Facility Manager Resources

• A complete set of cleaning specifications, with frequencies.
• A simple floor plan. Nothing fancy, and it doesn't have to be to scale; just note the locations of restrooms, lunchrooms, conference rooms, etc.
• Square footage, preferably broken down into carpet footage and hard-surface floor footage.
• "Desk" population (number of people with desks).
• "Non-desk" population, such as assembly workers and warehouse personnel.
• Estimated number of visitors each day and how they use the facility. Do they simply visit the front counter, or do they routinely come into the building for extended periods and use the rest-rooms and lunchrooms as a regular employee would?
• Special populations, such as children, senior citizens or tour groups.
• Number of rest-rooms and lunchrooms.
• If your company has a commitment to use of environmentally-responsible cleaning chemicals, specify that.
• Special instructions, such as "Recycling paper is not to be removed from the accounting department". Things like this can make a difference in janitorial service bid prices, as they can often eliminate a lot of work.
• All hard-surface floors that will require periodic refinishing, and all carpeted areas that might need to be cleaned more often than other areas due to heavy traffic.
• If you have a multi-tenant building, you might consider getting 2 prices; one price for all of the common areas that would be cleaned regardless of occupancy, and another "cents-per-square-foot" price to be added or deducted as suites are filled or vacated.
• Specify if you want restroom supplies to be included in the bids. Note - from our experience, we don't recommend this for 3 reasons: (1) Many cleaning contractors don't have experience in estimating supply-usage; (2) Some tenants will have a high number of outside visitors coming into the building and using restrooms, which will throw everyone's prices off; and (3) The contractor with the best purchasing power might not be the best contractor for you (and the contractor with the worst purchasing power might provide the best cleaning you'll ever get).
• Time frames for cleaning, e.g. "Starting after 6pm, to be finished by midnight, Sunday through Thursday".
• Consider telling your bidders that you encourage "prompt-payment" terms in their cleaning proposals.
• Insurance and bonding requirements. Ask that proof of coverage be faxed to you directly from their providers. If you feel it's important, require that the winning contractor designates your company as a co-insured.
• When you want the bids to be in. In our experience 1 week is plenty of time for all but the most complicated bids. On very large buildings you might want to allow 2-3 weeks.
• When you anticipate the work would begin.

Questions You Can Ask Janitorial Service Bidders:

Franchisees can get valuable training and assistance from their franchisor. On the other hand, franchise fees can often create serious overhead costs for the franchisee, and you get no benefit whatsoever from that situation. Some franchisors even require the contractor to buy their cleaning tools and supplies through them, often at inflated prices. Of course we can’t start naming cleaning companies that we think are “good and not-so-good” franchisors, but this is an important question to ask.

Some “janitorial services” don’t do any cleaning – they just bid on accounts and then sell them, even lease them, for a profit. There are, unfortunately, quite a few horror stories out there of cleaning contracts being bought and sold numerous times without the customer’s knowledge, with different companies and crews coming and going; and along with that, keys and alarm codes can come and go, too.

We recommend full background checks, of course. A quality background check will typically run about $50, and usually includes checking for criminal history, bankruptcy and liens, credit, sex offender check, and more. Other checks should include driving history, verification of social security number, personal references, work history, and proof of valid driver’s license and auto insurance.

This one is probably self-explanatory!

Don’t accept documents that aren’t faxed directly from providers. And then when you get the documents, make a quick phone call or do a Google and verify that the fax number on the document really belongs to the provider. It’s just too easy for people to fake things these days, and you really don’t want to find someday that your cleaning service has been running without coverage. After you hire your new service, put it on your calendar to ask for fresh documents every (you pick the number) months.

Floor stripping removes all waxes and finishes off the floor, usually for the purpose of applying new finish, and since it requires flooding the floor with stripper and water, doing it too often can harm your floors, and water can also get under baseboards and behind walls and create mold. Not only do you want to know the answer because it’s an important “cleaning” question, it’s also a good question to pose to salespeople - if they can rattle off an answer right away, it’s probably a good sign and can give you some indication as to their actual cleaning experience. If they can’t tell you right away, it might not be a bad sign, but tell your bidders that you’d like the answer included in their bids.

In our experience the best way to minimize stripping is to be sure that (after the floor has been stripped) enough coats of new finish are applied so the contractor has a good base to work with.

(1) Strip only if it’s obvious that the floor truly needs a “fresh start” – for instance, if someone applied numerous coats of finish onto a dirty floor, or if the finish has otherwise been ruined, scratched beyond repair, etc; and...

(2) If stripping is required, a minimum of 4-5 coats of high-quality finish should be applied, followed by a coat of binder (also known as a hardener), and then should be high-speed buffed or burnished. This gives the floor a good hard base of finish, and the janitorial services contractor should be able to use that base (often for years) without having to strip again.

Here’s a sample floor maintenance schedule:
• Dust-mop and damp-mop every service night;
• Dust-mop, damp-mop and buff once or twice a month;
• Light-scrub and buff once or twice per quarter;
• A medium scrub, then apply 1 or 2 coats of finish every 3-6 months;
• A heavy scrub, then apply 2-3 coats of finish and buff once or twice a year.

Be mindful that floor maintenance is both an art and a science, and no two janitorial services will recommend exactly the same procedures, materials and schedules. This is an area where you sometimes have to get a consensus from your bidders, establish some specs, carefully observe how it’s working for you after the new contractor starts the work, and then adjust those specs accordingly. It’s pretty much impossible for any contractor to get the specs and frequencies “just right” without actually getting some time and experience in the building.

There are 4 things to consider when putting together a floor maintenance schedule – (1) Type of usage – is it an executive lunchroom or is it the warehouse restroom? (2) Amount of usage – is the area used by just a few people a day or is it your entry where a hundred people walk on the floor 2-3 times a day? (3) How often your contractor cleans; if he comes in 5 nights a week he’ll have much more opportunity to keep the floor looking good than if he comes in just once a week. And (4) Environment – is your building in a quiet office park? (good environment for floors). Are you on an upper floor? (good environment). Or is your building on a busy street with lots of vehicles and construction? (bad environment for floors).

Sample Janitorial Service Bid Specifications

Note - Of course you'll have to tweak these specs to fit your own needs, but maybe there are 1 or 2 things here you haven't thought of.

Areas to be cleaned - Entire office block on south end of building, to include offices, lobby, reception area, restrooms, vending area, all common areas, conference rooms, kitchen, lunchroom, and exterior of building as specified.

• Empty all trash, replace liners as needed from Company stock, clean trashcans as needed. Empty all exterior trashcans and empty and clean cigarette burns.
• Dust and spot clean all desks, counters, file cabinets, tables, ledges, windowsills, etc. Without naming every type of surface in the building, the intent of this specification is to leave all surfaces in a clean and dust-free condition.
• Clean all fingerprints, smudges, etc, on counters, desks, light switches, walls, doors & frames, interior divider glass, glass topped desks, etc.
• Dust mop and damp mop all hard surface floors. Remove heel marks; touch up with finish as needed. Sweep and mop first-to-second-floor stairway.
• Vacuum all carpeting, runners, carpeted stairs, and mats. Remove stains and spills as needed.
• Clean and disinfect all restroom fixtures - sinks, toilets, urinals, mirrors, walls and stalls, dispensers, receptacles, etc., polish all chrome and stainless steel, fill all dispensers from Company stock, dust-mop and damp-mop floors. The intent of this specification is to leave the restrooms in a clean, sanitized and odorless condition.
• Clean kitchen sink, countertop, tables, wipe down chairs as needed, spot clean exterior of refrigerator, spot clean cabinet doors and drawers, dust-mop and damp-mop floor.
• Clean interior and exterior of elevator, polish all stainless, vacuum and clean elevator tracks as needed.
• Wash and squeegee-clean all exterior glass doors in and out, clean exterior door frames and handles.
• Sweep exterior of entry area from front doors to sidewalk.
• Secure building; set alarms, leave on designated night-lights.

• High-speed buff all tile floors to remove scuffs and restore high gloss.
• Vacuum upholstered furniture.

• Vacuum all ceiling vents.
• Vacuum elevator tracks and polish tracks with fine steel wool.
• Clean and polish all metal kick-plates on doors.

• Scrub, refinish and high-speed buff all tile floors.
• Wash all interior glass visible from front counter.

• Dust all window blinds in building before washing glass (#2)
• Wash all glass in building, interior and exterior.
• Clean all lobby carpeting and main walkways in office, excluding private offices and cubicles.

• Strip, refinish and high-speed buff all tile floors.
• Clean all carpeting in entire building

The Contractor Bid-Walk

How and when your bid-walk occurs is very important. In the interest of getting fair and accurate bids, consider scheduling the tour around the end of the workday, when conditions are similar to when the cleaning services will be performed. This way your bidders can get an idea of what their crews would be faced with at 6pm, as opposed to walking them through a freshly cleaned, unused facility at 8am. Allow enough time for your bidders to get a good feeling for how the building is laid out, and be sure to visit all pertinent areas of the building. Try to keep the group together, so when one contractor has a question, all the others can hear the answer, and then all of your bids will be based on the same information.

Before the actual tour, review the requirements in your Bid Package so your bidders know what to look for.

At the end of the tour, sit down with the group and field questions. This is a good time to get a consensus from them as to whether your specs need any fine-tuning. If so, agree on the new wording of the specs and be sure everyone gets it right.

Make it clear that if you don't like any of the bids, you are not obligated to award a contract. Also make it clear that you are not obligated to reveal the results or the name of the successful bidder, or the winning quote amount, and, unless it's company policy, that you are not obligated to accept the lowest bid. You might consider putting this verbiage in your bid package.

If you are so inclined, allow bidders to bring their bids in person for a 5-minute presentation. If you don't like this idea, specify how you want the bids delivered.

Making the Switch:

Remember that most janitorial service contracts require at least a 30-day notice. Be sure to review your cleaning contract before you notify your contractor of your desire to discontinue service, and follow the cancellation clause to the letter.

Your notice of cancellation should be delivered by a method that requires a returned signature from the contractor's highest-ranking officer (owner, president, CEO) so you have proof of delivery.

The notice should specify the last date of cleaning and a specific day and time for the contractor to hand you the keys to your building and to remove his equipment. Remember to get the rest-room dispenser keys as well, as some dispensers use keys that are very difficult to replace.

This is also a good time to contact your security services. Call your alarm company so they can arrange for new alarm numbers to be assigned and for old numbers to be invalidated on the day of the switch, and let your drive-by security service know that there will be new people in your building and different vehicles in your parking lot.

At some point, notify your employees of the switch before the new contractor begins servicing your facility, and get input from them as to any special requirements or requests they might have. For instance, your old contractor might know that the door to your accounting department is to be locked every night when they are finished cleaning, but it's a detail you might forget to tell the new contractor. A simple set of notes can save everyone a lot of time and headaches.

Consider asking your new contractor if you can meet the people who will be cleaning your building. A five-minute meeting can do wonders - you will know who will be in your building, the cleaners will know whom they're working for, and it can boost the accountability factor tremendously.