Quality Audits: The Tool of the Future

Although inspection programs have been around for years and are the report card for a housekeeping program’s performance, we are now seeing increasing importance being placed on quality audits and how they are performed. 

In addition, we are seeing an increasing demand in our business for quality audits as an independent third party. The cost of a third party is lower than in-house inspectors plus the auditing firm is not subject to the same pressures from the cleaning contractor and their own peers within the premises. 

We also see the inspection being used as a management tool to not only determine the end product but as an evaluation tool for the entire program. 

In the past, inspections were performed by the person directly responsible for cleaning. It was generally used as a tool to determine items that needed correcting or as an evaluation of employees.

The new programs represent an entirely different approach than has been normal. Traditional systems have simply been “is it dirty or not,” and a score based upon the number or dirty/clean observations was determined. 

These systems are falling out of favour because they do not correct technique; do not account for frequency variations and, unless 100 per cent of the building is inspected, the data can be misleading. In other words, areas need to be evaluated based upon the specification and importance of the area in order that restrooms have more importance and weighting than areas such as loading docks. 

The new systems utilize a numerical evaluation system and should be implemented by every housekeeper who wants to be one step ahead of their customer or manager. 

Before describing a program, we should review the reasons for a quality control program. The most obvious benefit is that any present cleaning problems will be found and corrected, which has been the main intent of most programs to date.

The other, less obvious, benefits relate to how the work is performed and what can be done to improve it. 

The result of this focus can be increased effectiveness or productivity, improved quality, a satisfied customer or manager, and probably reduced costs. 

When performing the inspection, it is important not to look at the end result but to assess how it was achieved. An excess of build-up on the floor will indicate a need for stripping as the corrective action. An analysis of why the floor requires stripping is also important. Is it the use of the wrong spray-buff solution, the wrong pad or simply poor technique on the part of the operator?

 A review of all the techniques leading to the result is the first step in a preventative program. If, in this example, the technique is in error and it is corrected, all of the above benefits will be derived. 

Less stripping will result in reduced costs (stripping is the most expensive cleaning operation); higher customer satisfaction and quality because a more uniform standard will be maintained without the previous highs and lows; and increased productivity because of less effort on the part of the employee to maintain a uniform shine on the floor. 

In order to set up  Quality Assurance Program, a review of the service schedule or specification is necessary to determine if they are sufficient to meet the expectations of management or the client. 

In most of the Quality Assurance Programs available, the service schedule is then translated into manpower and staffing requirements using time standards for each task in the schedule. The process is called “workloading.” 

By reversing the workloading process it is possible to develop statistically-accurate numeric quality standards for an entire facility, part of a facility or by individual cleaner. A simple example would be if we had a building which, based on workloading, require 50 hours per night to clean to specification. If high dusting was found to be non-existent in all areas, and high dusting required on hour per night, then the quality rating would drop by one hour as a percentage of the 50 hours, or two per cent. 

The program simply deducts from the total workload, the time required for tasks not performed to arrive at a quantitative performance level. 

Variations of the system should be made by weighting areas for importance, such as an increase in the numerical work load value for highly visible or sensitive areas. 

In these cases, main lobbies in office buildings or operating theatres in hospitals, would have the workload value increased by possibly 20 per cent. Areas of lesser importance, such as loading docks and storage rooms, could have a lower weighting and the value decreased by 20 per cent. 

When developing a scoring program it is important to determine a benchmark or base score which is received when an area is cleaned to the specification. This score would not be 100 per cent as many times a building will be cleaned to higher than the specification and there needs to be room to achieve a higher score. A normal score for achieving 100 per cent of the specification might be 85 with the score being higher or lower depending on the performance according to the specification. It is usual that a passing or minimum acceptable score in this system might be between 70 and 75 as having more than 10 per cent of the work not performed would be simply unacceptable to the customer. 

We are increasingly seeing contractors being evaluated on this type of system with bonus points exceeding the specification and penalty points for being below. These bonus points may also be translated into financial rewards for the contractor and its employees, or a financial penalty to the contractor for less than acceptable performance. 

In most cases the contracts which allow for this type of reward/penalty require the contractor to place a portion of their profit – perhaps 50 per cent – at risk. They then have an opportunity to increase their profit by 50 per cent if performance is above the specification or within the acceptable range, or lose 50 per cent if it is unacceptable.