All too often in the cleaning industry employees are met with negative feedback. It’s easy to walk into a facility and see everything that has been missed or has not been cleaned according to the site specs. It’s much harder for a supervisor or manager to walk into an area and notice what the employee is doing right. This uneven balance of negative to positive feedback can really weigh on a cleaning staff and degrade morale, in turn, reducing the quality of cleaning to even worse levels.
However, by performing routine cleaning inspections you can build your quality database and see tangible positive change. By scoring cleaning on an absolute scale we are able to see scores of area types or specific items increase or decrease over time. This allows us to approach our cleaning staff with not only bad feedback but also more good feedback. Some facility managers have even gone as far as to base raises or bonuses on the quality score increases their workers have shown over a period of time.
In her article “Ten Tips for the Leader About Employee Motivation” Susan M. Heathfield, a human resources expert says this about positive workplace feedback:
“When I poll supervisors, the motivation and morale builder they identify first is knowing how they are doing at work. Your staff members need the same information. They want to know when they have done a project well and when you are disappointed in their results. They need this information as soon as possible following the event.
They need to work with you to make sure they produce a positive outcome the next time. Set up a daily or weekly schedule and make sure feedback happens. You'll be surprised how effective this tool can be in building employee motivation and morale. You can make their day.”
This logic and understanding is exactly why our sixth reason for performing routine cleaning inspections is to reward good cleaning. Offering not only negative but also positive feedback can improve working conditions, morale and overall cleaning quality levels in your facility.
I agree, I think too many people just recognize the negatives and need to look at the overall picture for the problem to get fix. Increasing inspections should raise this awareness. This can be a lesson in many things, not necessarily cleaning inspections.
Thanks for your comment Resicom!
Looking at the overall picture of the facility is mandatory to know how to go about making appropriate corrections. I also love that you are applying this concept to other part of Facility Management as well. Thanks again!