Benchmark your housekeeping costs against the competition

What’s the mark of good housekeeping? 

Answer: Employees and occupants never complain about the condition of the building, and your company’s owners don’t complain about how much the bill is!

One way you can achieve this balance is by benchmarking your housekeeping costs and performance against other businesses.

Here are some key numbers from Proctor & Gamble’s “Cleaning Industry Insights,” a recent online survey of 400-plus building owners and facility managers:

• Office supplies are one of the top items facilities have cut back on. 49% of commercial facilities cited it as their top cost-cutter, while 58% of healthcare facilities ranked it No. 1. That’s not a bad idea for businesses. Office supplies always seem to disappear right before kids go back to school! Employees feel less guilty about pilfering office supplies for home and personal use than they do for other types of company property.

• Luxuries, including exercise equipment and speciality food services, came in No. 2 on the cost-cutting list.

• Staffing was the third cost-cutting area by hospitality/food service sites, 33% of commercial facilities and 21% of healthcare sites.

Most are keeping costs down

More than three-quarters of all facilities say they’re “somewhat” or “extremely effective” at keeping housekeeping costs down.

Here’s the breakdown by industry:

• 77% for commercial

• 84% for health care, and

• 86% for hospitality/food service.

79% of commercial facilities say they “feel pressure” from the top to keep costs down while 86% in healthcare sites say the same thing.

How they’re keeping costs down

• The No. 1 strategy: “Doing more work with the same amount of employees.” That’s true for 60% for commercial, 55% for health care and 66% for hospitality/food services.

• No. 2: “Using multi-use cleaning products.”