Commercial cleaning services coming in at night is pretty standard for our industry. The overnight hours are when business activities are at a minimum. But what about during the day? Who manages daily cleaning tasks during normal business hours? In our industry, that person is known as a day porter. Some companies call their day porters janitors.
Regardless of the chosen term, a day porter is a valuable asset. Combining a salaried day porter with commercial cleaning services pretty much guarantees a clean and safe business environment. So here is the million-dollar question: does your company need a porter?
A Day Porter’s Normal Tasks
Assessing whether your company could benefit from a day porter begins with looking at the porter’s tasks. Note that anything a day porter could do for your company must be managed by somebody else if you don’t have a porter on staff. Here are just some of the daily tasks a day porter would do:
- Clean Restrooms – A day porter cleans restrooms several times per day. That means cleaning all surfaces, refilling soap and paper towel dispensers, refilling toilet paper dispensers, emptying the trash, etc. Light mopping might also be required from time to time.
- Clean the Break Room – Cleaning the break room is another fairly routine task for day porters. Break room cleaning involves wiping down tables and counters, sweeping the floor, emptying the trash, and clearing dishes from the sink.
- Vacuuming & Sweeping – Routine vacuuming and sweeping is yet another porter task. During the winter months, a porter is likely to mop hard surface floors exposed to snow, ice, and salt.
- Removing Trash – A day porter will make the rounds through the office to remove any trash. Office trash cans will be emptied as well, with everything being hauled away and tossed in the dumpster.
Just about any mundane cleaning task that can be managed during the day is the responsibility of the day porter. Their job is to maintain a basic level of cleanliness so that the commercial cleaning service coming in overnight can do its job properly.
Who Manages the Daily Tasks
Knowing what a day porter typically does brings us back to the question of whether your company needs one on staff. The answer to that question rests in another: who manages the daily tasks right now?
It is not unusual for employees to share the task of cleaning the break room. Most employees are not averse to emptying their own trash cans either. But what about restrooms? What about the floors? If no one is managing those daily tasks during normal business hours, you are creating more work for your commercial cleaning company. You are also presenting employees with a work environment that is not as clean as it should be.
Bringing on a day porter would mean adding someone else to the payroll. We believe the expense is worthwhile. But if you cannot afford to hire a day porter, contact your commercial cleaning provider. It is possible that day porter services are on their menu.
Routine Cleaning Matters
Whether you hire a day porter, contract with a commercial cleaning company, or assign employees to manage daily cleaning tasks, the truth is that routine cleaning matters. Addressing those mundane cleaning tasks every day means having to put less effort into nightly, weekly, and deep cleaning.
Cleaning is like anything else. Taking care of all the little things in real time guarantees the big things do not become unmanageable. In a nutshell, that is the whole reason for having a day porter on staff.
