The Benefits of Day Cleaning

This article was originally published in Sanitary Maintenance.

Day cleaning, or cleaning during first shift, is touted as a sensible way to save on energy costs. These savings are often too lucrative to pass up, causing many facilities to consider the switch to cleaning during daytime hours.

Day cleaning is quite popular in Europe, where more buildings are cleaned during the day than at night. For various reasons, however, the practice has not seen similar prevalence here in the United States. While day cleaning isn’t exactly non-existent, cleaning organizations are expected to embrace the practice more eagerly in the future.

In fact, industry consultants predict that within 10 years, day cleaning will be more common than traditional nighttime cleaning.

The biggest reason to clean during daylight hours, rather than in the evenings, is the energy savings from no longer needing to illuminate and heat or cool the space being cleaned. Consultants report that day cleaning can save buildings between 4 and 8 percent on energy costs, a year.

There are also a number of staffing benefits resulting from day cleaning, including:

• Better employee retention and higher amounts of job satisfaction;
• Increased awareness and respect of cleaning staff, who are likely doing their jobs in the presence of building occupants; and
• Improved communication between customers and cleaning staff.

Casinos and hotels have been day cleaning for decades, but the method can be implemented in virtually any facility. The recent push for day cleaning has been largely associated with commercial offices.

Day cleaning is also popular in healthcare, especially in inpatient facilities where patients need to sleep at night without distractions, as well as in schools where janitors often work the day shift.