Staffing Archives - KleenMark

There may be other school cleaning companies in Madison, WI, but none of them can provide service quite like KleenMark.

July 17, 2023 BY Sortis_Marketing

5 Essential Cleaning Services for Back to School

Learn what sets our services apart from other school cleaning companies in Madison, WI.

There may be other school cleaning companies in Madison, WI, but none of them can provide service quite like KleenMark. For school administrators, teachers and anyone who works in education, summer break never seems like enough time to close out one school year and gear up for another.

While we can’t write lesson plans and grade exams for you, we can help your facility get back into A+ shape for the fall. With less daily foot traffic, summer is the ideal time for cleaning services that aren’t always possible during the busy hustle and bustle of the school year.

Here are five of the essential cleaning services we recommend for educational facilities to get ready for the new school year:

Floor care
High-touch surface cleaning
Bathroom cleaning
High surface cleaning
Supplemental staffing

Read on to learn more about these services we can provide with a level of service other school cleaning companies in Madison, WI, can’t match!

Floor care

Of all the surfaces in your school building, floors are by far the most used by students and staff coming and going. Summer break is a great opportunity to give them some much-needed TLC. Whether your school has linoleum, hardwood, carpeted flooring, or a mix of all three, we have the expertise to properly clean and care for each kind.

High-touch surface cleaning

We recommend high-touch surface cleaning throughout the year, and often incorporate it in our daily cleaning protocols, but back to school is a great time to start. With so many students and visitors coming and going each day, a school has many more “high touch areas” than a typical office building — interior and exterior door handles, railings, shared computers, desks, chairs, the list goes on. Our team can make sure these areas are cleaned rigorously and frequently so your staff, students, and visitors stay healthy and happy!

Learn more about the ways the school cleaning services we provide differ from those we offer to office buildings here.

Bathroom cleaning

If there’s one area that could use a deep, thorough clean over the summer break, it’s likely the bathrooms and locker rooms at your school. With more time and less daily use, our team can devote resources to making your bathroom facilities sparkling clean for that first day back.

High surface cleaning

Many schools have difficult-to-reach areas, such as the ceilings in the gymnasium or auditorium, that can collect dust and debris throughout the school year. Summer break is the perfect time to tackle those tough areas!

Supplemental staffing

It seems like there’s never been a more difficult time to find and retain cleaning staff than in the last few years. If your school or educational organization has an internal janitorial staff that needs a bit of support, KleenMark can help! We offer supplemental staffing services where we find, hire, train, and manage a cleaning team that can round out the work your internal team does. That means you can spend less time trying to find new janitors and more time enjoying the sparkling clean atmosphere our teams create together.

KleenMark is a trusted cleaning partner to elementary schools all the way up through large universities, and we have the expertise it takes to meet your facilities’ unique cleaning needs.

We welcome the opportunity to discuss your school’s needs and share more about what sets KleenMark apart from other school cleaning companies in Madison, WI. Request a quote today or learn more about how we support educational organizations like yours here.

November 1, 2022 BY KleenMark

IN Facility Management, Manufacturing, Staffing

Facility Managers: Keep Cleaning from Becoming a Headache

A cleaner calls in sick. You constantly have to check in on the janitorial team. The list of issues you can face when managing a manufacturing facility is long – but those related to cleaning don’t have to be on your list.

And frankly, those types of issues shouldn’t be on your list if you work with a commercial cleaning company. Instead, you should be able to focus on keeping machinery going, updating equipment and overseeing larger daily issues that arise.

We caught up with Brian Regnart, a KleenMark branch manager, to learn more about how our specially trained manufacturing teams stay on top of the toughest jobs, while freeing up a facility manager’s time and energy.

Question: One big issue we hear about is facility managers not having a backup plan for when cleaners call in sick. How does KleenMark address that?

Answer: We have a couple different approaches. First, we have technicians who can float between different accounts and facilities. They’re trained for an array of jobs and can quickly jump in if another cleaner calls in sick.

But there’s more. On top of that, our supervisors are all trained as cleaners and can easily jump in and help. We also staff with some redundancy to ensure there are enough people on hand to cover for anyone who is ill.

Q: How can facility managers stay on top of cleaning without micromanaging and wasting loads of time?

A: We’re able to provide weekly inspection reports via a digital dashboard. This allows facility managers to have clear insight into what’s been cleaned and when. Any needs or issues also are included.

Q: How does KleenMark keep unexpected janitorial needs – such as spill cleanup – from becoming an issue for facility managers?

A: We have a dedicated account manager for each of our clients. They’re readily available via phone, text, email, carrier pigeon or even the bat signal. For a facility manager, an unexpected cleaning need should never become a significant issue or problem for them.

Q: How can a facility manager at a factory feel confident they don’t need to constantly be checking in on a cleaning team?

A: Well, for us, all our cleaners receive training specific to the manufacturing facility they’ll work in. With a dedicated Health, Safety & Training Manager, we’re well versed in OSHA regulations and more.

On top of that, we spend additional time training on chemicals, cleaning frequency, which equipment to use and areas of focus. For instance, in factories restrooms and breakrooms can take a beating, so our crews clearly understand they will need to clean them more frequently than in an office, for instance.

Q: Why not just have production staff clean the manufacturing plant?

A: We’ve seen several instances where manufacturers pull people from their regular job, whether that’s on the line, running a forklift or something else, to clean. First, they aren’t properly trained, so it’s likely they’re less efficient and less effective. Second, when you pull someone from the line, you’re impacting productivity – and that’s just one more headache for a facility manager.

November 23, 2021 BY KleenMark

IN Health Care, Staffing

Healthcare Cleaning: The Key to Developing Well-trained Teams

When it comes to healthcare cleaning, sanitizing and disinfection, having poorly trained or ill prepared staff isn’t an option. If those workers don’t understand a healthcare facility’s specific needs, it can result in costly, dangerous errors.

Along with looking for experience and certifications, always ask how your cleaning partner recruits, onboards, trains and supports the workers responsible for keeping your hospitals and clinics safe.

Healthcare Cleaning Requires Specialized Recruiting and Onboarding

A healthcare cleaner’s skills are significantly different than those of someone cleaning an office. That means a cleaning company needs to understand what to look for and how to recruit staff that can handle additional responsibilities and needs.

We have dedicated recruiters in house at KleenMark, including a team focused solely on the medical field. This is essential. It allows a cleaning company to quickly ramp up and ensure they’re hiring people qualified to work in healthcare.

And, once they’re in the door the focus is on a proven onboarding process. Right out of the gate, they’re trained on relevant standards from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO). This ensures they understand we’re responsible for specific standards that keep people safe and keep a healthcare facility compliant.

New healthcare cleaning technicians immediately undergo background checks, have their vaccinations verified and updated as needed, and begin to acquaint them with the essentials needed to work in a healthcare facility.

On-the-job Training: A Safe, Tiered Approach

Our medical team leaders are meticulous, having worked in the industry a combined 40-plus years. So, as you can imagine they take a thorough, safe approach to training new healthcare cleaning technicians.

During the first 1-2 months (if not longer), each person starts as a medical general cleaner. They learn the basics and prove they’re hitting our standards. During this time they’re highly supervised, with a veteran healthcare supervisor over their shoulder.

Once they’ve proven competence in all levels, they move into a role as a pre-/post-op cleaner. They learn more detailed and stringent cleaning and disinfecting standards, which allows them to handle a range of needs, from ambulatory centers to specialty clinics.

Ultimately, they reach a level of expertise to become operating room cleaners. This means they can handle any cleaning and disinfection need, from restrooms to a terminal clean.

When you’re looking for an outside cleaning partner, be sure to verify they follow a similar approach. This leads to consistent results and less turnover, both of which are essential in healthcare.

In-the-field Leadership

This is straightforward but the significance cannot be overstated. In most instances, cleaning companies have an off-site supervisor or two and then you have to go to corporate to find leadership.

That’s now how we roll and it’s not what you should settle for. Our director of medical operations is in the field – daily. He’s checking on his teams, providing support, training and auditing results. This is what it takes to run an effective healthcare cleaning program. Anything else isn’t sufficient.

Additionally, we have two medical managers and two assistant managers, as well as multiple levels of on-site and in-field supervision, overseeing each individual location.

Our expert-trained and tenured supervisors manage day-to-day operations, performance and ensure our medical teams always maintain the highest level of quality. They’re the backbone of a structure that has allowed us to be incredibly responsive and accountable when cleaning healthcare facilities.

After 20 years of cleaning healthcare facilities, we’ve found this is what it takes to do the job right. And it’s what’s key to preventing costly errors. If you’re curious or want to go into more detail about how we train our teams, send us an email any time.

August 10, 2021 BY KleenMark

IN Facility Management, Office Cleaning, Staffing

3 Steps to Help Employees Fight Germs

Editor’s note: Quick Kleen is a regularly occurring video series produced by our cleaning and disinfection experts. The series is designed to provide you with practical information your team can use, while giving you insight into our approach and services offered.

As you bring employees back into the workplace – or look to simply improve cleaning and disinfection best practices, these three tips can help encourage new habits among your employees. This is a simple, three-step process great for those people not on your janitorial team.

It all comes down to what we call the three S’s: Signage. Supplies. Sanitizer. Check out the video to see how each comes into play.

May 26, 2021 BY KleenMark

IN Education, Staffing

Supplemental Staffing: How it Fits Into Your School’s Cleaning Needs

Cleaning demands are higher than ever for school janitorial teams. Recruiting quality, well-trained workers is an ongoing challenge. And each is a reason to consider supplemental staffing when you need professional janitorial help.

You may have looked at temp agencies only to find workers were unreliable, didn’t pass background checks and weren’t trained. All of which could cost you time and money. Below are reasons to consider supporting your team with professional janitors.

An approach you can trust

When you hire new cleaners, you need to know they’re properly trained, dressed professionally and have undergone all the necessary background checks. If you must take the time to address any of those areas, something is wrong with the process.

When we provide supplemental staffing, all of that is taken care of. We’ve been doing this for more than 60 years, so our process is efficient, our cleaners are among the best trained, and all undergo proper backgrounding.

We go from recruitment to onboarding to being on-site, faster than anyone. It’s a model you should expect from any organization providing additional staffing in your schools.

Specialization matters

Schools have different needs than an office. You know that, though. Make sure your staffing partner has the experience needed to clean a school effectively and efficiently.

At KleenMark, we train our cleaners on the nuanced needs of the industry they work in, including education. How to clean cafeterias? Check. Gym equipment and floors? Of course. Protocols for cleaning when students and staff are in the building? Certainly.

This training allows our cleaners to quickly jump in and help your team, all without extensive onboarding that slows you down.

Two models to consider

Trained staff that you manage. If you have the supervisor team, but need cleaners, this is a great approach. At KleenMark, we can handle the hiring, training, onboarding and background work. We manage the wages and scheduling as well. All you must do is handle on-site management at your school. You assign the work. Our cleaners get it done – all while working as part of your team.

Divide and conquer. Working a large school district but understaffed? Need cleaners who only focus on day cleaning? No worries.

The model at KleenMark focuses on providing an entire team, from on-site supervisor to dedicated account manager – and of course, specialized cleaners trained to handle your school.

Often, our crews work together with district managers who oversee the janitorial teams. In this model, we usually handle an entire school or specific, specialized and time-consuming tasks, along with jobs that require commercial cleaning equipment you may not have available.

Want to learn more about our supplemental staffing models? Send us an email or call (1-(800) 422-5159) any time.

5 Essential Cleaning Services for Back to School