The pandemic made winning bids on cleaning healthcare facilities even more competitive than it was before. Keep these things in mind when bidding on healthcare cleaning contracts.
Even before COVID-19 changed the commercial cleaning industry, there were lucrative contracts for cleaning healthcare facilities. They were also challenging to procure. There simply aren’t enough contracts for every cleaning company that bids on one.
Of course, there are good reasons these contracts are so profitable. Beyond your typical duties, there are lots of additional requirements, some federal, some state, and some local. Those requirements—or in some cases, guidelines—get more stringent all the time.
Still, if you’re passionate about adding healthcare cleaning jobs to your client base, we encourage you to bid on them. And to do that here’s a list of best practices to make your cleaning service stand out above the rest.
Easily stay in touch with employees and clients, bid on jobs, manage inventory, perform inspections, and more with Janitorial Manager. Check out a free demo to learn about all the great features!
Cleaning healthcare facilities: 7 Tips for Winning the contract
1. Lay the foundation
Before we get into contracts and cleaning healthcare facilities, it’s essential to make sure that you have the basics in place. If your cleaning business is new, make sure that you have the appropriate insurance and bonding, and clearly mention this on your letterhead. Healthcare facilities often want to see higher insurance coverage levels, so if you’re on a bare-bones insurance plan, you may wish to investigate other affordable options to make your business more attractive to a prospective client.
Also, check to make sure that your employees have any cleaning certifications required by the client or by government regulatory agencies.
Make sure also that you have the correct equipment and supplies. We’ll dig into this a little more later on, but know that if you’ve mostly been cleaning offices or non-biohazard sites, you may need to stock up on other inventory, such as enhanced protective equipment or more potent disinfectants.
2. Become an expert on requirements/guidelines
While there are still not very many actual requirements from a regulatory perspective, agencies like the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the World Health Organization (WHO), and smaller agencies like the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) all offer precise guidelines for cleaning healthcare facilities. Especially with the fear of the pandemic still lingering, it’s important to stay current with these guidelines every day to ensure that your business is abiding by the best practices as prescribed by top health officials.
This is a crucial step before you bid for jobs cleaning healthcare facilities. You’ll want to demonstrate in your bid that you’re not only familiar with the newest guidelines, but that you have a plan and the resources to follow them.
3. Regular staff training
Most healthcare facilities will want to see that you keep your employees up to date on these requirements, as well. Be able to demonstrate that you hold regular staff training. If employees receive completion certificates following training, keep copies on file for your records. When it comes to cleaning healthcare facilities, this is almost as important as providing proof of insurance and bonding, especially as COVID-19 guidelines continue to evolve.
4. Get tips from your network
If you have an extensive network of cleaning professionals, some of them have recently won healthcare cleaning contracts. Check-in with them to find out how they made their bids successful. Ask specific questions to understand what they did differently from others, and consider incorporating those changes into your proposal.
You may also find useful information from places such as The Worldwide Cleaning Industry Association (ISSA) or Building Service Contractors Association International (BSCAI) that can provide additional tips, guidance, or resources for making your bid successful.
5. Use the right products
Not all of your usual cleaning products are necessarily approved by regulatory agencies for hospital clean-up. Disinfecting, in particular, is an area of cleaning healthcare facilities that require specific products with proven effectiveness. You can find the CDC’s tool for identifying an appropriate disinfectant, or you can check with the manufacturer of your current products to see if they’d qualify.
This may become a little more tricky if you have clients who want eco-friendly products, but using the CDC’s tool should help you locate green products to satisfy your environmentally-inclined clients.
6. Do a walkthrough
Just as you would with any other job, we recommend doing a walkthrough before you finalize any bids for cleaning healthcare facilities. Not only do you want to make sure you understand the basic things, like square footage, etc., but you’ll want to look for anything you haven’t considered or something you may have questions about, or that would increase the price of your services.
If you do a walkthrough and find something you’re not sure you’re ready to handle yet, it might be best to pause on your bid and focus on the next one, ensuring that you’re properly equipping yourself in the meantime to meet whatever needs the healthcare facility may have.
7. Use janitorial management software
One of the great things about Janitorial Manager is that we offer tools to help you create a successful bid, including the all-important bid-calculator. Our calculator includes ISSA templates for their pricing standards, or you can enter your own if you prefer. The calculator is especially handy when doing your walkthrough since you can easily add or remove services, change prices, and otherwise provide the most accurate estimate on the spot even before you’ve submitted your bid.
Janitorial Manager can also help you keep track of healthcare facility cleaning checklists, internal regulations specific to your company, submit your bid, track issues, and much more. Without software like ours, you’ll likely be at a disadvantage when you bid on cleaning healthcare facilities.
Keep your safety practices up to date and readily available with Janitorial Manager’s custodial management software. Sign up for a free demo to learn more about how we can help keep your staff safe.
I’d like to try demo.
Thank you for your interest, Elizabeth! Our team will be in touch. What is the best phone number you can be reached at?