One thing is clear; cleanliness has evolved over the past few years. It’s no longer water and cleaning solutions anymore. In our post-Covid environment, your staff, customers, and guests expect cleaning and disinfection processes to be regularly implemented in order to ensure the safety of the public as much as possible. Businesses are looking to adopt new cleaning trends to boost staff and customer safety, experience, engagement, and retention.
That said, cleaning has become more demanding and complex, requiring you to follow strict disinfection and sanitization procedures. These changes give you all the more reason to consider reliable cleaning services. Your options include an in-house janitor or outsourcing. Before you decide, you must answer, ‘how much does it cost to hire a janitor?’
How Much Does It Cost to Hire a Janitor?
There’s no one-answer-fits-all for this question. While Zippia reports the average cost of hiring an in-house janitor is $4,425, there’s so much more to it.
An in-house janitor comes with added human resource tasks and responsibilities that you should carefully consider before hiring.
The Many Costs of an In-House Janitor
Payroll is far from the only thing you need to take into account when considering how much it costs to hire a janitor. While it is, obviously, a significant piece, there are many additional costs to ensure your premises stay clean and disinfected with an in-house team:
- Costs of equipment and supplies such as mops, buckets, chemicals, plastic caddies, cloths, personal protective gear, vacuum cleaners, and floor cleaning machines. Uniforms are also vital to show the janitors’ designation.
- Advertising and onboarding costs when you advertise for janitorial positions and start recruitment, onboarding, and training processes.
- Taxes and employee benefits as mandated by most states, regular remuneration, such as worker’s compensation, health and liability insurance, medicare and social security payments, and family and medical leave (per the Family Medical and Leave Act (FMLA))
- Conducting background checks that range from $10 to $500 depending on the extent and components you need to be checked.
- Employee turnover–costs you’ll incur if your in-house cleaners leave abruptly
- Miscellaneous costs that represent non-specific costs you may not necessarily budget for, such as maintaining the cleaning equipment.
Including all these costs in your budget can increase business operating costs and lower profits. Worst case scenario, you are working with a tight budget and lack funds to cater to all the overhead.
Ongoing Management
Hiring an in-house janitor means you are responsible for hiring, onboarding, mentoring, training, and managerial responsibilities. These duties aren’t a one-time affair. They are regular tasks that require additional staff, such as supervisors and create more work for your HR team.
On top of that, you’ll need to engage in ongoing performance management. This is a modern trend in human capital management that involves regular face-to-face chats with employees and providing feedback on their performance. Conducting these meets requires additional resources, not to mention the costs that accompany ongoing management.
Employee Disengagement
According to a Gallup report, over 50% of employees are disengaged in the workplace. Hiring a janitor means they’ll be at work throughout the day, every working day, whether there’s much to do or not. The more this cycle continues, the more the janitor becomes disengaged.
On the other hand, an outsourced janitor mainly reports when and where they are needed. There’s always work to be done between all the different locations they report. They are always on their toes and on the clock to complete their duties promptly and effectively.
Outsourcing Janitorial Cleaning Services
As a business owner, you must decide which core business functions to handle yourself and which are best handled by an outsourced provider. While you can have a hybrid outsourcing solution – in-house and outsourced janitors – you’ll still incur the above-mentioned costs, tasks, and responsibilities.
While in-house janitorial services may be necessary for some businesses, many find that outsourcing their janitorial services is more time and cost-efficient. Let’s take a look at why you might consider outsourcing your cleaning services.
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The Benefits of Outsourcing Janitorial Cleaning Services
As a brand looking to maintain a professional image, you can’t overlook the importance of a clean environment and expert cleaning services. Outsourcing janitors can be a cost-saving strategy and a crucial element of the general management plan emphasizing core business functions and competitiveness.
Outsourcing will benefit you in various ways, including:
Continued Application of COVID-19 Cleaning Guidelines
As the economy recovers from the most intense effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, businesses have opened up again to the public. However, as mentioned above, the highest standards for cleanliness and disinfection remain. The threat of contracting the Coronavirus and other harmful organisms is still high in many places.
Expert janitorial cleaners integrate the CDC’s cleaning and disinfecting guidelines into their cleaning regiment. They also keep up on these recommendations since it informs everything they need to do. This combined strategy maintains top-notch cleanliness while protecting the public that visits your business from having contact with illness-causing pathogens.
Cost Reduction
As you’ve seen, numerous costs and responsibilities are associated with hiring in-house janitors. Whether working with a tight budget or looking to maximize your bottom line, you need a cost-effective solution while still achieving high cleanliness standards.
Outsourcing ensures your team isn’t responsible for any janitorial overhead costs (such as recruitment, onboarding, training, remuneration, equipment, and insurance), tasks, or processes. After you meet the contractual fees you’ve agreed upon with your outsourced janitorial company, the professional janitors take over. Furthermore, their experience allows them to work efficiently, saving time and resources for both parties.
Specialized Expertise, Experience, and Equipment
Numerous factors go into ensuring a clean working environment. Without the proper skills and experience, attempting to clean could immediately or eventually cause more damage. This is particularly true when a business has surfaces that should be cleaned using specific cleaning solutions—for instance, using drain cleaners on fragile metallic surfaces causes corrosion.
Professional janitors are trained and skilled to correctly handle various cleaning solutions, especially EPA-approved cleaning chemicals and equipment. Furthermore, professional janitors move from place to place when and where they are needed. They have amassed valuable industrial tricks enabling them to work efficiently and effectively to produce the best results.
Tailor-Made Services
What if you don’t need all the cleaning services a cleaning company is presenting? Every building is unique and requires unique cleaning strategies. If you don’t require all the cleaning services, a reputable cleaning company can tailor its services to suit the cleaning strategies applicable to your premises.
Before contracting any cleaning company, its representative will visit and inspect your premises to compile your cleaning needs. You can also explain what areas require more cleaning and any other vital details. The representative will use all this data to compile a tailored charge sheet. That way, you’ll only pay for the cleaning services you actually need.
Flexibility
Even though the outsourced janitors are a separate entity from your staff, you’ll determine when and how often you need their services when hiring their janitors. You decide the optimum cleaning times and frequency that work for you while ensuring the entire premises are clean, disinfected, and tidy.
A professional cleaning company can work around your office hours or during your office hours. Additionally, expert cleaners have your back if there are cleaning emergencies, such as those resulting from plumbing issues. They can mobilize quickly even outside their contracted hours and handle the emergency swiftly. It’s easy to scale the amount of disinfection or cleaning you need at a particular time up or down without affecting your general budget or schedule.
The Highest Degree of Cleanliness and Disinfection
Professional cleaning companies are in business too. They appreciate and understand the importance of a clean and disinfected working environment for your staff, visitors, and customers. Clean and sanitary premises create a positive first impression, increase your staff morale, and elevate your brand.
To ensure you get value and quality services, these companies retain qualified, engaged, and skilled janitors ready to handle all cleaning challenges to your satisfaction. Additionally, they are attentive and focus on maintaining their high-quality services because the succes of their company depends on it.
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Regain Your Peace of Mind With Professional Janitorial Cleaning Services
So, to answer the question, “how much does it cost to hire a janitor?,” it’s important to note that there’s no single applicable figure here. However, there are various factors to consider before making your choice. Most importantly, you should consider the benefits you gain when outsourcing professional janitorial services. At DTK Facility Services, we provide professional janitorial cleaning services that suit your particular needs and budget. We regularly follow Covid-19 cleaning guidelines to promote top-notch disinfection and cleanliness. Contact us today for more information on how we can cater to your janitorial needs.