Safety Matters!

At SMS, our multi-pronged safety approach is a daily priority

Everyone benefits from a safe work environment. Although it’s a never-ending responsibility – don’t we all shudder at the ancient Greek myth about the eternal task of pushing the boulder up the hill – we know how important it is to maximize safety in your public facility. You may never get to the top and be able to declare “mission accomplished,” but with a consistent commitment and constant effort, you’ll certainly realize that your mission has purpose.

Employees who aren’t trained on how to work safely and don’t know how to take the necessary precautions will not be able to maximize safety for themselves, their co-workers, and the people in your facility. We believe that workers who use janitorial chemicals, paint, any tools, scissor lifts, or many other supplies or equipment during routine or special project work in housekeeping and maintenance duties should do so in a safety-first training protocol and environment.

At SMS, we not only preach safety. We also teach it, live it, and look for the dangerous spots in your facility. Every day.

SafePersonnel Training Platform

From new hires to old hands, our SafePersonnel Training Platform ensures that initial training happens and re-training continues at your facility. At SMS, the only time we cut a corner is when our maintenance crew is painting inside your facility.

SafePersonnel can be accessed from any of our company-issued smart devices, allowing our management to keep staff up-to-date by utilizing a straightforward training platform (videos, training modules, and tests).

We are continuously creating customized training videos for both New Hire Training and Annual Recurring Training that will amplify the training process we already have in place. These training courses can be completed in a group setting to maximize feedback, interaction, and team-building, or assigned individually.

Employees must pass all required training courses within a specific timeframe (see screenshots below).

Safety Matters! Program

Our Safety Matters! Program was built around training our Facility Managers on the building blocks of workplace safety, and structured as an ongoing training program that we roll out to our entire team at every location. We believe the proper safety tools are as important as the physical tools we use to clean and maintain your public facility.

As a starting point, each SMS facility must have a Safety Committee in place to lead our Safety Matters! Program, which is centered around the slogan, “See it. Own it. Fix it.” The committee must include employees from both facility managers/supervisors and housekeeping employees. Our goal is to create a safety culture for everyone involved in the organization. This program teaches our employees to get back to the basics of safety training. It promotes a smarter way of working by pausing to consider the hazards of each task and then acting in a way to avoid those hazards.

A key component of this committee’s responsibility centers on our Monthly Safety Talk meeting and follow-up actions. Each Facility Manager conducts a mandatory Safety Talk meeting, covering a different Safety Talk topic every month, that has been prepared by our Director of Training and Culture. The entire SMS team at every site will review the monthly Safety Talk topic at each meeting. Our Facility Manager on duty delivers the training materials provided and discusses the safety topic in detail. Team members are encouraged to ask questions, discuss scenarios, and find solutions to common workplace safety issues. SMS employees must then sign off that they have participated and understand the material.

Examples of recent Safety Matters! topics include:

• Bloodborne Pathogens (BBP)
• Fire Safety
• Heat Exhaustion/Illness Prevention
• Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)
• Preventing Slips, Trips, and Falls
• Proper Lifting and Trash Handling Procedures
• Safety Data Sheets
• Severe Weather/Emergency Preparedness
• Workplace Injuries and Reporting

Safety Inspection Checklist

Our Facility Manager must conduct a quarterly inspection of their entire property(s) within the first 15 days of each quarter. This careful and in-depth inspection must be completed with a critical eye using a procedure built into our custom-designed OPS360 Quality Assurance (QA)/Quality Control (QC) technology platform. If requested, this report can be passed on to you, our customer. At SMS, we believe that safety and QA/QC protocols work hand-in-hand. To learn more about the importance of a quality QA/QC program, check out our blog here.

We look beyond “how to clean” and have established and proven programs on Safety, Emergency Preparedness, Indoor Air Quality, and more.

We might never be able to reach the top of the hill and proclaim “mission accomplished,” but we can make sure we are doing everything possible to work safely and prevent injuries or loss of life. And at SMS, that’s not just word scrabble. That’s who we are.

Your Airport should be the gateway to a positive first impression

Happy travelers spend more money in the Passenger Terminal

At Service Management Systems (SMS), we believe your airport gate should actually be called a “gateway.”

A gateway to your Passenger Terminal. To your City. And to your Region.

SMS cleans and sanitizes your gate and your entire passenger terminal to not only ensure the health and safety of your visitors (and the people who work there) – but also to help cultivate happy passengers who will spend more money in your terminal today, and then look forward to their next trip through your airport.

“While airports are doing a good job coping with the current issues, there is still more they could do to improve passenger experience while also improving their own bottom lines. Happy passengers spend a lot more money at the airport, so ongoing efforts to spread passenger volumes throughout the day and deliver superior service at all customer touchpoints will be critical,” according to Michael Taylor, managing director of travel, hospitality, and retail at J.D. Power.

A data analytics and consumer intelligence firm, J.D. Power released its annual 2023 North American Airport Satisfaction Study Sept. 20. It reports there is a direct correlation between overall passenger satisfaction and spending at the airport. Passengers classified as “delighted,” meaning they rate their airport experience as 10 out of 10, spend an average of $44 in the terminal, while those classified as disappointed (1-5 out of 10) spend just $29.

You surely realize that your airport is both a gateway to your region and an economic engine for your local economy, but the J.D. Power study also quantifies how the cleanliness and sparkle of your airport goes straight to your airport’s bottom line.

SMS provides janitorial services at four airports – Destin-Fort Walton Beach Airport (VPS) in Florida; Lynchburg Regional Airport (LYH) in Virginia; Durango – La Plata County Airport (DRO) in Colorado; and Waterloo Regional Airport (ALO) in Iowa – and we sweat the little things that sometimes aren’t so small to the road-weary traveler. SMS Facility Manager Kevin Kruse routinely gets his hands dirty at Destin-Fort Walton Beach Airport, and that allows him to find out firsthand what people actually think about the job we perform there every day.

He said, “We receive plenty of feedback from passengers that come through our facility. Most of it is positive, but sometimes it can be negative, and we strive to do our best. We’re always looking to make improvements because we’re never done cleaning. We’re never thinking, ‘Hey, everything is great and everyone can take a breath.’ There’s always something coming up next, something new, but we work through it as a team.

“When we walk through our areas, and we’re out of the office as much as we can be, we are always checking in with our team to make sure the assigned areas are on point. A lot of passengers will come up to us and say, ‘Hey, who does the housekeeping here?’ Or they just ask if we work here (and say) ‘I just want to let you know your bathrooms – they are very clean, they look great; we really appreciate it.’ They see us cleaning, and a lot of folks know the effort that goes into it. They really appreciate coming through a facility that smells good and looks good. It means something when someone cares about the area they work in – that they own it. And people recognize that. A quick but genuine kind word goes a long way.”

Everyone notices a sparkling clean restroom (or the opposite). A 2017 Airport Council International ASQ Best Practice Report on Airport Cleanliness showed that 32.1% of the traveling public ranked the Cleanliness of Airport Restrooms as the most important item affecting their airport experience, followed by 23.2% who ranked General Cleanliness of the Airport Terminal.

But at SMS, we follow the science and don’t stop there – providing a consistent level of clean in every corner of your terminal.

For example: we perform a more detailed cleaning/sanitization of high-touch areas throughout both public and employee spaces – such as ticket counters, vending machines, ATMs, courtesy phones, door badge keypads/push-bars, and office phones – to name just a few. Self-check-in customer kiosks are also on that list, and SMS is careful to treat them with the proper chemicals, so as not to damage the screens. The goal is to clean/sanitize these items a couple of times a day, as well as educate our staff on protecting themselves from cold/flu virus exposure (through frequent and proper hand-washing, not touching or rubbing eyes, nose, or mouth, etc.).

As you might expect, not only do travelers notice the different feel of a clean passenger terminal, but so does airport management.

“SMS provides quality work in our high-traffic airport facilities 24/7/365 in all public, secured, and private areas of the airport with emphasis on glass, flooring, and “first impression” areas and constant sweeping, vacuuming, restroom cleaning, stocking, wiping, spot mopping and responding to work order requests,” said Mike Stenson, Destin-Fort Walton Beach Deputy Airport Director. “The local SMS team is well led by their Manager and Supervisors. The employees appear to have a positive attitude, strong work ethic and communicate well with the entire Airport team, which consists of County Airport staff and numerous other tenant organizations.”

Destin-Fort Walton Airport is nestled in an affluent region on Florida’s Gulf Coast, just 30 minutes in either direction from competing airports. To the east is Northwest Beaches International Airport in Panama City, and to the west is Pensacola International Airport. So, taking passengers for granted would be unhealthy for both people and business.

The COVID-19 pandemic heightened both the importance and the awareness of proper cleaning protocol, equipment, and supplies. With that in mind, Destin Airport’s Okaloosa County Airport Administration partnered with SMS in 2021 to create a 60-page Accreditation Proposal and prepare the Airport for reviews and inspections. Destin earned Global Biorisk Advisory Council® (GBAC) STAR™ accreditation – which is the gold standard for prepared facilities. It is the cleaning industry’s only outbreak prevention, response, and recovery accreditation for facilities.

We believe that airport janitorial service providers are not all the same. Firsthand data on how passengers spend more when they are “delighted” with your airport gives additional validation to the concept that it pays to choose the correct partner for your facility’s needs.

After all, you only get one chance to make a great first impression.

Preparedness begins with an Emergency Response Plan

Being ready for what could happen doesn’t just happen

September is National Preparedness Month, and a great time to recognize the need to always be ready for severe weather and other emergencies.

At Service Management Systems (SMS), one of our 24/7 goals is to observe the Scout Motto: Be Prepared. Just as a Boy or Girl Scout spends several years learning and implementing the required skills to always Be Prepared, the employees at every SMS location consistently learn about safety and emergency preparedness and strive to implement systems and protocols that allow us always to Be Prepared in an ever-changing and always challenging environment.

As the U.S. grows more crowded with more severe weather extremes, these facts confirm why this approach becomes more critical every year:

• The 2023 mid-year U.S. population is about 339.7 million, with an annual growth rate of 0.7%. According to the U.S. Census Department, coastal population has soared to 29% of the U.S. population, and the population growth rate in counties along the hurricane-vulnerable Gulf of Mexico increased by 150% between 1960 and 2008.
• The number of disasters has increased by a factor of five over the past 50 years. These events are becoming more expensive, but thanks to improved early warnings and disaster management, the number of deaths has decreased almost three-fold, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The WMO graphic below illustrates U.S. 2022 Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters:

From 1970 to 2019, weather, climate, and water hazards accounted for 50% of all disasters. Storms (54%) and floods (31%) were the most prevalent cause of recorded disasters. Storms were linked to the greatest loss of life (71%) and economic losses (78%). The U.S. accounts for 38% of global economic losses caused by weather, climate, and water hazards. Wildfires are also on the increase, as are man-made tragedies such as mass violence.

SMS provides housekeeping and/or maintenance services at various major public-facing facilities in 31 states, as shown on the map below, including many locations along the U.S. East Coast, Gulf Coast, and West Coast. Additionally, the West Coast is a region where earthquake procedure is also an essential element of Preparedness.

For all emergency-related situations (severe weather, natural disaster, or a building-specific incident), SMS has an Emergency Response Plan designed to protect the safety of all SMS employees. This also includes a work plan to safely clean up the facility after the emergency has passed (dependent on our individualized agreement with each customer).

“We not only strive to prepare our team members through ongoing training, we also ensure the training is put into practice through our OPS360 quality assurance platform,” said Ashley Shultis, SMS Quality Assurance and Administration Manager. “Our monthly Safety Inspection Checklist aids in identifying any facility or structural hazards prior to an emergency or disaster occurring, so we can communicate these issues to our customers for correction.”

SMS trains on Emergency Preparedness as a detailed monthly Safety Matters Training Topic every year. The plan is reviewed and discussed in site-level staff meetings at all SMS locations and includes the following topics (with a tiny sample of its content):

Before a severe weather emergency

• Tracking Weather Conditions
• Emergency Safety Teams
• Response Teams
• Preparing Your Staff
• Communicating with Your Customer
• Activating the Emergency Response Plan (ERP)

During a severe weather emergency

TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION

After an emergency

• Facility Clean-Up Efforts (upon customer request)

Whether it’s a beautiful late-summer day in September, a blustery snow day in January, or an unstable April day with an air mass ripe for tornadic weather, it’s always important to Be Prepared for the next emergency.

Service Management Systems/ Perfection Group has a unique partnership with Greater Clark County Schools

And the result is well-earned success from the challenges of servicing a sprawling Indiana school district

If you have children, you would probably agree that most kids are inherently good, but cleaning up after themselves isn’t always their strong suit. If you don’t have any, just ask a school custodian.

It can be difficult to find, nurture and keep school custodians – especially at a middle or high school, where teenagers often mistreat locker rooms, restrooms, and other areas on school property. When this happens, it’s up to school custodians to clean up the mess, and it’s essential to keep your custodians in the best frame of mind.

“You are constantly letting them know you appreciate what they do,” said Cindi Carnes, Service Management Systems (SMS) Operations Manager at the Greater Clark County Schools (GCCS), a large school district in Southern Indiana

SMS’ Marketing Team had the opportunity to hang around with Cindi and a few of her custodial and maintenance teams for a couple days recently. Here are a few things we learned:

• Work is rarely done in a vacuum. Instead, you’re often sharing a building and working around study hall, choir practice, or parent/teacher night until the second half of the evening shift.
• Managing budgets to provide Class A custodial services to 20 different buildings while protecting the taxpayer’s dollars is kind of like dropping clothespins into a bottle from five feet – it takes practice.
• A teacher who shares an unsolicited and quite vocal “I love our custodians!” as they walk past makes a difference.
• Cleaning can be a downhill effort when your elementary school has a tube slide for kids to get from the 2nd floor to the 1st floor – and you’re carefully sliding down, twisting and contorting your body to sanitize behind you as you go.
• A bird’s nest on school property can hatch a brood of issues if someone thinks they saw baby chicks in it.

This is just a taste of what Cindi experiences every day after she wakes up at 3 am, packs up her funny bone and her get-to-work attitude, and heads out the door. Cindi manages a team of 100+ employees providing custodial and maintenance services to a school district with 20 buildings – 3 high schools, 3 middle schools, 10 elementary schools, 2 administration buildings, and a couple of equipment maintenance service centers.

The GCCS is a sprawling school district immediately across the Ohio River from Louisville, KY, and includes schools in both suburban and rural communities. The district is serviced by the only “Total Facility Solution” contract in Indiana.

You might be tempted to ask: Why does a clean school matter?

And what’s it like to have seven unique custodial teams plus a maintenance team covering such a diverse and geographically broad school district?

“Sixteen schools is really like 16 businesses,” said Chris Gunther, Facility Director at Perfection Group. “Each principal, each school has their own nuances.”

Perfection Group, a Heating, Ventilation & Air Conditioning (HVAC) company at its core, manages a “Total Facility Solution” for GCCS that includes not only HVAC, custodial, and maintenance, but other services including engineering, roofing, paving, windows, and landscaping. Perfection Group also provides new design on mechanical systems and green energy solutions that often result in considerable energy savings and improved Indoor Air Quality (IAQ).

Perfection Group first met with GCCS CFO Laura Hubinger during the height of the COVID Pandemic, and came in focused on “How do we create clean air?” Laura saw the opportunity to bring even more value through outsourcing certain operations, and things took off from there.

“Outsourcing is a great way to save money, and this District was in a financial crisis,” said Chris. GCCS is a large District, with over 10,000 students, placing it in the Top 25 in Indiana for total enrollment.

The process of putting together the best sub-contractor list to provide a Total Facility Solution was challenging. “It was crazy working with you (SMS) and all our other vendors,” said Chris. “We talked to all of the ‘big ones’ (in custodial & maintenance).”

SMS is the largest sub-contractor in the GCCS Total Facility Solution, and Chris expressed his confidence in the SMS/Perfection Group partnership: “I trust that the people put in place can be counted on. Every problem, we’ve bounced back so fast. I trust them 110% that it’s going to get done.”

Cindi and the entire SMS Leadership Team has worked hard to win over the skeptics created when GCCS decided to farm out its custodial services, while also infusing enthusiastic new employees into the mix.

With the Total Solution contract between GCCS and Perfection Group in place since July 2021, SMS has carefully built a layered team under Cindi’s leadership that has been tailored to improve the company’s performance level, as well as communication with both GCCS and Perfection Group. The current SMS team under Cindi includes a Maintenance Manager, a Facility Custodial Manager, an Assistant Facility Custodial Manager responsible for the evening shift, four “Quad” Leaders (supervisors who work at a base school but also oversee three other schools), and an Administrative Assistant responsible for recruiting workers.

When hiring, “I look for someone who’s passionate about what they’re talking about, has a ready smile and a joke, and is willing to learn,” said Cindi.

Many SMS custodians at GCCS have children or grandchildren in the school system.

“One of the biggest things that makes this team unique is we all have a passion for the student,” said Cindi. “I want (our employees) to ask, ‘If I had a student attending here, would I be happy – or would I be going to the PTA Board?’ (with a complaint).”

Working custodial in a school building is more than just reacting to what’s in store for you around the next corner. For example, Cindi’s team pays attention to social media, such as getting ahead of the curve on the TikTok trends that encourage students to damage school property.

But truth be told: many of the custodial and maintenance tasks in a school building and surrounding property are routine. Everyone wants a clean restroom every time. Every principal wants a clean entrance. Every teacher wants a clean classroom, and every coach wants a clean locker room. Challenges can arise in a school just as quickly as a student can get in trouble, or make you smile.

So, the SMS custodians and maintenance workers who take care of GCCS schools have learned to be flexible, accommodating, and conscientious stewards of not only the school buildings they service and the taxpayers who cover their paychecks – but most importantly – the young people who fill the hallways with laughter and remind them of why they come back to do it all over again another day.

If you’d like to talk to someone about SMS’ accomplishments and challenges faced at GCCS, reach out to Daniel Meyr, V.P. of Business Development, at (615) 961-4310 or dmeyr@smsclean.com.

Quality Control: The Key to Keeping your Housekeeping Issues under Control

What is Quality Assurance in a large-scale custodial contract?

Quality Commercial Housekeeping is kind of like following a litter of Golden Retrievers pups around, trying to keep the fur shed under control. The larger your house and the more dogs you have, the harder it is to keep on top of the shed.

The larger your facility, the more custodians you’ll need. And if it’s a high-traffic location (mall, school, airport passenger terminal), or an acute care setting (such as a hospital), then you’ve got an industrial-scale version of chasing those dogs around with a sweeper and a dustpan – you’ll never finish the job and after awhile you’ll never know if you’re gaining (or losing) ground in the battle.

Enter Quality Assurance (QA)

In order to maintain a consistently clean facility (click here for the definition of what Clean really means) Quality Assurance (or Quality Control) must be rooted in your housekeeping supplier’s DNA. It requires a top-down commitment, a positive culture, dedicated employees, rigid and effective procedures, reliable equipment (maintained properly), consistent training, frequent and thorough facility inspections and re-inspections, and a tech-driven system for review, response, and necessary action.

A QA program is much more than a job checklist. It includes a system for quality issue resolution, employee performance management, and a process for identifying and correcting performance problems.

Just ask Mike Stenson, Deputy Airport Director at Destin-Fort Walton Beach Airport (VPS) in Destin, Florida, and a Service Management Systems custodial customer, what he thinks about the importance of keeping on top of QA in a 24/7 airport passenger terminal environment.

“SMS has over 20 years of airport experience and provides for quality leadership from the frontline Supervisors, to the Manager and Divisional Managers and Vice President. All levels are very responsive to our requests and phone calls. I also like the (OPS360) app that is used to notify SMS Management of an area within the Airport that needs attention and one can attach a photo of the area.”

The right QA system not only keeps your visitors safe and gives your housekeepers direction, but it has a positive impact on your bottom line. Whether it’s a consumer deciding between shopping online or going to the mall, a teacher deciding if they want to renew their school contract next year, an airline passenger visiting your city for the first time, or a hospital patient at high risk to germs – you want them coming back again, or giving you a high score on their HCAHPS survey.

Certain elements are integral to providing your facility with a successful QA program, and we’ve identified seven keys to keeping your issues under control:

1. RECRUITMENT, HIRING, AND RETENTION – FINDING AND KEEPING THE RIGHT EMPLOYEES

At SMS, we believe in hiring for talent and personality, and then training the right people on their role’s skills, techniques, and duties. Then we work to retain staff through fair wages, benefits, a positive team culture at each facility, and a philosophy of promoting from within the organization.

2. TRAINING AND A COMMITMENT TO CONTINUOUS RETRAINING

At SMS, we have a deep list of training topics and a thorough training program that includes video, written, smart device, and on-site hands-on training, allowing each employee to learn in different ways and through the methods that are most effective for them. We run monthly training topics on Safety and Culture and provide scheduled retraining.

3. GETTING TO KNOW YOUR FACILITY AND JOB DUTIES

Nothing beats training through hands-on experience with manager feedback. Our facility managers and everyone on the SMS leadership team have become quite adept at performing all of the necessary tasks, and that makes for faster and better knowledge transfer to new team members.

4. MANAGEMENT THAT KNOWS HOW TO INSPECT, FOLLOW A SCHEDULE, AND COMMUNICATE

When a manager or supervisor has the right experience, knowledge, tools, and technology, it becomes much easier to follow an effective inspection schedule. It’s necessary to hire managers who know how and when it’s important to communicate with their employees and with contacts at your facility. We believe it’s better to report a problem immediately and deal with it, rather than brush that dog shed under the rug.

5. THE RIGHT TECHNOLOGY

SMS utilizes OPS360 – a custom-designed mobile app-based technology that allows both SMS Management and our customers to monitor our service quality at any given time. The program focuses on transparency, accountability, analytics, real-time data, and collaboration for quality control. OPS360 digitally tracks every record for permanent online storage, producing metrics that can be run for any timeline requested, and can be filtered for a broad or narrow facility review.

QA Reporting Related To Specific Rooms/Areas

At SMS, each quality inspection is specific to a selected room/area, because upon contract start, every room of your facility can be inventoried and listed within OPS360 for future inspection. Additionally, these areas are rolled up into layers that allow more specialized reports that cater to the needs of the individual pulling the report.

Access to Information – Customer and Janitorial Management Receive the Same Timely Data

All feedback is rated and immediately stored digitally within OPS360, with follow-up tickets created based on that feedback. Each work order has specific email addresses entered for continued follow-up, and emails are automatically sent to any concerned parties, showing the progress of the assignment, any actions taken, completion of the assignment, and the final results – including pictures of the area and detailed notes of the final inspection.

6. ACTION. COMMUNICATION. RESULTS.

A professional QA Program means that potential trouble spots are identified and inventoried within your custodial firm’s technology, problems are identified right away, appropriate alerts are distributed, and necessary action is taken quickly. All while information is being distributed in a timely fashion to the right people.

7. LESSONS LEARNED

When your janitorial team maintains staff continuity, uses the proper technology, and records past issues, it’s much easier to improve. So, when mistakes happen, the same ones are much less likely to happen again.

Quality Assurance doesn’t just happen. It requires the proper tools, proper implementation, and a top/down group of employees who believe in its value. Whether it’s a litter of new puppies or litter in your public restroom, you need a well-designed QA Program.

To request a Demo of our OPS360 Technology, enter your information and click Submit!

Clean for Improved Indoor Air Quality

The Pandemic taught us what Clean really means

Your janitorial team has mops and cleaning supplies, works hard, and they smile when you pass them in the hallway. But are they working the right way? Your facilities may “look” clean, but are they actually clean in the ways that matter to public health?

Your team should be utilizing the right processes to reach the goal of stopping the spread of germs, and making your indoor spaces safer for your visitors and the people who work there.

At Service Management Systems, we follow the science and extend the processes, skillsets, tools, and industry standards we exceed in our hospital contracts to all the markets we serve. In order to truly make a difference, we focus on improving Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) in every building we clean. SMS uses high-quality tested equipment and consumables, ongoing research-based training, and a Quality Assurance Program centered around our OPS360 Technology to make sure we clean properly and completely, and are able to quickly identify and correct any issues that may arise.

Our company motto is Whatever it Takes! and nothing is too small to worry about. Beginning with upper management and extending throughout our team, we strive to understand what “clean” really means and teach, train, and execute toward a higher goal: stopping the spread of germs and creating a safer environment that protects the health of your staff and visitors.

In the blog How Can Cleaning Impact Indoor Air Quality?¹, posted May 24, 2021, Andi Curry writes:

“One of the primary issues this pandemic² has brought to our attention was just how easily viruses can travel in indoor environments. This has led to experts sounding the alarm for better indoor air quality (IAQ) measures and regulations.”

Ms. Curry sees a permanent change in how we look at our definition of “clean” going forward:

“Cleaning can have a massive impact on the indoor air quality of a building—through seemingly simple things like the products we use, how we maintain tools and the processes we use to clean.

It might not seem like a big deal, but if a cleaner vacuums the floor before dusting surfaces, is he or she effectively removing unwanted material from the building?

No.

And that remaining dust impacts IAQ.”

When not done correctly, cleaning can actually harm the health of the people who spend time in your buildings every day.

Too often, custodians clean for appearance when they should be cleaning for health.

In his book, “Protecting the Built Environment: Cleaning for Health,” Michael Berry, Ph.D., writes:

“Health protection was, is and always will be the primary benefit of cleaning.

…A clean environment is sanitary. When a sanitary condition exists, an adverse health effect is unlikely. When environments are not properly maintained, sooner or later they will become unsanitary. There is no doubt about this natural fact.

..When we vacuum a carpet or floor, we usually see particles 40um and larger (a micrometer is 1/one millionth of a meter). When we’re finished, we can look around and feel confident that we have removed particles. And we probably have, but only the large ones. To protect our customers’ health, we must remove particles of all sizes, especially small ones of 10um and less. They are too small to be seen by the eye alone. Small articles call for our best efforts and equipment. Not only are they hard to manage and capture, but they also tend to accumulate over time.”

Poor Indoor Air Quality is similar to a hidden medical condition: you might not be aware of it until it’s too late. If you’re not sure that your custodial team is doing everything possible to protect the health of the people who enter your buildings, reach out to SMS for a survey and consult today.

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1How Can Cleaning Impact Indoor Air Quality? – ManageMen
2Covid-19 proved bad indoor air quality makes us sick. We can fix that. – Vox.com

Why does a Clean School Matter?

A Clean Classroom Improves Student Success and Teaching Quality

Most likely, you chose to become an educator because you want to make a difference in children’s lives. Unless you already were teaching in a fully remote environment, the Pandemic provided evidence of what you probably already knew:

• Most students learn best through the interactive classroom environment
• A clean classroom is essential to a high-quality academic climate

But do you know that the definition of a “clean school” is much more than what meets the eye?

Here at Service Management Systems (SMS), we study the science, develop health-first procedures to follow that science, and hire the right people – in an effort to do everything we can to maintain Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) in the buildings we clean. Our goal is to provide students and educators with the best opportunity to maximize the quantity and quality of time spent in the classroom. SMS is a custodial and maintenance company founded in 1988 that specializes in cleaning educational and healthcare facilities, airports, retail and entertainment venues.

We have the professional expertise, tools, and experience necessary to keep an operating room clean, so we should share some of that knowledge to help keep your students safe (and learning) on campus. When put into practice as cleaning objectives at your school, you will be able to maximize the safety of the physical environment in which you educate our next generation of leaders.

Scientific Evidence links Proactive School Maintenance to Improved Academic Performance¹

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released an extensive report (last updated Sept. 14, 2022) detailing the impact of a clean classroom, proper school disinfecting, and clean air on student performance and teaching quality:

Schools without a major maintenance backlog have a higher average daily attendance, by an average of 4 to 5 students per 1,000, and a lower annual dropout rate by 10 to 13 students per 1,000.

Clean Schools and Classrooms Can Reduce Absenteeism, Improve Test Scores, and Improve Teacher Retention Rates

• Studies that measure school conditions using an index of several variables consistently show improved scores on standardized tests as school conditions improve.
• On the other hand, schools with major unmet repair needs and fewer custodial workers per square foot have higher absentee rates and higher dropout rates.
• Nearly 80 percent of teachers responding to a survey in Chicago and the District of Columbia reported that school facility conditions were an important factor in teaching quality. Almost half who graded their facilities “C” or below would consider leaving. The most frequently cited problem was bad Indoor Air Quality (IAQ).

Benefits of a Clean School Environment

• Higher Test Scores
• Increased Average Daily Attendance
• Reduced Operating Costs
• Increased Teacher Satisfaction and Retention
• Reduced Liability Exposure
• Reduced Environmental Impacts

Poor Indoor Air Quality Causes Illness and Increases School Absenteeism.²

Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) problems can cause increased absences due to respiratory infections, allergic diseases from biological contaminants, or adverse reactions to chemicals used in the cleaning process. Respiratory health issues resulting from problems in school buildings can be caused by:

• Presence of moisture, water damage, and microbiological pollutants
• Animal and other biological allergens
• Combustion byproducts such as nitrogen dioxide
• Moisture or dirt in HVAC systems
• Low ventilation rates
• Formaldehyde
• Chemicals in cleaning products
• Outdoor pollutants or vehicle exhaust

Respiratory health effects, such as infections and asthma, are most closely associated with increased absenteeism:

• In 2003, children with at least one asthma attack in the previous year missed an estimated 12.8 million school days due to asthma
• Children’s overall performance decreases with illnesses or absences from school
• Student performance can also be affected when teachers are absent due to illness (even the best substitute teachers may disrupt the learning process, and present an added expense for the school system)

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1Evidence from Scientific Literature about Improved Academic Performance – Enviromental Protection Agency
2Introduction to Indoor Air Quality – Enviromental Protection Agency