Mobile Forms Reduce Headaches, Streamline Processes for Janitorial Contractors

Ditch the pen and paper, and modernize how you operate.

If you work in the janitorial industry, you know how time consuming it is to report incidents, manage tasks and conduct quality inspections. And, if your business is large enough, it’s even more of a burden to handle hundreds of sites and thousands of zones that need to be cleaned and assessed on a regular basis.

Think about how many hours you invest in these processes every month. Now, think about how much time you could save by optimizing these processes with technology.

What’s wrong with the status quo?

The traditional method of handling incidents and inspections is with pen and paper. Even with today’s technology at everyone’s fingertips, it’s surprising how many modern janitorial contractors are still using this method. Here are the key problems with using pen and paper to handle important business processes:

  • Inefficient: It takes time to write down details, transfer to a system of record, trigger workflows and retrieve the data.
  • Inaccurate: Important details like location and time can be manipulated and errors are commonplace.
  • Insufficient detail: Pen and paper only allow for data in written format. What if we want to capture a photo? After all, a picture is worth a thousand words.
  • Increased costs: While it might seem like the inexpensive choice, pen and paper often results in hidden costs. Printing forms, transcribing written information, clarifying details and producing manual reports all add up in hard costs and staff time.

Using pen and paper has a negative impact on your entire operations. Departments need to be in sync to maintain proactive and effective operations. How will everyone else know about the incident or slip and fall that occurred when it’s written down on a piece of paper?

When you finally notify relevant departments, pen and paper processes trigger a waterfall of time-consuming and manual follow up:

  • What’s the status of the issue now?
  • Were the correct people notified of the issue?
  • Does it take priority over another issue or business as usual activity?
  • Did we collect enough information about the issue to protect us from litigation?
  • The client is asking for details, where are they? Are they correct?

What’s the optimal solution to replace pen and paper?

The best solution is mobile forms, available to workers via an app, that automate data access, collection and delivery. Mobile forms are the fastest path to reducing headaches and costs across your sites.

Here are some of the key benefits of using mobile forms:

  • Unification: When the same forms, inputs and outputs are used across your entire organization, your data integrity is significantly improved.
  • Automation: You can automate forms to trigger at the right time and place. And, automated workflows and alerts can be triggered after a form is submitted.
  • Efficiency: Written details like date, time and cleaner can be automated. Smart form structures can reduce the time it takes to capture details, and there’s no need to transcribe data into another system.
  • Rich data: Capture extra details like photos and location.
  • Accessibility: Forms are accessible by all cleaners. Necessary reports are accessible by supervisors and customers.

When you find a solution like Lighthouse.io to automate your mobile forms, you’re on your way to optimizing your entire workforce across your sites.

TEAM Software recently acquired Lighthouse, a mobile workforce management platform for service contractors with field-based teams. Lighthouse adds time- and money-saving capabilities that complement TEAM’s existing financial, operations and workforce management solutions to help view, manage and automate operations in the field. These capabilities include compliance tools, incident reporting and loop monitoring.