Before a request for proposal (RFP) can be prepared to be delivered to contract cleaners, building managers must ensure they are clear on exactly what services they want their service vendor to provide. They do this by preparing a SOW, scope of work.
Even if a building has in-house cleaning professionals handling maintenance work, the SOW will prove beneficial because it clarifies exactly what services are to be performed along with their frequency. These then become the essence of the RFP.
The Steps:
To develop the most useful scope of work for a commercial building, the person creating the RFP—whether an in-house manager or a consultant—will likely perform many of the following tasks:
- Meet with the custodial workers and ask them to list/discuss all the services they now provide for the facility.
- Audit the facility to determine where the high- and low-traffic areas are located; this will help determine which areas need more or less attention.
- Determine which areas of the facility are busiest at certain times of the day; cleaning would need to be scheduled when these areas are used the least.
- Outline what services are needed on an “as needed” basis as well as which are necessary daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or on an annual basis.
- Note what type of hard-surface flooring is installed and what type of carpeting is used. Some hard-surface floors will require more time and attention than others, and different types of carpet require different care and maintenance.
- Assess the trash collection and disposal needs of the facility. For example, is a recycling program in place?
- Determine whether a green cleaning strategy is in place or is desired for the future.
- Assess the training programs now in place and determine whether new programs need to be implemented.
- Compile a list of all room types—for example, common areas, restrooms, meeting rooms, gyms, libraries, laundry facilities—and indicate how heavily they are used, how often they are now cleaned, and the scope of cleaning required in each.
- Analyze what “preventive” steps the building management has taken to keep the facility clean; for instance, the installation of high-performance mats at building entries, in walkways, and in front of elevators helps prevent soil from being walked into the building and spread throughout the building.
- Assess how weather conditions impact the building; a facility in dry New Mexico, for instance, would likely have more concerns about airborne dust and soil than a building in Ohio, which gets a significant amount of rain and snow.
It is also very important to conduct a cleaning audit when developing a SOW. The cleaning audit may uncover cleaning issues that are a bigger concern to building tenants than the management company realizes.
Tenants may feel, for instance, that hallway carpets are not vacuumed frequently enough or, just the opposite, that hallways are vacuumed too often. Because vacuuming is such a time-consuming cleaning task—which translates into high cost—this can have a big impact on how much time and how many resources should be applied to this task.
A thorough scope of work provides the framework for writing a request for proposal that accurately describes what is expected of the potential service vendor.
Ron Segura is president of Segura Associates. His company works with large organizations to streamline their cleaning and building operations so that they function more effectively and efficiently and realize a cost savings. He can be reached by visiting: Contact Us.
