I have long advocated that education is the best way to stop product abuse by the janitorial workers.  Recently Brent Williams, a GCI-Technician brought to me a case study highlighting the learning requirement of Green Cleaning.  This report, written by Robert Kravitz with the Ashkin Group, highlights a facility having issues with the changing of products to Green.  Oh, like I have never heard of this before.

“Surely something was awry and many in the housekeeping department believed the facility managers should have left “good enough alone” and return to the non-Green cleaning products used before”, the report says.  Over the past 20 years of working directly with custodial staffs in Missouri, I have heard this myself and every time I find it is due to one thing.

In Mr. Kravitz’ case study, the senior citizens facility experienced an issue stemming from the overuse and misuse of chemicals by the cleaning staff.  The reason for these errors was the lack of understanding by the frontline workers as to what the new Green products really can do.  They thought that the Green chemicals didn’t work as well and so they used them over-concentrated and used more RTU than required on the surfaces.  This then produced a bio-film on the surfaces and a concentration of vapors which both resulted in adverse reactions by staff and residents.

How could this have been stopped before it happened?  EDUCATION; this is the foundation here at Green Clean Institute.  Had these frontline workers and managers been exposed to the proper education prior to using the products, they would have understood WHY they were using the products in the first place and then would not have misused the products and put so many at risk. 

It has been my experience that we all will use products, equipment and procedures incorrectly if we do not understand WHY we need to pay attention to the instructions from the manufacture and our management.  The question in most cases, is the instruction they are giving the best and correct for the situation? 

In the coming weeks, GCI will be launching an updated e-learning platform of which the education we provide will have a completely new look, feel and depth.  We encourage any firm, service or organization to review their program and see if it is time to participate in this new learning experience before someone makes a case study from your staffs’ mistakes.

As always, please contact me with any comments or concerns.  dave@greencleaninstitute.com