are lined up to put some solar panels on my roof) and a lot of other folks that we work with.

The event featured a day of educational panel sessions and networking opportunities, showcasing statewide sustainable business leader case studies and their success stories, to allow conference attendees the opportunity to learn and implement best practices and create viable partnerships locally.

Got some good ideas, a bit of media exposure, and several service quotes.  Most gratifying, we're starting service for a school next month - the owner was trying to implement an environmentally friendly cleaning program, using a ma & pa firm that had not a clue.  And we're still working a couple of prospects.

Made our registration fee back already.

Industry certification

Caught an article in BSCAI's SmartBrief to the effect that less than 1% of the janitorial industry carries any sort of professional certification.

I've long believed in training my managerial folks, and assisting them on the path to professional certification.  The "less than 1%" figure is born out, at least locally, by the BSCAI's website:if you search for folks in Arizona holding BSCAI's executive or managerial certifications, you find that half of them are with my firm.

Here's some notes I posted a couple of years ago on the subject:

"I'm asked, from time to time, what the owner of a new janitorial firm ought do to both gain technical competence in his chosen field, and to demonstrate to his potential clients both his bona-fides, and that technical competence.   

" Besides joining and participating in his local BBB and Chamber of Commerce (covered earlier), I suggest a bit of what we've done (we provide janitorial service in Phoenix AZ):

• Building Service Contractors Association International - great seminars and conventions, links to member firms from their website, accreditation programs, industry contacts and a monthly magazine

• American Indoor Air Quality Council- local champers give workshops, good contacts in the HVAC and mold remediation industries, and a monthly publication

• U. S. Green Building Council - knowledge you need should you have a client looking at LEED certification; local chapters can train in LEED criteria

• IMAGE- a new Immigration & Customs program, allowing firms to partner with the Feds to better control ones hiring and screening procedures.

Try it - you'll be more competent, more legitimate, and can demonstrate it."

University of Minnesota Team Cleaning dispute.

The Minnesota Daily informs us that the University of Minnesota and the Teamsters Union, representing the University's janitors, disagree on the University's attempt to implement "Team Cleaning" procedures in cleaning campus buildings.  “The custodians’ contract states that each worker can bid on a specific area to clean, based upon seniority. Curtis Swenson, a business agent for the union, said the new team cleaning practice, which has multiple custodians cleaning the same area, violates that clause of the contract”.  Wonder if the senior janitors know where the easiest buildings lie.

"Team Cleaning" allows a multi-man crew in a large building to specialize, each crew member doing a particular task.  It generally replaces "zone cleaning", such as the University's janitorial staff uses, in which an individual cleaner does all tasks in a given area.   Here's how we summarize "Team Cleaning" in our firm's Procedures Manual:

 “Team Cleaning” can be used to divide tasks among several workers, or to set up a routine for one person who cleans the entire building.  Generally, the system involves moving in a circular path and the following steps:

1) “Light Duty” includes: emptying trash, ashtrays, dusting, spot cleaning, carpet spotting and door and interior glass spotting all in one operation (includes restroom & lunchroom trash).

2) Vacuuming floors (both carpet and tile), vents, webs, etc. with backpack vacuum. Do this after your “Light Duty” cleaning and check previous work as you go.

3) Rest rooms & lunchrooms (can easily be combined with light duty cleaning when in a small building).

4) Damp and wet mopping."

"Team Cleaning" promotes both efficiency (worker productivity) and quality, by training and equipping each worker in a specialized task.  Productivity allows for better pay, and a wealthier society.  Those societies that do not increase productivity stagnate; those industries and firms that do not increase productivity loose jobs to out-sourcing, or mechanization.  Centuries ago, the Luddites in England tried to "protect jobs" by smashing mechanical looms.  These days, you'll notice that folks who try to produce commercial cloth by hand weaving tend to starve.  Didn't work in England; won't work in Minnesota.

Fire the janitors, hire kids to clean schools

Good article on ll/18 in Politico on a Newt Gingrich speech at Harvard's Kennedy School; responding to an undergraduate's question about income inequality, he remarked:

"This is something that no liberal wants to deal with," Gingrich said. "Core policies of protecting unionization and bureaucratization against children in the poorest neighborhoods, crippling them by putting them in schools that fail has done more to create income inequality in the United States than any other single policy. It is tragic what we do in the poorest neighborhoods, entrapping children in, first of all, child laws, which are truly stupid.

"You say to somebody, you shouldn't go to work before you're what, 14, 16 years of age, fine. You're totally poor. You're in a school that is failing with a teacher that is failing. I've tried for years to have a very simple model," he said. "Most of these schools ought to get rid of the unionized janitors, have one master janitor and pay local students to take care of the school. The kids would actually do work, they would have cash, they would have pride in the schools, they'd begin the process of rising."

Newt further points out that most successful people started working, part time, at between 9 and 14 years of age.  Low end entry level is fine; get any job that teaches you to turn up on time, every day, and work until done.

Nothing wrong starting with janitorial, either.  Our most intelligent ignored president, James Garfield, grew up dirt poor.  His freshman year in college, he supported himself as a janitor.  His second year, he taught literature, math, and classical languages.  At 26, he was president of the university.  It is claimed that he not only spoke fluent Greek and Latin, but could write them - simultaneously - one with each hand.

Janitors can be upwardly mobile.

 

Low moisture carpet cleaning

Cleanlink just featured an article by BJ Mandelstam on the benefits of low moisture carpet cleaning.

We're quite sold on the benefits, having used the "low moisture soil encapsulation" process for years.  "Soil encapsulation" refers to the carpet cleaning chemical's ability to enclose, or encapsulate, the soil on drying, so that it can be vacuumed out.  Most soil is removed prior to drying by absorption into the machine's pad, while still wet, so the process delivers a "one-two punch".

The article covers various advantages to low moisture processes over hot water extraction (commonly called "steam cleaning"): less moisture introduced into the carpet, thus limiting the chance of over-wetting and speeding up dry-time; less water (by 95%) and chemical used; less water introduced into the carpet backing, to potentially separate the backing, leading to shrinkage or tearing of fibers, and to bleeding and discoloration; and better worker productivity, so we can clean the carpet more often at a similar annual cost.

It's nice seeing the benefits of low moisture carpet cleaning laid out so clearly, to help educate the occasional client who believes in the benefits of "steam cleaning".