Pegasus Resources | Building Maintenance and Facility Management

In-house vs. Outsourcing Facility Cleaning: What You Should Know

Written by The Pegasus Team | Jan 20, 2020 5:26:21 PM

Why Outsourcing Cleaning Can Save You in the Long Run

Keeping your cleaning in-house may appear to be more operationally efficient, but there are many factors that point to the opposite finding. A professional cleaning company can offer cleaning at a higher level in less time simply because it’s their primary focus.

Taking care of cleaning your facility in-house (especially in the case of cleaning critical environments like cleanrooms and data centers) is essentially running a business within a business. A significant amount of time, energy, and resources need to be allocated to the task of maintaining a clean facility.

Making the choice to outsource your janitorial, cleanroom, and data center cleaning will improve your bottom line in a number of significant ways.

Take the following things into consideration:

Managing and Training Staff

As with many companies in every industry, your cleaning needs will ebb and flow throughout the year. There will be seasons where you may experience an increased volume of business and other seasons that will be slower. A professional cleaning company manages a large employee base that handles the business of hiring, training, and staffing on their end, taking this responsibility off your hands.

Moreover, cleanroom and data center cleaning requires special training. Do you have the time and resources to ensure your in-house crew is properly trained to ISO standards? A professional service that specializes in critical environments not only does, it’s part of their core business to do so.

Supplies and Equipment

Specialty cleaning services require special cleaning products and equipment. Not only do you have to ensure that you are using the correct cleaning products and equipment, your facility is buying a limited quantity at retail prices.

A professional cleaning company is responsible for the purchase of all their supplies and maintenance of their own equipment. Moreover, they have the purchasing power to buy a larger quantity of products and equipment at volume pricing. This also puts them in a position to upgrade to better products, equipment, and technology as they become available.

Liability And Insurance Costs

As in any industry, there are specific liabilities associated with cleaning and janitorial tasks. Facilities need to ensure they are protected against litigation. Outsourcing commercial cleaning services shifts the responsibility of liability and insurance to your cleaning service provider. 

Side Note: Always ask for proof of adequate coverage. Any professional cleaning company will be quick to provide this to you if the information isn’t already available on their website.

Time Management

What is your time worth? Whatever it is, managing a commercial cleaning team in-house is probably not the best use of it. Outsourcing will reduce work for you beyond simply scheduling a crew to do your cleaning. 

When you switch the responsibility to a professional cleaning company, you remove the burden of staffing, training, maintaining ISO standards, finding supplies, and equipment repair among many other time-consuming tasks. Those tasks will be handled by your cleaning service, allowing you to put your time, focus, and energy on your business.

Choosing to outsource your office cleaning services to a professional also means that you can have a cleaner facility in less time. Effective commercial cleaners take advantage of advanced industry methods to make sure you get the highest quality cleaning in the least amount of time. Whether it be cleanrooms, data centers, or general office areas, your commercial cleaning service will keep your facility clean and, in the case of cleanrooms, certified.

More Things to Consider When it Comes to Critical Environments

Besides the general reasons to outsource your cleaning services listed above, there are several other important factors to consider when it comes to cleaning critical environments like cleanrooms and data centers.

Cleanroom environments, Controlled Environments, R&D Labs, data centers, mission-critical facilities, and general administrative offices all require different types and levels of cleaning. Professional cleaning companies have the experience, tools, and processes to ensure that each of your various environments is cleaned to your required specifications.

Cleanrooms

Cleanrooms take particularly special care and maintenance that’s more than just special products for cleaning this critical environment, although that is one requirement.  

To start, cleanrooms can fall under nine different ISO classifications according to their air cleanliness, surface cleanliness, and more. Decontamination services for critical environments can range from micro-cleaning and sterilization to contamination control and microbial environment testing to additional services like parts cleaning and environmental monitoring.

Moreover, without professionals who are trained and certified in cleanroom cleaning, you will likely fail audits and quality checks due to improper cleaning. If your products manage to pass quality checks but were manufactured in a cleanroom that isn’t up to par, you run the risk of product defects and bad consumer experiences. Both are costly issues that can result in hefty fines and hurt your company’s reputation.

Outsourcing cleanroom cleaning to an external service that is certified in cleanroom cleaning is like buying insurance for your critical operations.

Data Centers

Chances are that the equipment housed in your data center is critical to your company’s daily ability to function. There’s a logical sequence to data center cleaning. There’s a difference between full cleaning and maintenance cleaning. There are special areas of data centers that need cleaning, like the sub-floor.

The team assigned to keep the data center clean needs to take certain precautions when cleaning your sensitive data equipment.

For instance, do your cleaning equipment and supplies comply with Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards? LEED is the industry standard for green building initiatives. Ensuring the products used in your data center are compliant with those standards will not only limit your impact on the environment. It will limit the debris brought into your controlled environment and the residue left behind by your products.

That’s just one thing you won’t have to worry about when hiring an outside agency vs. keeping data center cleaning in-house.

Bottom Line: Outsourcing is the Best Option

With all of the things that need to be managed in your facility, how great would it be to offload the office cleaning to a trusted service provider? When you contract with a professional, effective, commercial cleaning company, you’re giving yourself the ability to focus back on other important tasks. 

Of course, to take advantage of outsourcing, you need to choose a company that fits your facility needs, one that is a leading provider of commercial cleaning and facility maintenance services in both commercial facilities and controlled environments.

Pegasus is that company. 

We excel in creating and maintaining clean, healthy, and safe indoor environments for commercial office buildings, industrial, and manufacturing facilities of all types.

If you want to learn more about outsourcing your facility cleaning, request a quote now!