Mike Sawchuk- A Clean Assessment

In today's episode, Jerry speaks with Mike Sawchuk about his recent article in the ISSA Today magazine.

https://www.issa.com/articles/a-clean-assessment

The Articles Title is A Clean Assessment, which deals with using evidence-based data to prove the quality of your cleaning operations.

Mike, a consultant with over 30 years of experience, breaks it down to use data to benchmark your team's work to ensure you get the job done and a clean environment.

Data can show if improvements are being made to deliver the highest clean, safe, and healthy levels at the lowest cost.

When collecting data, you can focus on results.

As a bonus, the article and podcast review slips, trips and falls, and the all-important air quality issues are coming to the forefront.

Mike can be reached at  https://sawchukconsulting.com/.

Different Sites Below
https://direct.me/jerrybauer

Jerry Bauer
Hospitality Cleaning 101
Jerry@hospitalitycleaning101.com

Transcript

A Chat with Mike Sawchuk – A Clean Assessment

Jerry: Hello, everybody. As promised, I have Mike Sawchuk from Sawchuk Consulting. Mike, are you here with me today?

Mike Sawchuk: Hello, Jerry. We'd like everyone to the podcast. I look forward to talking with you, Jerry and sharing some information with your audience. It's a privilege and honor for me. Thank you.

Jerry: Thank you, Mike, for joining us today. Mike, I read your article. And as I say, at the end of this podcast in my show notes, I will put a link where you'd be able to download it yourself, the article is called “A Clean Assessment using Evidence-Based Data to prove the quality of your cleaning operations”. Mike, what motivated you to write this article?

Mike Sawchuk: Good question. It's really just wasn't one thing. It was a passion for the industry. I've been in industry for 30 years, I've had the unique opportunity to have mixed experiences. I've worked for small, medium, and very large international chemical manufacturers. I've worked for national and regional distribution. I've worked for building service contractors and trained a lot of custodians in education primarily. So it's a passion for the industry is passion for helping those that want help. And as you know, Jerry, some people are apathetic, some people are complacent. They don't want help. They think that everything I'm doing is good. That's the same way they've been cleaning for 30 years. Why would you want to change anything? But if they're looking for help, I think that I would be able to assist them with my industry knowledge, the insights and leadership skills, and the training association. So the key always is evidence-based data. How do you know? And it doesn't matter if it's a benchmark or an assessment, how do you know and you're only going to be able to make those types of decisions with better and higher quantity of that data. And from there, I wrote the article and saying that it's important to measure. And it doesn't matter how you measure it, there's different methods of measuring the level of cleanliness, but also is important is not just measuring, put those results in a closet is to track and report, showcase those results, and then act on the information. So if you're seeing a tracking going in the wrong direction, “Okay, it's too high. What can I do?” Well, it's cleaning results, maybe I'll change my chemical, maybe I'll change my disinfectant, maybe I'll change my frequency, maybe I'll change my tools, hardware and equipment, maybe it'll change the training that I provide the staff, but you're really looking at that data that you're collecting and tracking to drive consistently improvements and making that better.

Jerry: And then the value of the data is used by many different people within the organization, correct?

Mike Sawchuk: Correct. Like I said earlier, it doesn't make sense to go out and collect this data. Anyway, you can. Let it just be walking around with a chalkboard and visual and smell check or something more formalized, like an ATP meter, taking those checklists and throwing them into a drawer, it has to be out there to communicate to all your stakeholders. And that could be the leadership team that could be your customers, here is the level of clean that we have and here's what it was. So they could see hopefully improvements. That's what you really want. You want them to see that you are sitting there and driving consistency. That's what's important in those cleaning results, which are levels of clean, safe and healthy. So you're sharing it with your customer and sharing with the leadership team. And you're using it to provide knowledge and information to the custodian saying, we have an issue here, we're going to be trying changing the training or the procedures or the products, and you make them part of that process is not a measurement isn't to point fingers and say I gotcha, I gotcha. It's there to say, “How can we collectively know where we are and drive improvements in those levels of clean, safe and healthy?” 

Jerry: And what are some of the best ways to benchmark the data? Or, what are different tools do you use to get the data? I notice you use different things within the article like the ATP.

Mike Sawchuk: I think operationally to be a BSC or in house operation can only do what they have available to them resources. So if you don't have money to buy an ATP meter, and then do the calibration that's required annually, if you can't afford to spend $4 or $5 to do individual swabs, etc. Well, my point is, it doesn't matter what you do, just do one of them. So starting off the simplest one is a checklist with smell and visual. And Jerry, you've been in the industry long enough to walk around. You walk into that custodial closet, what do you see? And you start taking notes and because a custodial closet, as we talked about earlier is a window. It truly is a window into the efficiency and effectiveness of the cleaning operation. And you're going checking the detailing in the lobby, you're checking for soils, you could just visually check for soil levels, conditions and same thing with smell as their mouth odors in any particular area. So that's the first rudimentary, there's no reason why anybody can't do that. So but the same thing, you have a checklist, you now track those results and you report those results. So everybody can see, here's where how we're tracking, we're improving, hopefully, on those areas. The second relatively simple and not costly is using a marker, a gold pen or gel with a UV light, it's not rocket science. It is very easy, very quick to do very inexpensive. The third area would be an ATP. And that's what the marketplace me healthcare uses a lot of it. And a lot of best in class operations use it. But ATP served us well, it's a great tool, but it's not the perfect tool. There's some drawbacks, and primarily on cost, really identifying all the pathogens or with the spread of the pathogens, etc. And then from there, the newer technology is fluorescent imaging. And there's a couple of basic types out there. One product is called like a back to scan. And if you can think of a giant floodlight with four separate bulbs, and that's really what you do, you walk into that room, you walk in that classroom, the desk, that counter, that meat grinder, and you're using a flashlight, and it illuminates where there's a load of mold, bacteria or other types of pathogens. So it will actually visually show you the spread and where they are. And another technology is one from up the salt, and they're using proprietary software, proprietary camera to again, show in color, the intensity and then the spread. And what I said earlier, then you could use ATP meter and one of these new technologies to improve use. Now we know the general area where there's a bio load, then we'll take the readings with the ATP meter reading. So now instead of doing swabbing all over are multiple swatting with one swab, you're able to now isolate where you're going to take it. And again, that will drive by working together higher levels of clean, safe and healthy at the same time, probably lower your overall costs of validation. And then have more meaningful tools for all your stakeholders as well as training or providing that type of show Intel to your custodial staff.

Jerry: The price of the ATP is fairly costly, I know. Is anybody coming out with one that's less expensive, or you heard that two years from now they're going to have something better, less expensive, because they are over $1,000 in my crack between 1,000 to $2,000 a year?

Mike Sawchuk: You're shy. And again, I'm from Canada. So our cost may be a little bit different than we got the exchanger, but you're probably looking anywhere from 2,000 to $3,000 for the unit. Then on top of that you're looking say that there's to be calibrated, typically they need to be calibrated annually. And so that could be another 500 to $1,000 to calibrate that. So it is a relatively expensive tool but that's not the only part. Then for every one of those Q tips or swabs that you'd get roughly 4 to $5. Well, if I have a large facility, if I've got a School, if I've got a College, University, how many swabs am I going to do daily at 4 bucks or $5 a pop? So it's one of the things they start fooling themselves. I got an ATP meter reading. And then to save money, they'll take that one swab, and they'll swab the top of their chair on the left, the chair rail, then they go to the right, they swab that then they go underneath and swab that they go underneath swab that then they maybe swab other areas before they do the reading. So if you do get a high reading, where did it come from? Where did it come from? Left side, right side, top, bottom, of the chair. So what it does is that you're then fortunately, we shouldn't be you just take one area, take a reading but then becomes way, way too costly. And even if you get a reading, you don't know the spread or the intensity because I may have taken a multiple readings on my laptop, but then where did it come from? So there's the cost of the ATP meter is somewhat prohibitive. But I'm saying if you now use it in conjunction, you can mitigate that and probably get better results of having to tools have the ATP meter with something like the back to scan. So the back to scan narrows down that search area and then you typically find okay with this, here's where most of the time the bacteria’s so that's where we will take the reading. We don't need to take readings from all those other areas. So I do believe costs will have to come down because the marketplace if it doesn't, then you're gonna see more people migrating to the back to scan and just using that because that unit I think is six grand but then there's you don't get the same type of costs. And the opposite solve the system is a proprietary system but that typically is about the same price of the ATP meter reading is different technology, but at the same time it gives you much better information, because it will show the spread. So you visually could see that luminescence, fluorescence luminescent, that spread of the bacteria is from point A to point B or is all concentrated in one area, you can see that it wasn't on top of the doorknob, but it was behind the doorknob typically where the fingertips go. You could see the intensity is light, or it's heavy. So then again, you could use that alone at about the same price points as ATP and I would argue likely getting better information, or you could use that in conjunction with the ATP.

Jerry: The next question I'd like to talk about is in the article, you talk about slips, trips and falls, that has really come out into the forefront lately. Don't you agree?

Mike Sawchuk: Yes. And I think is going to be something that's going to be growing in importance, and growing in an area for especially certain segments where they could save costs overall by mitigating that type of risks.

Jerry: Because as I understand, falls with a business is still the number one injury point, am I not correct? Or, people are there's more lawsuits and stuff like that because of this, am I correct?

Mike Sawchuk: Exactly. There's some retailers out there, some very prominent retailers, they actually build it into the budget process. We're gonna spend ‘X’ millions of dollars to pay people off. So there's a real cost to that. The second thing is that in as much ratio, it's like, when you see a mouse, if you see one mouse, there's many mice likely around. Same thing happens when you have somebody complaining or have an incident, there's been multiple others that actually had just been bothered complaint. So you really prudent to try to mitigate those slips, trips and falls for your own staff, but your customers, but really looking at it as being something that to save money. The leading expert that's out there that I fall on the lake a lot is clearly a National Florida Safety Institute with [inaudible 00:11:53] he has tons of information, tons of product, but it's something that it all facilities should have an assessment of potential risk of slips, trips, and falls. And lots of times just going through the floor and looking at it. Do we provide training? Do we print what to look for? Do we have, sometimes it's just chords left dealt with or change of elevations for matting to floors that needs to be replaced, etc. But it should be a system noting it following through to make sure that it gets done. And then the other part of that is what facility what cleaners can do is number one, be sure that when they are buying floor care products, finishes and sealers that they are certified by people like UL or others on the slip cool efficiency. And then second of all for the cleaning products that they use, which a lot of people are missing. That lot of the cleaning products are very soapy, what happens with soap gets wet, it gets slippery. So you want to say the cleaners that I'm using let it be on floors with finish, or floors that have no finish on it should be again certified in case the national NFSI the to say that this is a slip neutral, it doesn't make it stickier and it doesn't make it slippery. If you do those two things, if you do have an incident and if you have your assessment, and you have proper documentation when there is an incident. And you can go back and say this is my floor finish that I've been using for manufacture ‘X’, and it's certified by UL for CIPCO efficiency. This is my cleaner, and a certified by the NFSI. And if you want to layer that, and that's all we talk about, you can layer it and you want to say okay, this is our program that we actually do readings, we have our own reader or we work with a distributor that comes in there. And on a regular basis takes reading a floor finish when we apply it. And then on a day come and check randomly different floors for our claim to verify that our product procedures frequencies etc, are not leaving dust that could affect attraction, or that the solution we're using that neutral floor cleaner, that may not be much more than a dye fragrance and water that is actually leaving residue, or it's not taking the soils off, which leaves it slippery. So it is something that is a concern. And if you manage it, you could reduce the potential risk of getting sued because trust me, I was with one chemical manufacturer. And in 20, 30 years, they're not once where we're even named in a lawsuit. Because all they're finished and sealers were certified to UL and we had the proper documentation. So as a manufacturer saying that we've done our part, and the facility does their part, here's all the things we're doing as part of a due diligence. It could lower that. Now what's happening in Canada, United States that's where the lawyers suing. So if you go to one facility and says “Listen, we had a slip and trip. We're representing Mike Sawchuk”, they said, that's fine. We'll give you all our documentation. Here's all the products that meets with go efficiency. Here's all our cleaners that meet the NFSI certification. Here's our documentation on the incident. Here's our documentation we actually do conduct, slip assessments on an annual basis, blah, blah, blah, you're going to find that the lawyer says “Okay, thank you very much, we're not going to go down that road, it's just not worth their fight” and especially when levels manufacturer will provide an expert witness.

Jerry: What percentage out there have this rating, the UL rating and stuff like that? Do they all have it now or is only 30% do it?

Mike Sawchuk: No, now the exact percentage I would have, like that mainframe I worked for we had UL, and again, they would certify the product, they would actually come into the facility unannounced and verify that, then what you got certified originally is what you're actually putting into those jugs. But the product had the big red UL on it certified get me slipped cool efficiency. Same thing with NFSI, I believe they've got literally hundreds of products, hundreds of manufacturers, so they are fairly abundant on in that regard. But the exact percentage, I wouldn't be able to tell you, Jerry, but it's just one of those things to say, it's always that layering, it just an added protection. So if you'd have it great, because now you've got so else with their support, if you don't have it all the more reason why you should be conducting a snip chip assessment on a regular basis and properly training because that documentation could become imperative. And then if you still don't have it, there's great meters. And again, Ross with his organization could recommend the proper meter, that a good distribution partner that's providing value service or you visit facilities large enough, they're easy to use and it does provide documentation. So it's recognized by the court of law, it's easy to get that reading. And you can say, okay, there's our schedule for whenever we strip and recode or put new finish down. And here's what the process, we've walked through the facility and take these, it is relatively simple and not that inexpensive. So all of a sudden, if you're this massive retailer that's paying millions of dollars a year for slips, trips and falls, there may be a better way to mitigate that. And moving forward, I do believe that you're going to see more of this coming in the future. Restaurants, when you play a lot of party, you're probably going to see more people saying, “Listen, it's easy money will sue them for food poisoning, and we'll sue them now for slips, trips and falls”. I may not become a millionaire, but it's just going to be something that's out there. So I think the litigation is going to increase for slips, trips and falls. And I think it's also going to increase for food poisoning in restaurant establishments. And doesn't mean it’s right, it's just going to happen. And I think down the road, I really do believe that you're gonna see an increase in people suing facilities and say, “Listen, my child or my parent that have put his long term care home has contracted this disease or this hospital acquired illnesses, why is that?” Let's have a class action lawsuit for hospital acquired illnesses. Let's have for how you handle the situation at that school, because you should have known because you're the expert. So you can't say I didn't know. And you should have done something more. So I do believe that the third level will be class action lawsuits for people that is saying that you did not provide the level of clean, safe, healthy that should be expected of a facility like yours.

Jerry: In a much simpler way, because I try to break it down in simple, it's like a miniature insurance policy. Because the first thing an attorney, the first thing they're going to ask on a phone call, or a visit is what do you have in place currently? Well, we do have a program, we have been trained, we do have a product that's listed, rather than I'm not sure who we use. And we've never been trained how to use the product and stuff like that. It's a miniature insurance policy, and it's a great way to go. Now, next thing in your article, you talk about Indoor Air Quality. Again, something that is coming to the forefront more each day. Can you tell us a little bit more of the things that you see going on in this industry to have cleaner air to work in? 

Mike Sawchuk: Like the other one slips, trips and falls or before that the illness especially in health care, we haven't done a great job, or the association's and regulatory bodies should protect us, they could have done a better job and protecting us and all those levels. Recently, and I just seen the last three months, you get more and more press about clean air and adds great and it should be so. Because for a couple reasons why is it so important? And why haven't been focusing on it? When you think of it the amount of time that we spend indoors, 90% for some people, or more or greater, so we shouldn't be spending time because we're indoors and what are we doing? We all have to breathe. So the fact of the matter is that Indoor Air Quality is the time. The second thing is more and more data and information showing that the vast majority of people are at greatest risk because of the air, not because of the surfaces touching surfaces and not because of subsurface what could be coming from brains, etc; it's the air we breathe. And it could be something as simple as a particulate matter, you know, something less than 2.5 microns in studies have shown now that it could actually, it's not going to be caused by the typical filter. It could be absorbed into a person's skin. You look at VOCs. And, so it may be some friendly or non-harmful VOCs. But what impact do those VOCs have when they oxidize with other components in that indoor air environment? So that's a secondary. The amount that we spend inside and the amount of information out there that more people are being affected by it. The third is the lack of standards, and where there's no clarity, there's not one national standard on what filtration or indoor air quality should be, and that's a problem. And then when there aren't, they're all focusing on minimum. With all due respect, I don't care about the other place, they can have a minimum. But if it's gonna be my loved ones, if it's gonna be my children in school, if it’s gonna be my elderly parents, and that long-term care, I don't want the word minimum Indoor Air Quality, I want optimal Indoor Air Quality. So those are probably the three reasons why I think is growing in importance. And I predict it's going to continue growing in importance. And part of that's going to be influenced by what I've been saying is the upcoming fourth industrial revolution. So we all studied history. And now's the time that we are moving from the current industrial revolution, or service and economics focus, to this fourth industrial revolution that's going to be created by this convergence of what you and I are seeing and grandkids are going to take for granted is, first of all, Big Data. There's so much information out there, but how do you deal with it, but that's going to be a convergence of all this data coming together. Then it's going to be 5G capacity, where you're going to be increased the volume and the speed of that Big Data being moved around. And thirdly is technology like the Internet of Things and, Artificial Learning and Augmented Learning, Machine Learning, they're going to be able to use that data and make decisions a lot quicker. And then the last thing is Blockchain technology, there's going to enable it because it's not going to be your data, my data is going to be out there in more secured, that we're able to share and access data, and not share those things coming together, it's going to change his whole focus, I really believe into customer centricity and customer experience. So now all of a sudden, that facility could be AAA building, it could be a College, School, they're gonna say, how do we increase occupancy or that restaurant to increase occupancy? People are gonna say, “I want to come in. And I think one thing I'm gonna be looking for is data”. So again, I want to see the scores of that building on a level of cleanliness. I want to see a real dashboard that measures things like Indoor Air Quality because it's so easy to do. You have some sensors on there; here is our particulate matter. Here's a sensor on our VOCs and co2, which is an indication of the quality of indoor air. What is filtration? What is ventilation? Here's our data on humidity is shown as between 40 and 60. And you're seeing it all being tracked, and hopefully, you see spikes of improvement is when again, like we said, on the others, your clean assessment, you're measuring, you're tracking, you’re reporting, and somebody's analyzing that data and saying, “What can we do to improve?” So we don't like this level of particulate matter, let's change the level of filtration up we did that, and particulate matter improved. Oh, we had a problem with the co2 and VOCs; how do we improve their ventilation somehow, and we should show those improvements? So the FM people and the leaders of cleaning operations are going to be driven, they're gonna be forced to be driven by customers and experiences because otherwise, they're just going to lose those, the feet will do the walking, they're not going to come to that AAA building, they won't come to that school, they're gonna say, “No, I want to go to this school, where I see that data, evidence-based data on the air, on the surfaces and a sub surfaces”. Because at the end of the day, I have a choice as a consumer. And you have a choice with this convergence of all this fourth industrial revolution. So if you don't want to provide that's okay, Mr. Facility, I'm going to go to this other facility that does show and report in real-time, the level of clean in all surfaces as well as air, and then I also throw into sub-surfaces, but as part of the cleaning.

Jerry: I appreciate the time you've given us. Will you tell us a little bit about your consulting firm? What all you do at the end of the show put your contact information? What's the best way people listening today could get a hold of you?

Mike Sawchuk: Well, my website is probably very informative. So it's just www.sawchukconsulting.com. And my consulting is really focused on two separate areas. I am fairly unique because I did spend time working with manufacturers, I spent time with distribution, and I spent time with service providers over my 30 years. So I have a unique journey. And from that unique journey, I'm able to bring greater Industry Insights and skills, and experiences, so I provide consulting services to all three to service operations in-house and BSCs to manufacturers as well as to distribution as typical the consulting, where I'm leaning towards now. As I'm developing, I lean towards providing an online training education course of nine weeks that eventually, right now it's one on one zoom meetings, but eventually will be online. So 24/7, they can get a lesson, they listen, they learn, then they would be given an assessment sheet to apply what they learn. So it's their operation. So it could be a BSC or in-house; they learn, they walk around, they look under the hood, and they check over 140 different considerations will be given to them over that time. And at the end, they'll now have all those considerations these are we're doing well, we're doing not so well doesn't even exist. And then, based on their situation, resources, and objectives, they would set their own priorities. And then the next part of that would be able to provide a system to do an improvement plan to drive sustainable change to improve effectiveness, efficiency, productivity efficiency. So that's really consulting on one leg and then working towards getting this education program up and running, that people are going to be able to view whenever they want the lesson, apply whenever they want, and then be part of a coaching call. And the coaching call is not just me, because if it's a group, it's masterminded. And that's one thing, I got two sessions running now. And they're finding a lot of the benefit is by having the opportunity to share with others. And that's sometimes what happens with the assessments, Jerry, is that people say that way we've done for the last 30 years, it was good enough, that it's got to be good enough now, or you know what I'm comparing it to my other like a competitor. So the other BSC down the road or the other School in my district or the other College that were part of while you're not going to really drive significant change if you're comparing yourself to like others. So this way, you're saying in this one group, we have someone with a major facility. And we have someone from what has three contract cleaning companies, and one does health care and one home over 10,000 square feet. But then, as facility personnel, I just had three groups every night, 80,000 people coming to the facility that we then, after they leave have to clean up roughly 40 tons of garbage and then clean the facilities, the roads, and parking lots, etc. And it's because we don't know how you do it because it's peaks and valleys. The other one said, I don't know how you have that routine stuff, but they learn from each other. And I think that the key is if you want to drive and be achieved because not everybody too many people are complacent and apathetic. It's good enough. I'm getting by is there. But there are enough leaders out there. There are enough people that are passionate that they want to be the best of the best. And they want the best of the best in-house or BSC operation, that they're saying, even if I learned five new things, I know I'm probably doing 135 things right. But if I learned five new things, I could drive that higher level of consistency in clean, healthy, and safe. And that's really now where my passion is going to get that up and running and hopefully have enough people also agree with me that they find value in the course.

Jerry: Well, Mike, it's been a pleasure, as always I enjoy talking to you are the different times were asking, and I love reading your articles as well. And I believe you have another article coming out in a future ISSA magazine, am I correct?

Mike Sawchuk: Yes, it's a continuation of this one clean assessment is taking it to that next level. And we're going to drill down into more of what we talked about and say, what's airborne? Gravity says, “What is pulling it down? Where's it pull it down to services? So how can we do a better job?” So it's going to review probably some of the ATP is a great resource, but it does have pitfalls. What exactly are those pitfalls, and get into a little bit more detail on fluorescent imaging technology that's different than ATP? Again, ATP is greater; we're not just saying that we need to be always looking for improvement. So in today's world, some don't even do any validation of the cleaning results. If you don't, you've got different opportunities for different budgets and different objectives, and different resources available. So that's one. And the other one I'm doing will occur later on in CNN magazine. It says the custodial closet, the window into your cleaning operation, and many leaders get it. Unfortunately, a lot of leaders don't get it. And as you know, Jerry, you've been around since dirt was invented like me, that if you just could walk into a custodial closet, and it will be a window into so many different aspects of that cleaning operation, organization level of cleanliness, purchasing habits, what they're buying, etc. So that's going to be probably more of a fun article. And I hope, and I'm blessed so far, that this ISSA, as well as CNN, have allowed me to contribute to their publications to the media, and hopefully, their readers are enjoying it as much as you are enjoying it.

Jerry: Well. I'm looking forward to it. Mike, again, I thank you. I appreciate all of this. You have a great day and let's stay in touch.

Mike Sawchuk: Thanks, Jerry, you take care.