As a facility manager, you certainly understand the importance of a clean premise. Day porters are in high demand and for good reason.
They not only make your facility function more smoothly but also take the load off your shoulder and help you focus on your business.
This short guide will explain everything about day porters including their importance and how to select one.
What Are Day Porters?
Day porters are responsible for maintaining and cleaning a facility during the day. There can be more than one day porter in a building depending on the size of the building and footfall.
They are highly recommended for shopping malls, hotels, and office buildings, and offer an invaluable service in terms of cleaning.
You can trust day porters to keep your building looking at its best, at all times. However, you should understand that a day porter is not responsible for all the cleaning tasks on your premise: for example, they do not handle routine or deep cleaning.
Why Day Porters Are Needed
A lack of basic minor repair and cleanliness can result in major problems. It can also cause the property value to diminish, and lead to unhappy clients and damaged business image.
Day porters are a fantastic fit for a wide variety of commercial properties and businesses, such as stores, malls, offices, and public buildings.
Why?
Because they are thoroughly trained to perform all sorts of cleaning tasks, such as emptying trash and doing restocking tasks.
Personality-wise, day porters are presentable and know how to work in busy and high traffic areas. They perform general upkeep by carrying out painting projects and minor repairs.
Typical duties of day porters include the following:
- Responding to service calls;
- Inspecting, cleaning, and disinfecting common areas;
- Cleaning glass doors and windows;
- Daily litter cleanup;
- Vacuuming;
- Replacing light bulbs;
- Mopping or sweeping floors in case of spills or stains;
- Event set-up and cleanup;
Day porters can be an integral component to maintaining the image of your facility. Constant cleanliness is one of the most significant benefits they offer.
They offer invaluable service in regards to disinfection as well. They can reduce the risk of disease transmission by cleaning, sanitizing, and disinfecting high-touch surfaces throughout the day.
In addition, day porters from experienced commercial cleaning service providers will know how to electrostatically disinfect an area. They will have the necessary tools and cleaning solutions to spray a fine mist on objects and surfaces in the common area. Electrostatic disinfection is a superior way of ensuring that a particular area is sanitized and disinfected properly.
Importance Of Day Porters For Janitorial Services
It can be challenging to keep a building looking clean and professional between scheduled cleaning and maintenance services.
Little things can impact the first impression you make on visitors and customers. Your company can look unprofessional by overlooking small details that matter.
For example, mud tracks in the lobby, dirty sidewalks, or a burned-out light bulb. A potential client might get the impression that your business doesn’t have what it takes to keep things running in top shape, or simply lacks interest.
This is where a day porter can come in useful. They can ensure that routine tasks are taken care of without you getting involved. Janitors find the services of a day porter invaluable since they essentially lower the burden.
Porters are invaluable team members that support the overall facility appearance and ensure that employees, customers, and tenants remain satisfied.
You should always work with a reputable commercial cleaning service provider to find a good fit. This is a position in which an inherently positive, professional, and helpful attitude can do wonders.
The skillset of janitors and day porters overlap in various ways.
Why Do Organizations Need Day Porters?
It is important to have your facility cleaned daily. This is particularly true after the impact of Covid-19.
Day porters perform daily touchpoint cleaning services, which is a primary reason for organizations to hire them.
The day porter will focus on high-touch surfaces, such as:
- Light switches;
- Entry and exit touchpoints;
- Countertops;
- Toilets;
- Sinks and faucets;
- Breakroom kitchens;
- Door handles and knobs;
- Phones;
- Keyboards.
It can be difficult for facility managers to always make sure that high-touch areas are disinfected and to keep tabs on in-house cleaning crews.
Responsible day porters ensure that the lobby and other common areas are safe to be in and tidy. They will also walk facility managers through all the steps to ensure adequate cleanliness, sanitation, and safety.
The best part is that day porters work during regular business hours. You can easily rely on them for assisting you with routine tasks. They can ensure that your day goes smoothly.
You can have your porter run small errands within the building or help you with last-minute event preparations.
Advantages Of Day Porters
These are a few benefits of hiring day porters:
1. Improved Appearance
Everybody knows that first impressions matter a lot. You need to maintain a clean environment if you want to improve the reputation of your business and get more clients. Day porters can help in keeping your facility running smoothly and looking tidy.
2. Prevent Accidents
Slip and fall accidents are one of the largest personal injury lawsuits faced by commercial establishments.
Day porters can be responsible for placing wet floor signs. They can also perform light maintenance or inform the management about potential hazards to prevent accidents.
3. Value for Money
The majority of business owners and facility managers realize they don’t require a large cleaning crew when they have a day porter.
The porter takes care of routine cleaning and maintenance tasks, so the off-hour cleaning crew won’t have a lot of basic cleaning tasks to complete. This can significantly reduce your nighttime cleaning bills.
4. Enhanced Coordination and Liaison
Day porters can be asked to direct deliveries and vendors. This will allow you to focus more on your work and direct your attention to other necessary administrative and management tasks.
What Good Porters Do
Good porters perform all the duties as required by the facility manager. You must identify the kind of duties you require from the daytime help.
By hiring an experienced day porter service, you can expect to create real value for your employees, vendors, clients, and other visitors.
Good porters are useful wherever they see a need or a problem to fix. For instance, they may take care of the normal cleanliness of restrooms and keep the glass doors smudge-free.
The majority of facility managers have tight budgets. Day porters can be useful in filling in the gaps and lending an extra set of hands where required.
You can create a day porter checklist involving their daily facility duties for best results.
These are a few duties of relevance you should expect from an ideal day porter:
- Electrostatic disinfection of common areas;
- Keep bathrooms clean;
- Keep lobbies clean;
- Perform minor maintenance, such as changing light bulbs;
- Service washrooms;
- Restock washroom with toilet paper and other supplies;
- Clean and prepare conference rooms before and after meetings;
- Clean common areas, such as cafeterias, patios, and kitchens;
- Respond to cleaning emergencies, such as spills;
- Clean high-touch surfaces to reduce the risk of bacterial growth;
- Remove safety hazards;
- Place safety hazard signs;
- Provide front lobby support;
- Remove debris and trash from parking lots and entrances;
You should know that day porters are not supposed to cover the entire building. That job is for the janitorial staff to perform after hours.
However, custodial services cannot help with urgent tasks during business hours. This is where a day porter steps in. All facility managers should be aware of the scope of the cleaning.
Qualities Of A Good Porter
Several qualities make a day porter a suitable fit for a commercial establishment. These are:
- Simplicity: Porters should adhere to an uncomplicated and simple schedule that facility managers can depend on;
- Accountability: Porters should be transparent and clean in their delivery of industry-leading cleaning results;
- Flexibility: The porter should be ready to perform tasks that are similar to their job duties. They should also be available to work on weekends if your business doesn’t follow a strict Monday to Friday schedule;
- Results-oriented: The smallest tasks need to be performed with care and dedication so the results are visible;
- Quality services: The porter should provide quality rather than quantity;
- Presentable: Day porters work during business hours in common room areas. They must have a pleasing attitude and look presentable.
Dedicated day porters automatically equate to happy customers and cleaner facilities.
How To Find A Good Day Porter?
Finding a good day porter should not be difficult when you know how to go about it.
These are a few tips to help you get started:
- Business owners: You can always ask other business owners about their day porter services;
- Local businesses: You should look for local commercial day porter service providers. Local businesses are aware of client needs and provide superior services;
- Shortlist a few: You should speak with several commercial cleaning companies and at least shortlist 3 before selecting the right one;
- Insurance: It is important that the day porter company you choose is fully licensed, insured, and certified. They should have their paperwork ready to show you during the pre-hire meeting.
Make sure you only work with experienced companies. Experts suggest working with firms that invest in their workforce, and for good reason.
People are an invaluable asset, and constant training, monitoring, and recognition will offer you the best porters on the market.
Facility managers and supervisors should consider finding a day porter service that is GBAC certified. GBAC or Global Biorisk Advisory Council is the cleaning industry’s only recovery accreditation and outbreak response for facilities.
Why Day Porters Are Important?
Hiring day porters can be highly beneficial to commercial properties in every industry, and their responsibilities can be customized for catering to your specific needs.
These are a few reasons for which day porters are important:
1. Preventing Disease Transmission
The primary reason for considering a day porter in today’s times would be to reduce the risk of disease transmission.
Porters can sanitize and disinfect surfaces, such as light switches, doorknobs, handrails, and countertops throughout the day. This will significantly prevent outbreaks, such as coronavirus and the flu.
2. Cleaning High Traffic Areas
Day porters can be essentially useful if your commercial building witnesses lots of foot traffic. The porter can maintain the lobby, meeting rooms, and other common areas throughout the day.
Day porters perform vital tasks for making an office look clean, safe, and presentable. They can also ensure that the bathrooms and other areas are stocked with supplies at all times.
3. Satisfying Health Codes
Porters play a vital role in meeting specific health codes. Facilities, such as health service providers and schools can benefit from hiring a day porter to maintain their premises.
Daily day porter along with janitorial services can ensure all rules and regulations are followed.
Porters Can Greatly Help Janitorial Services
Here’s how day porters are a great addition and provide help to the janitorial team:
1. Day Porters Provide Consistency
Day porters provide the consistency business owners and facility managers require. They are available when you most need them.
They will ensure that all surfaces and glass doors are kept clean. They will also be consistent in restocking supplies in the pantry, cafeteria, and washrooms.
2. Day Porters Keep Janitorial Agents Productive
Day porters know if the night janitor didn’t perform their duties as expected. Conversely, they also assist the janitorial service providers by taking care of basic maintenance and cleaning during the day.
3. Day Porters Save Janitors’ Time
By hiring a day porter, you can reduce the size of your night cleaning crew. Day porters are responsible for performing routine jobs, such as keeping the bathrooms clean, sanitizing high-touch surfaces, stocking supplies, and other things.
This allows the janitors to perform their job quicker and thoroughly.
Most Common Misconception About Day Porters
A lot of property managers are not sure what day porters are meant to do. These are a few common myths about day porters.
1. Day Porters are Business Hour Janitors
Many people believe that day porters are outdoor or business hour janitors. They may be responsible for cleaning surfaces and emptying trash cans, but they also act as the ears and eyes of the property.
They are trained cleaners and are designated to maintain high standards.
2. You Need Minimal Cleaning with Day Porters
While it is true that porters perform basic cleaning and maintenance tasks, you cannot let go of your cleaning crew. Porters are not responsible to sweep floors or perform other janitorial duties.
Day porters are meant to be last-mile cleaning workers that can take care of basic cleaning and maintenance during business hours.
3. All Facility Cleaning and Maintenance Companies Are Alike
This is a huge misconception. There are a lot of differences between maintenance and cleaning companies. All facility services don’t offer the same type of services.
You must choose a service type only after considering the factors that matter to you. You should always work with a cleaning company that is reputable, experienced, and certified.
Tips To Find A Good Porter
These are a few tips to finding a good day porter that serves your purpose and is a good fit for your organization:
- Presentable: Day porters are responsible for taking care of your property during working hours. This makes it important that you find a porter that is presentable and has the right attitude;
- Services: The porter should fit all your needs. They should be willing to cover everything that you need. You must consult with candidates during the early stage of contracting to see if they cover everything you require;
- Referrals: Recommendations and referrals are highly useful in the commercial cleaning segment. You can ask other businesses in the area for referrals they trust.
Get a Day Porter That Best Fits Your Needs
You need a reliable day porter to help you maintain the physical aspect of your facility running smoothly.
At Servi-Tek Facility Solutions, we strive to provide the services required for keeping a facility spotless throughout the day.
We are leaders in the building maintenance industry, and we continuously invest in our workforce to prove only the best results. Servi-Tek includes Electrostatic Disinfection as a regularly scheduled program with its day porter staff.
Give us a call today at 866-454-6185 or use our online form!
Ask us anything you want to know about day porters and how their services can take your business to the next level!
