Facility and housekeeping managers expect their cleaning organizations to face tougher challenges once again in 2012. In a survey conducted by Alpheios, in which 142 organizations took part, the majority of these managers indicated that in 2012 they expect the pressure on costs and m2 performance to increase further without any additional investments or additional staff to compensate for this. “For years now we have been focusing on improving the performance of cleaning organizations”, explains Roger van Wersch, Managing Director of Alpheios International. “The survey confirms the problems that we discuss on a day-to-day basis with our clients”.

In spite of the pressure of work, which is already considered to be high, these managers are full of praise for the commitment shown by their cleaners. 56% of those surveyed gave their cleaning organization a score of 8 or higher for ‘commitment’ over the past year. The squeeze that is being applied due to pressure on costs and performance is evident from the question about the quality being delivered: 20% gave a score of 6 or lower for the technical quality of the cleaning. When asked about the perceived quality the respondents were even more critical: 24% of them gave a score of 6 or lower for the past year.

Almost 60% of the respondents expect that they will have to deliver a higher level of technical or perceived quality with their organization in 2012, while only 10% of them indicated that they know for certain that they will be investing in new resources next year and only 5% know for certain that they will be investing in additional staff. One point that stands out is that 59% of respondents believe it is probable or certain that cleaning tasks within their organization will increasingly need to be combined with other ancillary tasks.

The survey was conducted by Alpheios amongst 543 managers of cleaning organizations in the Netherlands. 142 organizations took part. These participants operate their own cleaning service, possibly in combination with a cleaning company. The respondents came from all sectors, but with a particular focus on healthcare, government, retail and offices. All the results can be viewed in Dutch at the following link to the Alpheios survey.