If it wasn’t already a big deal before, safety and cleanliness are prioritized now more than ever, especially in the midst of seemingly never ending COVID-19 pandemic. Commercial facilities, workplaces, businesses etc. are making sure that all health and safety requirements are thoroughly met. Most of which use, you guessed it, commercial cleaning services.
As with any service, when you hire a professional commercial cleaning service, you expect and hope that the job is done correctly and efficiently. This is unfortunately not always the case. After all, we are human and human error is bound to happen at one point or another. But some can obviously be more costly with time and money than others. From our long and vast experience in the cleaning business, one of the more common mistakes made by a commercial cleaning company is using the incorrect cleaning products. This causes the job to be done incorrectly (obviously), thus not only leaving the task unfinished, but leaving others at risk as well. Below, we go over some of the top risks associated with using the incorrect cleaning products.
Health Risk
One of the biggest concerns with using the incorrect products is that those who actually work within the property/facility at risk. Majority of the commercial-grade cleansers can be heavily acidic and can contain a good amount of potent toxins that are just simply not meant to be breathed in consistently. This is exactly why companies specifically allocate certain cleansers for high traffic areas and areas with no so much traffic.
A good example of this would be a heavy-duty floor cleaner meant for a warehouse or factory floor with a lot of foot traffic. This may not be the best for floors in an office setting per say. Carelessness with this can quickly expose people to specific gasses or fumes can become nauseating to individual workers in that setting. In some extreme cases this can even cause pneumonia. The not so serious, dare I say best-case scenario of this would be using the incorrect – yet harmless – cleanser on a piece of glass that leaves behind streaks. Be sure that the correct cleansers are being used in the correct areas.
The Job is Incomplete
As stated earlier, using the incorrect products would lead to an unfinished job, which, in the short-term may not seem like such a huge deal to some. But, as with anything yet again, smaller problems over time mount to much bigger problems. For instance, constantly neglecting the floors from being done correctly can lead to permanent damage down the road. Whether it is too little of the correct product, or just incorrect altogether, the results will not be desirable let alone costing you more money in the long haul.
Your job is not to be in the janitorial business. That is our job and our obligation to be on top of all things janitorial, which is why you hired us in the first place. Especially in present day when there is a large concern over bacteria and pathogens in the area and on surfaces. Regardless, the space still needs to get cleaned the correct way to avoid larger risk with employees. More time consuming and more money spent.
Property Damage
Whether you are a property owner, facility manager/coordinator, office manager etc. you take pride in your space. To get up to where you are at currently has taken a tremendous amount of work, and you want to make sure it is taken care of as best as possible. More often than not, this is associated with outsourcing professionals to handle certain tasks quickly and efficiently. Well, I hate to the bearer of bad news, but this is not always the case. To add on to what we talked about previously by leaving others at a high risk and leaving your space unfinished, this can also cause damage to your property as well.
Let’s use hard wood floors as a good example for this. For review, there are certain products designated to clean specific areas. Hard wood floors usually are coated on top with polyurethane, which is meant to stand out and potentially catch the eye of a customer as well as it just looks nice and presentable. However, if the wrong cleanser is used, this coating can be stripped off and can lead to the eventual deterioration of the floor. This can open up a whole new can of problems and lead to permanent damage. While it may be covered by insurance, it will lead to a lot of wasted time to deal with a problem that was easily avoidable.
While we are all in a state of the unknown with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, people want and value a sense of comfort. Covid-19 to say the least has certainly changed the standard of health and safety protocols, which if met correctly can most certainly help with you and your employees having that sense of comfort.