The future of smart workplace cleaning
The new hybrid work models brought about by the pandemic will continue to shape the way people work going forward. This means a big change in the occupancy rate of office buildings and other workspaces. How can service providers operate cost-effectively while offering their customers the best experience? The solution is smart cleaning.
The evolution of cleaning
The cleaning industry has always been central to maintaining safe and hygienic workplaces: from offices, airports, to educational institutions and more. And like many industries, cleaning is currently undergoing rapid evolution. In the past, service companies have planned their staffing and supplies based solely on square footage, room categories, floor type, and time-based contracts. Ultimately, the industry is shifting to results-oriented contracts that deliver cleaning based on quality and negotiated service agreements. Yet these old cleaning planning models are inaccurate, to say the least. Worse, they often result in a mismatch between the service provided and the amount of cleaning actually required. This leads to wasted resources and unhappy customers.
Today, many cleaning service companies have adopted new technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) to improve the way they schedule cleaning. Service providers now have access to connected, sensor-based information solutions such as smart waste bins and motion detectors that monitor thresholds and occupancy. This allows cleaners to plan cleaning activities more efficiently and avoid excessive cleaning and waste of resources.
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, employment levels have been changing significantly as office workers have moved to work from home. Now that telecommuting has become the new reality for millions of workers, it's time for the cleaning industry to evolve even more, especially as people are more focused than ever on cleanliness, hygiene and safety. The future of work will require smart cleaning that is data-driven, hyper-automated, interactive for users and completely transparent for cleaning companies and their customers.
How does smart cleaning work?
The smart cleaning of the future relies on data collected from point solutions throughout the workplace. In toilets, for example, almost every touch point can now be monitored by sensors, from door motion detectors to determine how many people have entered the toilet, to sensors that detect how full waste bins are, dispensers for soap and paper towel holders. This data is captured by a central system and integrated into a dashboard that automatically shows cleaning crews exactly what needs to be cleaned when they start their shift.
Smart cleaning also enables more efficient cleaning of spaces such as meeting rooms and workspaces. Motion sensors in meeting rooms can inform cleaners whether or not a room has actually been used since it was last cleaned. This saves time and resources by making it easier for cleaners to manually inspect meeting rooms. If the room was booked but ended up not being used, the system automatically makes the room available again in the room reservation system and removes it from the cleaning task list.
With the right system, office users can also directly create cleaning requests with just a few taps on a mobile app. For example, if a user notices that the coffee machine on their floor is out of supplies or has a spill that needs cleaning, they can simply open this app on their phone, scan the coffee machine's QR code, and instantly send a cleaning request. The cleaning team receives the cleaning request in real time through their own mobile app and the request is automatically integrated into their cleaning list.
What are the options for smart cleaning?
Like all data-driven solutions, smart cleaning also collects a wealth of valuable data. This data can be used to automatically predict trends that make staffing and resource planning more efficient. Even external data, such as weather forecasts, can be integrated into the cleaning schedule so cleaners can plan ahead with greater precision. If the smart cleaning system knows rain or snow is coming, for example, it can automatically schedule extra staff and supplies to keep everything nice and tidy in the office.
Data-driven smart cleaning makes it more efficient than ever for cleaning service providers to offer a high-quality service that leaves their customers satisfied. It also gives a clear overview of all tasks so cleaners can provide their clients with transparent records of their daily activities. This brings a new dimension to quality monitoring, which is so important to achieving a positive user experience for customers.
In a post-pandemic world, building occupancy rates will continue to fluctuate as more workers become part of the hybrid way of working. Smart cleaning enables you to plan and predict with greater precision and respond to your customers' wishes in real time.
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