A question often asked by potential clients is “what is your hourly rate for commercial cleaning?”
That question is not the right question to ask for most commercial cleaning work that is carried out.
Most commercial cleaning companies either employ cleaning staff or are franchises. There is good and bad in both. You see some cleaners are fast and hard working because they have years of experience and have knowledge that allows for them to complete tasks faster than their colleagues and have a very efficient way of working so they can get the tasks finished faster and to a higher standard, yet other cleaners have yet to learn those efficiencies, so will take longer.
In commercial cleaning some staff are only required to do basic cleaning, some are required to do specialised or sensitive cleaning, some are required to clean extremely dirty or hazardous situations. So how much cleaning companies charge is more about what is required by the client, how much specialised equipment is involved, and how much physical work is involved.
When you are contracting a commercial cleaner, you are better to ask the question ‘what am I wanting to achieve with my clean’ and ‘what value am I getting for my cost’, not “how much does this commercial cleaning company cost per hour”
Some questions to ask of a potential commercial cleaning company are:
- Will I have a regular cleaner or cleaners on site?
- Is sensitive information safe with the cleaners on site?
- If the normal cleaner is sick or on holiday does the company provide cover for our office cleaning or doesn’t it happen?
- What level of cleanliness can I expect?
- Does your cleaning company provide over services such as carpet cleaning?
- Do you provide me with a cleaning contract that documents the plan and clean.
- Can you provide one off cleans?
- Does your cleaning contract provide me with cleaning prices without hidden charges?
- Does my commercial cleaning company provide me with flexibility such as the time of cleaning?
- Who is accountable if there are issues?
How does a cleaning company calculate cost?
A cleaning business calculates costs per hour based on the need to cover costs such as wages, when the cleaning needs to be done, cover for sick or holidays, do they need to work on weekends and public holidays, KiwiSaver, vehicles and travel, administration, days until invoices paid, equipment replacement, cleaning products, and insurance.
If the role is set hours say a 9am-3pm 5 day a week continuous contract role you can establish parameters to what you are willing to pay as a client.
When we send staff to a site and we tell them they must be on site for 2 hours they will stay there for the time, but do they give you a better clean? The answer is probably not.
Time is only one indicator of a good clean. Providing measurable points to a clean is what we look for.
At Mint we provide a consistent standard of clean that we have agreed with you on at an agreed price. This may mean that your cleaning rate is higher than your neighbour if your expected standards are higher.
Some additional questions to ask the commercial cleaning company that you may want to use are:
- Do you have staff back up if my regular cleaner is sick?
- What is the complaint and correction procedure if there is an issue?
- Do cleaning company employees have employment contracts?
- Is the cleaning company meaning its legal obligations, such as taxes, PAYE, Kiwisaver, etc?
- Does the company have a good health and safety policy?
- Are employee’s security checked?
- Do you have public liability insurance?
- Does the company give staff ongoing training?
There are some goods and services that are not normally included in regular office cleaning contracts such as carpet cleaning, floor polishing, deep cleaning of windows and glass, building washing, grounds care, deep cleaning of the kitchen, deep cleaning of chairs, deep cleaning of computers and screens, and restroom consumables.
An example of carpet cleaning costs is it is dependent on what you want. There are a lot of questions to ask of the cleaner first and that the cleaner may ask of you, questions such as; is it a deep clean?, when were the carpets were last cleaned?, is there a lot of staining?, is it a move out carpet clean (so just a single pass will be sufficient) or is to maintain the integrity of quality appearance of the carpet?
So, if the next time you ask the question what are your cleaning prices per hour, ask yourself what I want from my office cleaner and what the cost is if I don’t have a great cleaner!
There are so many questions to ask to get to “what is the cost to clean my office?”.