Operating Methodology
How the work actually gets done
Most cleaning companies will tell you they are thorough. This page tells you the method: how we size the labor, the order every technician works in, how chemicals are diluted and held to contact time, which machine touches which floor, and what happens when something is wrong.
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Workloading
How we size the labor, and therefore the price
Most cleaning quotes are a guess dressed as a number: a rate per square foot applied to a floor plan nobody walked. We build labor the way the industry's own estimating standard does, from measured area, counted fixtures and published production rates. That is why our price holds after the work starts, and why we can show you exactly which task the hours are going into.
Area method
For open floor area, cleanable square footage is divided by the production rate for that task and space type, then converted to minutes. A 12,000 square foot office at a 4,200 square foot per hour general-clean rate is roughly 171 minutes of labor, before restrooms and periodic work.
Bundled task method
Where several tasks run together in one pass, the area is divided into thousand square foot units and multiplied by the minutes that bundle takes per unit. This is how nightly office routes are built, because a technician does not vacuum, dust and empty trash as three separate trips.
Fixture method
Restrooms are never priced by square footage. Toilets, urinals and lavatories are counted individually and multiplied by minutes per fixture, because a 200 square foot restroom with eight fixtures carries far more labor than a 400 square foot one with two.
| Space or task | Sq ft per hour | What moves the number |
|---|---|---|
| General office | 3,500 to 5,000 | Open plan cleans faster than a partitioned floor at the same square footage. |
| Corridors and lobbies | 5,000 to 6,000 | Few obstructions, but entry glass and matting are separate line items. |
| Classrooms | 3,500 to 4,200 | Desk density and high-touch disinfection frequency drive the range. |
| Retail sales floor | 4,000 to 5,500 | Fixture density and checkout lanes pull the effective rate down. |
| Warehouse, light soil | 6,000 to 8,000 | Assumes ride-on equipment. Walk-behind machines roughly halve this. |
| Vacuuming, open plan | 3,000 to 5,000 | Backpack units run at the top of the range, uprights at the bottom. |
| Vacuuming, cubicles | 2,000 to 3,000 | Obstructed carpet is the single most underestimated task in the industry. |
| Damp mopping, corridors | 3,000 to 4,000 | Auto-scrubbing is faster above roughly 5,000 square feet. |
| Interior glass | 100 to 200 | Priced by pane and elevation, never rolled into a floor rate. |
Restrooms are counted, not measured
A restroom's labor comes from its fixture count, not its floor area. This is the single most common reason a cheap quote turns into a short-staffed route.
- Toilet4 to 5 min
- Urinal3 to 4 min
- Lavatory / sink2 to 3 min
The Protocol
The sequence every technician works to
Every site runs the same ordered sequence, adjusted for scope but never reordered. Sequence is not housekeeping preference, it is contamination control. Cleaning floors before dusting means dust settles onto a cleaned floor, and wiping a disinfected surface before its dwell time elapses means the surface was cleaned but not disinfected.
- 01
Zone walk and hazard check
The technician walks the assigned zone before touching anything: spills, damage, burnt-out lamps, propped doors, anything that needs reporting rather than cleaning. Findings are logged in JANI-QC at the start of the shift, not remembered at the end of it.
- 02
Waste and recycling
Trash and recycling are pulled first so no cleaned surface is passed over twice. Liners are replaced rather than reused, and streams are kept separated to whatever recycling program the building runs.
- 03
High to low dusting
Dusting works downward: vents, ledges, frames, partition tops, then furniture and equipment. Microfiber traps and holds particulate instead of redistributing it, which is why we do not use feather dusters or dry cotton on this pass.
- 04
High-touch disinfection
Door hardware, switches, rails, shared equipment, reception counters and desk surfaces are cleaned, then disinfected with an EPA-registered product held for its full label contact time. Spray and immediately wipe is cleaning, not disinfecting, and we train against it explicitly.
- 05
Restroom fixture cycle
Restrooms run their own closed cycle with dedicated, color-separated equipment that never leaves the restroom: dispensers restocked, fixtures cleaned from clean to dirty, partitions and mirrors detailed, floors flood-mopped or machine scrubbed last.
- 06
Floors last, always
Vacuuming, dust mopping and damp mopping close the zone so nothing lands on a finished floor. Wet-floor signage stays up until the surface is dry, which is a slip-liability control as much as a cleaning step.
- 07
Inspection and log
The supervisor or technician closes the visit in JANI-QC with a time-stamped record and photo evidence. Anything short of standard is opened as a corrective action with a named owner and a resolution date, and verified on the next visit.
Cross-Contamination Control
Color-separated microfiber
Cloths and mop heads are assigned to a risk zone by color and never cross between them. Without separation, a cloth used on a urinal and then on a break room counter moves pathogens rather than removing them, and no amount of product corrects for it.
Textiles are changed between zones and returned for laundering rather than rinsed and carried on, and soiled cloths are bagged at the point of use.
Red
Toilets and urinals. Highest contamination risk, never leaves the fixture.
Yellow
Restroom sinks, counters, mirrors, partitions and dispensers.
Blue
General low-risk surfaces: offices, desks, reception, glass and furniture.
Green
Food-contact areas: break rooms, kitchens, cafeterias and serveries.
Chemical Control
Product, dilution, dwell time and documentation
Disinfection fails far more often on process than on product. These are the four places it goes wrong, and what we do about each.
Product matched to the surface and the claim
Disinfectants are EPA-registered and selected against the pathogen profile and the substrate, not bought on price. A quaternary product that damages natural stone is the wrong product regardless of what it kills, and a sanitizer is not a disinfectant.
Dilution at a proportioner, not by eye
Concentrates are dispensed through metered proportioning stations at the label ratio. Free-pouring is the most common cause of both chemical waste and surface damage in this industry, and it is prohibited on our accounts.
Contact time is held, not assumed
The surface stays visibly wet for the full dwell the label states, which runs from under a minute to over ten depending on the product. Where the required dwell exceeds practical wipe time, the sequence is built so the technician applies, moves on, and returns.
SDS and secondary labelling on site
A current safety data sheet for every product in use is kept accessible at the site, and every secondary container is labelled, per OSHA Hazard Communication. Your facilities team gets the full product list and SDS pack at onboarding for their own file.
Microfiber laundered, not rinsed and reused
Cloths and mop heads are changed between zones and returned for laundering rather than rinsed in a bucket and carried on. Soiled textiles are bagged at the point of use, which is both a Green Seal GS-42 practice and the difference between cleaning a building and moving soil around it.
Floor Care
Method and machine by substrate
Using the wrong pad, chemistry or machine on a floor is the most expensive mistake in this trade, and it is usually irreversible. We identify substrate and existing finish before quoting, not after.
| Substrate | Method | Equipment | Cycle |
|---|---|---|---|
| VCT and vinyl | Strip to bare tile, neutralize, apply finish in thin coats, burnish between strips | Low-speed swing machine, wet vacuum, high-speed burnisher | Full strip every 12 to 24 months, burnish monthly to quarterly |
| Polished concrete | Dust mop, auto-scrub with a pH-neutral cleaner, diamond burnish to hold gloss | Auto-scrubber, diamond-impregnated pads, burnisher | Scrub weekly to monthly, burnish quarterly. Never strip or wax |
| Sealed warehouse concrete | Ride-on scrubbing with degreaser where soil load requires it, reseal on wear | Ride-on auto-scrubber, industrial sweeper | Scrub per shift to weekly by traffic, reseal every 2 to 5 years |
| Ceramic tile and grout | Low-speed scrub with alkaline cleaner, grout line restoration, penetrating seal | Rotary scrubber, grout brushes, wet vacuum, spinner tool | Deep clean quarterly to annually, reseal on grout wear |
| LVT and luxury vinyl plank | Neutral-cleaner auto-scrub. Aggressive stripping removes the factory wear layer | Auto-scrubber with soft pads, microfiber flat mop | Scrub weekly to monthly, no strip cycle |
| Carpet | Daily vacuuming, spot treatment, hot-water extraction, traffic-lane restoration | HEPA vacuum, portable or truck-mount extractor, encapsulation equipment | Extract quarterly to semi-annually, traffic lanes more often |
| Terrazzo and natural stone | pH-neutral cleaning and diamond polishing. Acidic and high-alkaline products etch stone | Planetary or rotary polisher, diamond tooling, wet vacuum | Polish annually to biennially, clean weekly |
Quality System
Built on the five sections of the ISSA management standard
The industry's management standard organises a cleaning operation into five areas. Ours is structured the same way, so what we tell you about quality maps onto something a procurement team can actually assess.
Quality system
A written, task-level scope defines what is cleaned and how often, and JANI-QC measures delivery against it on every visit with a time-stamped, photo-documented inspection record you can export.
Service delivery
Labor is workloaded from measured area and counted fixtures before a price is quoted, and consumables and chemicals are purchased through controlled specifications rather than whatever is cheapest that month.
Human resources
Technicians are direct W-2 employees, background screened and E-Verified before their first shift, given building-specific site orientation, and kept consistent per account rather than rotated.
Health, safety and environmental stewardship
OSHA Hazard Communication compliance on every site, bloodborne pathogen training where the sector requires it, EPA-registered products applied to label, and green cleaning practice built on Green Seal GS-42.
Management commitment
One named account manager owns the building, corrective actions carry an owner and a resolution date, and escalation reaches a decision-maker the same business day rather than a call-center queue.
Training
What a technician completes before they touch your building
- 01
Before assignment
Background screening and E-Verify, Hazard Communication and SDS instruction, PPE selection and use, equipment handling, and bloodborne pathogen training for anyone assigned to a clinical or education site.
- 02
Site orientation
Building-specific walkthrough covering the written scope task by task, access and key custody procedure, restricted and no-touch areas, alarm and emergency procedure, and who to call for what.
- 03
Supervised first week
A supervisor works the route with the crew for the first week so the building is learned under observation rather than by trial and error while you absorb the difference.
- 04
Ongoing
Refresher instruction on chemical handling and safety, equipment certification before a technician runs a ride-on machine or a burnisher, and sector modules for healthcare, education and industrial accounts.
Onboarding
First contact to settled routine, in about 30 days
- Day 0
Walkthrough
An owner or account manager measures the real cleanable area and counts fixtures, floor types, traffic patterns and after-hours access.
- Days 2 to 5
Scope and proposal
Task-level scope written with daily, weekly, monthly and periodic work separated, workloaded, and returned as one fixed price.
- Days 5 to 10
Crew assignment
Technicians assigned, screened and, where the site requires it, badged. Rosters supplied for facilities with access approval.
- Days 10 to 14
Site build
JANI-QC inspection checklists configured to your scope, equipment and consumables staged, site orientation delivered to the crew.
- First 30 days
Supervised run-in and review
Supervised first week, then a 30-day review against the scope with you, adjusting frequencies where the building has told us something the walkthrough did not.
Response Standards
What we commit to, in hours not adjectives
These are the targets your account runs against. They are written into the proposal rather than described on a website, so there is a document to point at if we miss one.
- Quote request acknowledgedSame business day
- Site walkthrough scheduledWithin 2 to 3 business days
- Written scope and fixed price returnedWithin 5 business days of the walkthrough
- Service issue acknowledgedSame business day, by your account manager
- Corrective action verified closedNext scheduled visit
- Spill or incident response, day porter accountsImmediate
- Certificate of insurance issuedSame business day on request
Reference Standards
The frameworks this program is built on
We build to these published standards. Where a certification mark is not listed among our credentials, we do not hold it, and we will say so rather than imply otherwise in a proposal.
ISSA 612 Cleaning Times
ISSA
Labor estimation and workloading. Every scope is priced from published production rates and counted fixtures.
CIMS management framework
ISSA
The structure of our quality system, service delivery, HR, safety and management accountability.
GS-42 green cleaning practice
Green Seal
Microfiber over disposables, label-directed dilution, soiled-textile handling and building-specific procedures.
Hazard Communication, 29 CFR 1910.1200
OSHA
On-site safety data sheets, secondary container labelling and chemical handling instruction.
Bloodborne Pathogens, 29 CFR 1910.1030
OSHA
Exposure control for technicians assigned to clinical, dental and education environments.
Registered antimicrobial products
EPA
Disinfectant selection and the contact time each product must be held for to make its label claim.
Want this applied to your building?
Tell us the facility type and square footage. We will walk the site, workload it properly, and put a written scope and a fixed price in front of you.
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