Estimating the daily work hours on a proposal is vital to the overall price of the proposal. Daily work hours are the calculation of how many hours it will take to clean a facility and fulfilling the scope of work. If the daily works hours are calculated incorrectly the performance of the vendor is guaranteed to be inconsistent. If the daily work hours are miscalculated, this will create a final price which is also miscalculated. Alternatively, if the daily work hours are calculated correctly, the service will be consistent and reliable.

There are several elements that affect the calculation of daily work hours. The most important element that most affect the daily work hour calculation is the size of the space. This element, the cleanable square feet, will more greatly affect the calculation because a smaller space does not take as long to clean as a larger space.

Some other elements that will heavily affect the daily work hours are:

  • Number of people using the building: More people make more messes, and the more messes that are in a facility, the longer it will take to clean.
  • The type of building: Some types of industries are more difficult to clean than others. For instance, a manufacture facility is more difficult to clean than an office space. The more difficult it is to clean the facility, the longer it will take to clean.
  • The characteristics of the facility: If the facility is more spread out, if there are lots of restrooms or lots of breakrooms, this will affect the amount of time it will take to clean the facility.
  • Type and frequency of the cleaning: This is obvious – if a facility needs to be cleaned often or not would affect the hours.
  • Quality Expectations: If the facility has very high expectations for their cleanliness this will affect the hours it would take to clean.

 

How to calculate daily work hours.

It is important for you to know the process by which commercial cleaning companies develop the daily work hours they use in their proposals. If you know that it takes at least X number of hours to clean your facility, but a vendor bids the job at ½ of X, then you know that you will have consistency problems in the future, no matter how cheap their price is!

Reputable commercial janitorial companies will use cleaning productions rates to assist in the calculation of the daily work hours. Also, janitorial companies will gather other information that may affect the daily work hours, like those listed above, during a site visit. A couple of things that might be taken into consideration here would be items like type of flooring, number of restrooms and the number of fixtures in each restroom, number of break areas, and the total cleanable square feet.

 

Here is an example of that calculation:

Total square feet of carpeted space = 35,000 sq. feet

Production Rate: Full Vacuuming, with standard backpack vacuum = 10,000 sq. ft/hr.

Estimated man-hours required to vacuum all carpets = 3.5 hours

The vendor will repeat this calculation for each task (e.g. dusting and wiping surfaces, dust mopping and damp mopping floors, emptying trash, cleaning restrooms and break areas) to estimate the overall facility man-hours requirement.

The total daily work hours are the single greatest factor in the calculation of a proposal price. If a vendor gets the number wrong, their price might seem good and under-budget, but their service will be inconsistent.