Cleaning for Health in the Aftermath of COVID-19
COVID-19 has given people a new appreciation for the importance of cleaning. That's good news for house cleaning businesses, many of which have suffered financial losses during the nationwide lockdown.
As the nation begins to reopen, residential cleaners have an opportunity to reposition themselves as invaluable partners in their clients' health.
“Cleaning for health” is a decades-old concept, but it's finally getting the attention it deserves from those outside the cleaning industry. The pandemic has created more educated consumers, with everyday folks now understanding terms like “microorganisms” and “dwell time.”
Moving forward, you can expect homeowners to seek out cleaning providers that understand and deliver truly healthy cleaning. They'll be asking more difficult questions and expect better results.
All of this means that cleaning for health (when correctly promoted) can add incredible value to your offer and help you beat out the competition during and after the COVID crisis.
What is Cleaning for Health?
The term “cleaning for health” boils down to using the best products and procedures available, in a correct manner, to create the healthiest home environment possible.
People often believe cleaning for health is synonymous with green cleaning. They are, in fact, separate concepts but can overlap.
Cleaning for health is primarily concerned with keeping a home's residents safe and healthy. Green cleaning goes further to also consider how residential cleaning affects the world outside the home's four walls. Going “green” is not the intent of cleaning for health, but is often a secondary result of using the most effective and safest products and procedures.
The goal of cleaning for health is to prevent or stop the spread of bacteria and viruses, thereby reducing illness of the home's residents.
How to Clean for Health
A virus on the front door knob can spread throughout the entire house in a matter of hours. That's scary in ordinary times, and it's enough to terrify homeowners in the age of COVID-19.
Cleaning is the only cure for the problem. Done correctly, it can reduce the spread of contagious viruses by 80 to 90 percent.
If your residential cleaning service isn't already doing so, it's time to use a two-step cleaning process—a general-purpose cleaner followed by a disinfectant.
Cleaning should start by wiping down all surfaces with a general cleaner. Disinfectants are not surfactants, meaning they cannot break down and remove soils like a general cleaner is designed to do.
Failing to remove soil before disinfecting actually creates greater long-term exposure to germs than not disinfecting at all.
Likewise, simply spraying a disinfectant doesn't mean you're cleaning for health. It must be properly used to be effective.
Many cleaning crews use a spray-and-wipe method, but disinfectant requires dwell time to actually kill microbes. Failing to follow manufacturer directions may result in the continued spread of viruses.
Train your employees to allow disinfectant to dry on its own. This ensures it will remain on surfaces long enough to kill germs. Also, if you use concentrated products rather than premixed, train your teams on the correct dilution ratios specified by the manufacturer.
Also, if you've historically focused disinfection only on high-touch points, such as handles or counters, it may be time to rethink your approach. COVID-19 is highly contagious and perhaps not seasonal. Until we have more conclusive information, it may be best to disinfect more surfaces than in the past and to not reduce disinfection during summer months.
Finally, cleaning for health means avoiding cross-contamination. Your crews must understand that it's simply not acceptable to use the same rag on a toilet and sink or to dip a dirty mop back into a bucket of clean water or cleaning product. Doing so can spread viruses around the home.
Use clean cloths and tools for cleaning and disinfection. Microfiber with a dual-bucket system is the best option to prevent cross-contamination. Color-coded tools are also the right choice to avoid confusion about what product is used in what area (red for toilets, yellow for all-purpose cleaning, blue for glass, etc.).
Training is Key
As always, proper training makes all the difference. If they don't know what they're doing, your cleaning crews can use microfiber and disinfectants and still make a home less healthy for your customers.
Training on best practices should begin at hire, of course, but they cannot end there. Offer regular refresher training sessions to prevent people from falling into bad habits. It's also important to train whenever you switch products or procedures, such as updated policies in response to COVID-19.
It can also be useful to create a mentor program, where more seasoned cleaners are paired with new hires. This allows for more on-the-job training before someone is placed on assignment alone.
Make sure your cleaning crews know why cleaning for health matters. In the case of COVID-19, if they understand that their work could be the difference between life and death, they are far less likely to rush or skip steps.
If you purchase your cleaning tools or chemicals from a janitorial distribution company, you can ask them for help with training your employees on the proper use of the disinfecting products you purchase from them.
Marketing a Healthy Cleaning Program
As economic uncertainty looms large, residential cleaning companies are looking for any way to protect their businesses.
Promoting yourself as a front-line resource could generate business from homeowners looking for trustworthy help during and after the pandemic (this only works, of course, if you can back up the messaging by delivering safe and reliable cleaning).
Revise your marketing messages to talk about the products and procedures you use to keep your customers healthy.
It's also important to educate clients and prospects about how you are addressing the current crisis. Share the precautions you're taking to protect homeowners. These might include things like providing PPE to crews and training them on proper use, not allowing sick employees to work, and disinfecting all cleaning equipment between each home.
If there's been anything positive about the COVID-19 pandemic, it's that homeowners are realizing how important cleaning is to their health. Show up as a trusted authority and you'll gain their trust and be more likely to win their busines
