Labor – both in-house and outsourced – accounts for a significant chunk of any business expenses. While these costs are necessary for doing business, you don’t want them to get out of control. Reducing labor costs without sacrificing operability can seem like an uphill battle. That said, there are a surprising number of ways to keep these costs under control while maintaining your business’ efficiency. As it turns out, simply staying on top of facility maintenance can result in significant savings. Floor care is of particular importance in this regard.
Let’s explore how to reduce labor costs with proper commercial floor maintenance at your facility.
How to Reduce Labor Costs with Floor Care Maintenance
Streamline Your Operations
The cost of labor in a given field is determined by a host of intersecting factors, but it ultimately comes down to numbers. Simply put, the longer it takes to get something done, the more it will cost. Conversely, quick turnaround results in reduced costs. There are caveats, of course, such as quality of work. But as a general rule, you want to cut the time it takes for your employees and business partners to get the job done, as this saves you money. Your facility’s flooring is essential to virtually every task – if it’s dirty, deteriorated, or otherwise, in disrepair, workers will have a harder time operating machinery, walking from point A to point B, etc. Clean, visible, well-kempt flooring is easier and safer to navigate, streamlining all operations and therefore saving your business time and money. In this way, keeping up with commercial floor care, such as regular cleaning, periodic inspections, resurfacing, and line striping, improves your operational efficiency on the whole.
Mitigate Safety Hazards
There are other labor-related costs to consider at your facility, too. Worker injury and illness can cost you significantly. If someone gets hurt on the job, you may be partially or fully responsible for their medical costs. Likewise, sick days can cut a major hole in your operations, sometimes for days or weeks on end. Improper floor care can exacerbate both of these concerns. Most slips, trips, and falls are due to floor debris, slick flooring, and poor visibility. And if left unchecked, dust, bacteria, and other contaminants that linger on your facility flooring can contribute to disease transmission and other health concerns. Taking good care of your floors will minimize these incidents, protecting your workers, and cutting costs over the long-term.
Prevent Costly Repairs
Proper floor care maintenance also helps you save on expensive floor repairs down the line or avoid them altogether. You can expect your floors to undergo wear and tear from daily activity. If you don’t take pre-emptive measures or address minor concerns early on, this normal wear and tear can evolve into major issues that require a big chunk of your budget and plenty of time to resolve. Commercial flooring companies will be happy to have your business in this scenario, but it’s better to prevent these outcomes in the first place. Investing in significant floor repairs rather than keeping up with daily maintenance will interrupt your regular operations, further driving up labor costs. Ongoing floor maintenance, such as cleaning, minor repair work, inspections, etc., will cost something in its own right, but these costs often pale in comparison to a complete flooring overhaul and its ancillary expenses.
Facilitate Overall Building Maintenance
Taking care of your entire building is a costly yet vital endeavor– it’s also multi-faceted. Building maintenance includes everything from caring for equipment to dusting hard-to-reach areas, to disinfecting high-touch surfaces, and much more. Commercial cleaning includes a whole host of tasks in its own right. Floor cleaning is among the most important aspects of commercial cleaning. After all, most dust and debris eventually make their way onto your flooring, thanks to gravity. Moreover, the dust and debris that’s left on your floors can get kicked up and linger in the air, further contaminating other surfaces and affecting the health and safety of all occupants. So, if you want to keep your building in great shape, protect your people, and reduce the time and effort it takes to maintain overall cleanliness, your floors are a great place to start and finish. Ultimately, the better care you take of your floors, the easier and more cost-effective your facility maintenance efforts will be.
Invest in Automated Floor Care Technology
It’s clear that taking good care of your floors boosts your bottom line, but these efforts require time and labor, too. You can reduce these labor costs by investing in state-of-the-art commercial floor cleaning machines that need minimal (if any) manual supervision. Here at The Budd Group, we’ve begun implementing automated floor cleaning technology for some of our clients’ facilities to great effect. The KIRA Robotic Vacuum by Kärcher, in particular, is capable of sweeping and vacuuming over 25,000 square feet per hour. This device can also learn in real time, avoiding obstacles and optimizing routes, thanks to its cloud-based artificial intelligence (AI) design. While no floor maintenance machine completely eliminates the need for human oversight, KIRA gets as close to this as possible for modern machinery.
Commercial Floor Care: Cutting Costs, Not Corners
With the right approach, caring for your floors can greatly reduce the labor costs required to keep your facility safe, efficient, and beautiful. We at The Budd Group are always looking for new ways to save our clients money and continuously improve their facilities. The implementation of our robotic floor care technology and comprehensive floor care programs are just two ways The Budd Group enhances facilities across all industries. To learn more about our services and values, give us a call today at 800-221-8158!