Team cleaning or zone cleaning - which is better for your facility?

Choosing the right cleaning service for you involves making a lot of decisions, but one of the most pressing is deciding which is the most efficient method for your customer’s building: team cleaning or zone cleaning?

You might be asking yourself, “What’s the difference? I don’t care so long as it gets done!” However, each technique comes with its own advantages and challenges, so it’s smart to have a clear understanding of both before you decide to go with team cleaning or zone cleaning.

What’s Team Cleaning?

As we examine the pros and cons of team cleaning or zone cleaning, let’s examine team cleaning first. Team cleaning brings a crew of cleaners to your office, each charged with a specific job. For example, one cleaner will be responsible for vacuuming, another for emptying all the trash cans, another for wiping down surfaces, and so on.

Pros— Ideally, the fact that each member of the team is focusing on just one task will make them clean faster. Additionally, when a team member is specially trained on one task, they’ll fully understand the standards to which they must complete that task. Assigning one team member a certain task will mean that only one piece of specialty equipment needs to be purchased— only the team member responsible for vacuuming needs a vacuum, etc.

Cons— It could lead to an increase in turnover if a worker isn’t satisfied with their assigned task, and if the cleaning company is constantly training new people to do the specialized jobs, it could lead to erratic cleaning.

What’s Zone Cleaning?

Zone cleaning is just what it sounds like— each member of the team is responsible for completely cleaning a designated area, aka zone. One team member is completely in charge of their zone, from top to bottom. Every detail will be under their domain.

Pros: If there are issues with an employee, it becomes immediately visible to the supervisor. When one specific employee is in charge of a zone, and that zone’s cleaning is subpar, they know that the employee requires additional training. If your building has particular security concerns, it will minimize the number of cleaners who have access to designated areas. Should something go missing or a door be left unlocked, you’ll immediately know the culprit.

Cons: It can get pricey to outfit the whole team with all the equipment required for thoroughly cleaning several different zones. If you’ve got five members of the team, you’ll be purchasing five vacuums, five sets of cleaning fluids and supplies, etc. It’s possible that using a different cleaner per zone could result in wildly erratic results if the cleaning company doesn’t use a careful training process.

Choosing Between Team Cleaning or Zone Cleaning

There are pros and cons to both team cleaning or zone cleaning, so it’s best for you and your cleaning company to sit down and discuss your needs in-depth. Talk about your building, your business, and your expectations, so together you can decide whether your needs would be best met by team cleaning or zone cleaning.

If you’re interested in working with a cleaning service with a difference— a service that has experience with large companies as well as the attention to detail that makes them a great fit for small businesses, talk to us. Contact CSG for more information today!