Planning Ahead
The first step in creating an effective cleaning schedule is planning ahead. Before getting started on your schedule, take the time to assess the size of the facility and identify any areas that need special attention due to high-traffic or special considerations such as hazardous materials. Once you’ve identified these areas, you can begin to map out a plan for how often they should be cleaned and by whom. It’s important to consider both frequency and intensity when creating your plan; while some areas may only require light dusting or vacuuming once a week, others may need deep cleaning on a daily basis.
Creating Your Schedule
Once you’ve identified which areas should be cleaned and how often they should be cleaned, it’s time to create your schedule. Depending on the size of your facility and the number of staff members available for cleaning duty, you may choose to assign specific tasks (e.g., scrubbing toilets) or entire sections (e.g., all classrooms) to individual staff members for each day. Alternatively, you may decide to assign tasks on a rotating basis so that everybody gets an equal share of easy and difficult tasks over time. Whichever approach you choose will depend largely on the size of your staff and the resources at hand—just make sure everyone knows their responsibilities!
Staying Organized
Once you’ve created your cleaning schedule, it’s important to keep track of it so that everyone is held accountable for their tasks. A simple spreadsheet can help with this; just list each task along with its assigned staff member(s), frequency of completion (daily/weekly/etc.), and any other pertinent information (such as special instructions). This will help ensure that everything gets done in a timely manner and helps avoid confusion among staff members about who is responsible for what tasks at what times.
McLemore employs the zone cleaning model. We divide a building into separate areas that became the responsibility of assigned cleaners. McLemore prefers zone cleaning over other methods because it allows for staff ownership and pride in their area. Second zone cleaning helps us hold everyone accountable and offer coaching and retraining when necessary. Finally, Zone cleaning helps when managing absenteeism because the supervisor knows exactly what areas will need to be covered.
Implementing an effective cleaning schedule doesn't have to be hard—all it takes is some careful planning ahead of time! By taking into consideration the size of the facility, identifying areas that need special attention, mapping out a plan for how often those areas should be cleaned by whom, creating a comprehensive schedule with assigned tasks or sections per person/day/week/etc., and staying organized with tracking sheets - you can easily create a system that works best for your school or facility's needs! Not only will everyone know what needs done when but also everyone will stay accountable for their duties in order maintain optimal cleanliness levels throughout your facility! Contact us today to see how we can implement a cleaning schedule in your facility!
