10 Tips to keep your cleaning staff motivated

In any cleaning operation the cleaning supervisor or company owner is probably the most important person who can motivate cleaning crews to take pride in their work. But how one can motivate, instruct, communicate and lead the cleaning staff?

In every job that I have had from cleaning floors to managing teams across the nation – I have used motivation to drive high performance and results from my teams and myself.

Motivating and leading is what I love to do.

Often time cleaning company owner face the problems keeping his supervisors and cleaning crew member motivated. Cleaning crew member start outs doing a great job from the first day, but when cleaning company owner starts trusting him, his performance goes downhill.

This makes the company owner to think how can he motivate, instruct, communicate and lead the cleaning staff to have the same interest that one do have as a owner?

Here are some basic tips for the cleaning business owner to motivate their crew members:

1. Find out the strengths and weaknesses.

2. Praise them for their “strong” points and reward them publicly.

3. Identify their weak points and encourage them for improvement.

4. Give them recognition as things happen.

5. Provide interactive discussions, fast paced meetings, and up to date equipments.

6. Emphasize on the importance of taking breaks.

7. Bring in temporary help to support your team during peak workloads.

8. Offer competitive salaries and commissions

9. Maintain a sense of humor and friendly relationship with your staff.

10. Conduct a staff interest survey to see if they are in the most appropriate position.

Whether you are looking to energize your cleaning supervisor, manager or crew members these 10 tips will work for you. But you must need to realize that no one will ever do things just like you.

Investing a little or more time in motivating your cleaning staff is the raw material of personal energy that makes every person and every organization successful. De-motivation or poor moral is a cancer and can infect a lot of people and yourself too in your organization.

So, keep motivating your employees.

Bathing and Cleaning Infants To Childhood

During Infancy

---------------

Cleanliness is essential to the infant's health. The principal points to which especial attention must be paid by the parent for this purpose are the following:

At first the infant should be washed daily with warm water; and a bath every night, for the purpose of thoroughly cleaning the body, is highly necessary. To bathe a delicate infant of a few days or even weeks old in cold water with a view "to harden" the constitution (as it is called), is the most effectual way to undermine its health and entail future disease. By degrees, however, the water with which it is sponged in the morning should be made tepid, the evening bath being continued warm enough to be grateful to the feelings.

A few months having passed by, the temperature of the water may be gradually lowered until cold is employed, with which it may be either sponged or even plunged into it, every morning during summer. If plunged into cold water, however, it must be kept in but a minute; for at this period, especially, the impression of cold continued for any considerable time depresses the vital energies, and prevents that healthy glow on the surface which usually follows the momentary and brief action of cold, and upon which its usefulness depends. With some children, indeed, there is such extreme delicacy and deficient reaction as to render the cold bath hazardous; no warm glow over the surface takes place when its use inevitably does harm: its effects, therefore, must be carefully watched.

The surface of the skin should always be carefully and thoroughly rubbed dry with flannel, indeed, more than dry, for the skin should be warmed and stimulated by the assiduous gentle friction made use of. For this process of washing and drying must not be done languidly, but briskly and expeditiously; and will then be found to be one of the most effectual means of strengthening the infant. It is especially necessary carefully to dry the arm-pits, groins, and nates; and if the child is very fat, it will be well to dust over these parts with hair-powder or starch: this prevents excoriations and sores, which are frequently very troublesome. Soap is only required to those parts of the body which are exposed to the reception of dirt.

During Childhood

----------------

When this period arrives, or shortly after, bathing is but too frequently left off; the hands and face of the child are kept clean, and with this the nurse is satisfied; the daily ablution of the whole body, however, is still necessary, not only for the preservation of cleanliness, but because it promotes in a high degree the health of the child.

A child of a vigorous constitution and robust health, as he rises from his bed refreshed and active by his night's repose, should be put into the shower-bath, or, if this excites and alarms him too much, must be sponged from head to foot with salt water. If the weather be very cold, the water may be made slightly tepid, but if his constitution will bear it, the water should be cold throughout the year. Then the body should be speedily dried, and hastily but well rubbed with a somewhat coarse towel, and the clothes put on without any unnecessary delay. This should be done every morning of the child's life.

If such a child is at the sea-side, advantage should be taken of this circumstance, and seabathing should be substituted. The best time is two or three hours after breakfast; but he must not be fatigued beforehand, for if so, the cold bath cannot be used without danger. Care must be taken that he does not remain in too long, as the animal heat will be lowered below the proper degree, which would be most injurious. In boys of a feeble constitution, great mischief is often produced in this way. It is a matter also of great consequence in bathing children that they should not be terrified by the immersion, and every precaution should be taken to prevent this. The healthy and robust boy, too, should early be taught to swim, whenever this is practicable, for it is attended with the most beneficial effects; it is a most invigorating exercise, and the cold bath thus becomes doubly serviceable.

If a child is of a delicate and strumous constitution, the cold bath during the summer is one of the best tonics that can be employed; and if living on the coast, sea-bathing will be found of singular benefit. The effects, however, of sea-bathing upon such a constitution must be particularly watched, for unless it is succeeded by a glow, a feeling of increased strength, and a keen appetite, it will do no good, and ought at once to be abandoned for the warm or tepid bath. The opinion that warm baths generally relax and weaken, is erroneous; for in this case, as in all cases when properly employed, they would give tone and vigour to the whole system; in fact, the tepid bath is to this child what the cold bath is to the more robust.

In conclusion: if the bath in any shape cannot from circumstances be obtained, then cold saltwater sponging must be used daily, and all the year round, so long as the proper reaction or glow follows its use; but when this is not the case, and this will generally occur, if the child is delicate and the weather cold, tepid vinegar and water, or tepid salt water, must be substituted.

Steam Carpet Cleaning

The process of steam cleaning your carpet involves

hot water being fed to a spray extraction tool or

wand, coupled to a pump vacuum power unit. The

cleaning solution is injected under pressure deep

into the carpet through water jet nozzles.

The water will then penetrate the fiber all the way

down to the backing. This action will loosen any

embedded soil, remove oil and grease deposits, and

get your carpet cleaner than it has ever been.

There are many types and makes of steam carpet

cleaners available on the market, ranging from small

portables to the large and very powerful truck

mounted units. The principle is the same no matter

what model you pick.

The models that are truck mounted are designed so

that only the hose and the wand are taken into the

area being cleaned. These units are very powerful,

delivering hot water and generating a high vacuum

recovery that can be powered by diesel fuel, gas,

propane, or even by the motor of the truck.

Most carpet manufacturers, fiber producers, and

professional cleaners endorse this process for

achieving soil removal efficiency. With the present

state of art equipment and technology, we are more

than capable of high production and cleaning of

carpet.

The real disadvantage to steam carpet cleaning are

the problems that are associated with over wetting

and longer drying times. These can be eliminated

however, by a skilled operator who uses equipment

that is well maintained and in good overall

operating condition.

Currently, there are two methods being used with

steam carpet cleaning.

1. This method involves a traffic

lane cleaner being sprayed onto the traffic lanes

and then agitated into the fibers. The entire

area is then cleaned by using a hot water extractor

that has a cleaning solution being injected into

the fibers through the wand.

2. The second method involves a free

rinse emulsifying pre-spray being sprayed onto the

entire carpet, then agitated into the fibers.

Steam cleaning procedures

1. Prepare the equipment and supplies. In

a pump or power sprayer you should mix the free

rinsing pre-spray. In the solution tank of the

extractor, mix the rinsing agent.

2. If you have a lot of furniture to move,

make yourself a floor plan.

3. If the area being cleaned has furniture,

you should remove as much as possible.

4. Thoroughly vacuum the carpet. If the

pile is crushed or matted, use a pile brush to

loosen the soils which will make vacuuming more

effective.

5. Pre-spray a good amount of the pre-spray.

6. Using a grooming tool, agitate the pre

spray deep into the fibers then let it sit for 10 -

15 minutes, making sure that it doesn't dry out.

7. Extract the area using a portable, truck

mounted, or automatic carpet cleaner.

8. Repeat steps 5 through 7 until the

entire area has been cleaned.

9. Groom the cleaned area, replace all

furniture that was removed, then clean all equipment