What It Means for a Cleaning Company to Be Employee-Focused
On the night of January 8th, two Wilburn Company employees were performing their usual cleaning jobs when they noticed that a tenant was standing outside in the cold with her two small children. Realizing that it was late and that the building was closed, the two employees went out to check on her. As it turned out, her car had been broken into. The windows were smashed and there was glass everywhere. The tenant had nowhere to turn, and to make matters worse, when she’d gone outside to check on the situation, she’d inadvertently gotten locked out of the building.…
5 Tips to Keep Your Office Clean Through the Winter
With all of the extra snow, salt, ice, and general slush outside, wintertime is a messy time of year. It can be even harder to keep the mess outside when you have employees and clients walking in and out of your office all day every day. When it comes to wintertime, facility cleaning companies know a trick or two to keep your office clean. Your cleaning company can’t be there every moment of the day. These 5 tips will help you keep the mess from building up when your cleaning service isn’t there. Keep the Ice Salt Outside Ice salt…
Why Communication Matters in Commercial Cleaning
Some commercial cleaning companies are big fans of the idea that “silence is golden.” They communicate with their clients as little as possible. The line of thought is this: the only time that clients want to communicate with their commercial cleaning company is when there are messes, mistakes, or complaints. Those are all bad things. Therefore, communication will probably be a bad thing – so the less of it there is, the better. After winning a contract, these companies do their best to fade into the background at the sites they serve, until, ideally, people forget they even exist at…
Top 5 Skills Cleaning Employees Should Have
The job of an environmental hygienist involves much more than cleaning up spills and taking out the trash. As a matter of fact, that’s why we prefer the term environmental hygienist over janitor. As any good commercial cleaning service knows, our employees have to know a lot more than your typical house cleaner. Let’s take a look at five skills top cleaning employees should know how to do. Handling of Bodily Fluids Depending on the clients of your commercial cleaning service, you may have to know how to handle bodily fluids. In order to handle bloodborne pathogens, you have to…
It’s Time to Move from “Janitor” to “Environmental Hygienist”
There’s a scene in the early moments of the movie Goodwill Hunting where Will (the main character played by Matt Damon) solves a graduate-level math problem in the hallway of MIT that’s been left on the blackboard as a challenge to students. Within minutes, he’s completely resolved a challenge that’s been unattainable for an entire class of brainiacs. It’s compelling to watch – not just because genius in action is fun to see, but because Will is not, in fact, a student at MIT. He’s actually a janitor at the school, responsible for scrubbing floors, not solving complex math problems.…
5 Ways to Tell if Your Building is Really Clean
The first time you hire a really good cleaning service, you may feel like your office building has never looked better. Maybe you can actually see your reflection in your conference room tables or your offices glass doors are finally free from fingerprints. But over time, you start to notice that the little things are going by the wayside. Are you imagining it? Or is it time to hire a new building cleaning service? Here are five ways to tell if your building is actually clean. Garbage cans “Really?” you might say. Isn’t checking the garbage cans being a…
Why Your Cleaning Company Should Be Growing
Often, there’s a certain level of opaqueness to business-vendor relationships. A vendor is hired to do a job, and they either do it well or they don’t. The curtain to what’s going on behind the scenes is never lifted. That makes sense. Performance in-role is what matters, for cleaning companies as well as for any other vendor. That’s the lens through which a cleaning company should be judged. Yet, what goes on behind the scenes can impact a vendor’s ability to perform a job. If your cleaning company isn’t doing well internally, there’s a good chance that you’ll soon see…
The What, Why, and How of Flood Response
It’s been an unfortunate month for emergency response in Maryland. In the aftermath of flooding in Howard and Frederick Counties and the destruction caused by historic water levels in Ellicott City, many in the area have been left struggling to repair and recover. At the Wilburn Company, we’re grateful to see rebuilding happening at these sites. And we’re thankful that the sites we serve were unaffected by recent flooding. As you might expect, we aren’t often tasked with responding to historic emergency events. However, we do serve over 9 million square feet of space, and we do provide emergency response…
5 Things You Might Not Know About Green Cleaning
If you’re in facility management, you’ve probably heard the buzz around green cleaning. As a service, it’s changing commercial cleaning, and as a part of building wellness initiatives, it’s impacting the entire field of facility management. Yet, for all of the buzz, there are still aspects of green cleaning that are relatively little-known, or even commonly misconceived. Don’t worry – we’re here to help. Green cleaning is incredibly impactful, and it’s important to understand it fully. With that in mind, here are five things you might not know about green cleaning. 1. Green Cleaning Is Not More Expensive In fact,…
3 Ways Green Cleaning Services Benefit Your Business
As you’ve probably heard, green cleaning services benefit the environment by reducing waste, increasing efficiency, and reducing the usage of harsh chemicals. And, as we’ve written about before, green cleaning services benefit building occupants by improving the health of indoor environments and, consequently, the health of the people who frequent them. So, green cleaning has a lot going for it already; those two factors themselves make green cleaning services pretty appealing. But there’s another benefit a step further down the chain, too, that you may not initially expect from green cleaning. Green cleaning services benefit businesses, too. It’s true. Green…
How the Concept of Building Wellness is Transforming Cleaning Services
Not long ago, property management services were oriented around efficiency. It’s an understandable approach; saving time and money on property management is a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Companies homed in on efficiency have gone to great lengths to reduce service times and product costs, ultimately transferring those benefits to building owners and occupants. But it’s harmful in the end. Because, while in many ways the pursuit of efficiency is a great thing, it isn’t everything. Treating efficiency as the end-all, be-all ends up hurting both our buildings and the people who occupy them. Pursing it to the exclusion…
The Best Green Cleaning Companies in MD Do This
In a world of endless choices, it can be difficult to know what company is the best option for your cleaning needs. This is especially true if you’re interested in green cleaning, as this term has become a bit vague and hard to define. To know what to look for when selecting a green cleaning company, let’s look at five things that the best green cleaning companies in Maryland are doing. Uses Green Products and Environmentally-Friendly Procedures The basis of green cleaning is using products, equipment, and procedures that are safer for building occupants and the environment than traditional harsh…
The Wilburn Company Goes Green By Achieving GS-42 Certification
The Wilburn Company Goes Green By Achieving GS-42 Certification Linthicum, MD: The Wilburn Company does more than just building cleaning – they help to keep the environment cleaner, too. The professional cleaning company has received the GS-42 certification, an affirmation from independent certifier Green Seal® that Wilburn’s green cleaning program meets its high standards. “Achieving GS-42 certification is changing the culture of our company and how we view the importance of the services we deliver,” said Robert Baldwin, Vice President of The Wilburn Company. “We are not just janitors; we are Environmental Hygienists. We are impacting people’s lives by directly…
Top 3 Commercial Cleaning Trends in 2018
There’s a recent GEICO ad featuring an anthropomorphized robot vacuum complaining about its limited role in the world. “All I do is suck up dirt,” says the vacuum. It’s a morose, monotonous life for the machine. The takeaway is supposed to be that GEICO does more than one thing (car insurance, in this case). The contrast works – sure, a vacuum really does just have one role – but it’s interesting that the marketing people responsible for the ad identified cleaning as a static field when dreaming up the comparison. In fact, it’s somewhat indicative of the overall tendency of…
Questions to Ask When Choosing a Commercial Cleaning Company
Choosing a commercial cleaning company can seem difficult. It’s also incredibly important. Your commercial cleaning company is an integral part of keeping your facility functioning at a high level. Facility cleanliness matters – not just in terms of aesthetics, but also because cleanliness affects the physical health of your employees and the physical condition of your building. So, whether you’re considering hiring the services of a commercial cleaning company for the first time, or questioning whether or not the time has come to upgrade from your current cleaning service, take the time to gather the information you’ll need to make…
Meet The Wilburn Company: Terry Pearce, Project Manager
A little over 17 years ago, Terry Pearce started at The Wilburn Company as a part-time worker. It was just a side job for her at the time – a stress-free way to earn some extra money. Almost two decades later, Terry is a project manager at The Wilburn Company, and her now full-time job keeps her very busy. “I kinda got stuck here,” Terry laughs. “I just enjoy doing what I do. It was basically the environment and the people that worked with me that really motivated me to work for The Wilburn Company full-time. It was more fun…
Why We’ve Moved Past the Term “Janitor”
The term janitor has never had the best connotation. The phrase may take you back to your high school lunchroom’s janitorial staff who picked up the garbage and wiped down the lunch tables. You may have never seen janitors as much more than that. But janitorial companies’ staff do so much more than clean. They get rid of germs, cut down on pests, and work to keep you from getting sick. Have you ever thought that you owe your office janitor your health? Here at Wilburn, we are one of several janitorial companies who strive to elevate the crucial work…
The Science Behind Green Cleaning
Green cleaning is more than just a trend – it is now a staple of everyday life for millions of people around the world. It’s not just at home, though, as many businesses use a green commercial cleaning company. While we’ve written about green cleaning products, what green cleaning really means, and the importance of becoming Green Seal certified, it’s good to bring it back to the basics – what exactly is the science behind green cleaning? Science-based standards for green cleaning are what separates “I’m pretty sure this is green cleaning,” from “I know for a fact this is…
The Importance of Becoming Green Seal Certified
The world is a dangerous enough place without having to worry about getting sick all the time at work. While toxic chemicals will kill germs, they also do a number on your health as well. That’s why green cleaning is so important, and why becoming Green Seal certified is the highest standard in cleaning. We’ve been in the cleaning industry for a long time, so we’re intimately familiar with the common misconceptions around it. The pay is low; there isn’t any training; anyone can come into work, and they’ll be handed a mop and a bucket and told to go…
5 Tips from an Industrial Cleaning Company in DC
Washington, DC, is a beautiful place, filled with fine dining and entertainment. It’s just one of the many reasons companies choose to call the nation’s capital their home. While the beauty outside of your company is great, how does the inside of your building look? Which begs the question, how much do you think about industrial cleaning in DC? First impressions are just as important in business as they are in your personal life. When potential clients visit your facility for the first time, the overall appearance of your lobby – and especially your restrooms – can factor into whether…