It’s That Time Again – Budget Season.

 

The best way to stretch your floor care and maintenance budget is to plan ahead.

In fact, it’s recommended that you start creating a budget for any given year at least 10 months in advance. That way, you can anticipate floor care and maintenance operations costs ahead of time.

Here are five floor care and maintenance budget planning tips that you should start implementing today.

1. Look at past financial records

The past is one of the best indicators of the future. Look at your past financial records to see what floor care services have historically cost your organization.

Notice if there were any odd fluctuations in price, including sharp increases or decreases. This may indicate either that you’re paying for services you don’t want (or need) or that you may be missing out on services you do need.

But if the price of services has stayed the same or gradually increased little by little over time (due to inflation, add-ons you requested and so on), you’ll have a good idea of what the price will be in the coming year. Remember, you can always contact your trusted floor care service provider for an estimate of costs for the next cycle.

2. Assess the current condition of floors

Look at the current condition of all floors and carpeting — and note how much you’re spending on each category of maintenance: regular, scheduled, reactive and preventative.

See if there are any events occurring with some regularity that you can plan for ahead of time next year. For example, maybe there is a floor or carpet in high-traffic area that needs to be serviced every month instead of every quarter. You can plan to have it serviced before it starts to deteriorate and damage the integrity of the floor or carpet.

3. Ask your team members 

A busy property manager can’t take on all aspects of facility maintenance, especially when it comes to budgeting. That’s why it’s important you ask your team members — the building engineers — for their valuable insight into the condition and appearance of your facility’s floors and carpeting.

Ask the engineers and maintenance personnel for recommendations on what particular things in their buildings should be prioritized in the floor maintenance budget. After all, these engineers visit your properties often. They can spot issues before they become big problems.

4. Shift your mindset from operations to strategy 

Instead of focusing only on the operations you’ll need to include in your floor care and maintenance budget, take a step back and look at your overall strategy.

Are you spending a lot of money on reactive maintenance, instead of investing more in preventative maintenance programs? Look for areas in which you may be able to decrease your spending by adjusting your overall strategy, utilizing the 80/20 Rule!

5. Use tactical organization 

To improve the appearance of your facility’s floors, adopt a predictive maintenance strategy. Identify short-term tactical plans — including prioritizing annual floor care projects — so you’ll be better prepared to budget for them.

Some things to consider: floor maintenance schedules, types of floor finishes and methods of cleaning — and a quick return to service for clients’ convenience.

Work with me one-on-one

If you’d like to work directly with me to set up an annual Maintenance of Asset Preservation (MAP) Program for your floors, just reply by clicking here and put “One-on-One” in the subject line. Tell me a little about your goals and what you’d like to work on together, and I’ll get you all the details…