November 29, 2023
The most challenging part for every house, office, or commercial place is keeping it neat and spotless throughout the day. It’s also a prerequisite to keep your place gleamingly clean and inviting to the guests and clients.
Thankfully, day porters are there to make your place clean and welcoming by taking care of all essential cleaning duties in a day. Be it inside the building or outside the premises, a day porter performs all his duties by collaborating with the owner of the building and its night cleaning staff.
Often, the day porters are referred to as the unrecognized keepers of properties, especially commercial ones. So, what do they do, or what do day porter services encompass? Let’s find out everything in detail in this comprehensive blog.
office or commercial building to assist with daily maintenance tasks, especially cleaning. They do a wide range of duties as demanded by the facility manager to keep it neat through and out.
Usually, a day porter works in collaboration with the night care staff and facility manager. A commercial facility needs to hire day porter services for continued (or 24x7) cleaning, which is vital for a fully functional commercial facility.
The services of a day porter include but are not limited to the following tasks:
Day porters offer their services to a wide array of commercial places, including offices, retail outlets, supermarkets, hospitals, schools, gyms, and so on. As experienced cleaners, they provide a comprehensive set of services to make a facility cleaner and safer for the convenience of employees and visitors.
The coming section explains in detail the day porter services that ensure the cleanliness and upkeep of a facility.
A day porter works to first tidy up the common areas, entrances, reception areas, waiting rooms, workspaces, cafeteria or kitchen, and restrooms of a facility. This, of course, involves sweeping and mopping floors in these areas.
In the case of the restrooms and kitchen, the day porter might need a scrubber to wipe the floors to cast off stubborn stains and dirt. If any areas have hardwood floors, they clean them every few days or once a week cleaning with special cleaners to prevent discoloring and damaging their characteristic surface.
Also, there are carpets laid in most areas of a commercial place. The day porter's duties thus involve vacuuming carpets once or twice a week or daily if it is a very high-traffic area to ensure they are dirt-free and non-stinky.
Dusting and cleaning the furniture of these above-mentioned areas is the second of all primary duties. It entails everything, from chairs, tables, sofas, coffee tables, reception desks, lobby chairs, lampstands, television stands, work desks, shelves, and every fixture like lockers, wall cabinets, etc.
Entrance or lobby maintenance is the next vital part of a day porter’s services. Apart from cleaning the floors, they must ensure the places are organized, and free of unwanted stuff, or litter anywhere. These areas of a commercial facility see guests or clients every day.
So, it becomes the duty of a day porter to ensure these places look the best all the time.
One of the significant day porter duties is cleaning the washrooms or restrooms. They remove trash, clean and sanitize floors, wash the sinks and toilet seats, scrub tiles to remove grouts and stains, and sanitize everything to prevent contamination or infections. The day porter also restocks the essential supplies in the restrooms, which include soap, toilet paper, and so on.
Emptying trash bins and replacing the trash liners is the last of all primary cleaning duties that day porters do.
The safety of employees and visitors to a commercial place is one of the prime day porter's responsibilities. They use industrially approved and effective disinfectants or sanitizers to clean high-touch areas, including switches, doorknobs, desk surfaces, elevator buttons, window handles, staircase railings, and chair arms. It is touched frequently by many people, which makes them the hotspots for germs and bacteria.
They wipe or spray it over anything that is commonly touched and has a higher chance of spreading diseases or infections. It is a crucial duty necessary for the upkeep of a commercial facility and ensuring the safety of employees and visitors throughout the day.
While the goal behind disinfecting is to maintain the hygiene of the place, day porters usually disinfect a place more or less frequently, depending on its risk of exposure to pathogens. They determine the frequency of disinfecting depending on traffic, the nature of activity at the facility, and if the area comes under any specific cleaning protocols.
Related: Understand the difference between sanitize and disinfect.
Disinfecting surfaces and commonly touched areas has become a mandatory cleaning routine in commercial places after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic! The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or simply, CDC updated guidelines regarding the disinfection of high-touch areas and high-traffic places in commercial environments.
They even recommended sanitizing some surfaces more than once a day, such as handrails, elevator switches, door handles, and table or counter surfaces. Hiring a day porter will ensure meeting the CDC guidelines regarding the disinfection of your facility.
Your facility needs a vigilant cleaning staff who will immediately respond to accidental spills, dropping of food particles, or any mishaps at the workspace that make the floors dirtier.
It is necessary to maintain your commercial place in a posh clean condition throughout the day to leave the best impression on clients and visitors. You can imagine when someone comes to do business with you but has to walk through a stinking spilling mess in the lobby, which was created in the earlier part of the day. Without a day porter, who would address the spilled mess and clean it?
Another instance is when your facility needs emergency electrical repair works or drilling for some fixating something on the wall. The workers will head off after repairing or fixing the stuff but, leave a layer of dirt and debris on the floors, creating a clutter on the otherwise tidy place.
Hiring day porter services will make sure any accidental cleaning needs are handled immediately, whether it’s a sudden liquid spill or repair work. Having a dedicated day porter to instantly blot out a juice or coffee spill and mop the surface is also necessary to prevent anyone from tripping off or falling hazards.
The day porter's duties also include many technical responsibilities of a facility, which makes their role integral for any business space that uses machinery, computers, tech devices, or costly equipment. These are capital assets of a business that need strict vigilance along with regular cleaning and maintenance.
This role of the day porter ensures the assets stay in their best condition, perform efficiently, and have a greater active life span. They make a quick tour of the rooms where the devices are kept to check whether they are operational and clean and whether their exterior parts are working well, including lights, indicators, and buttons.
They also check the connections, external wiring, and plug points are fine and possess no risks of operational failure or accidents.
Even though a day porter will lack the adequate technical skill to conduct repairs on the devices or machinery, they can identify any issues or repair needs in them.
Apart from the routine checking and maintenance services of technical devices, day porter services are also necessary when the commercial facility has an event coming up. They will check the devices and assemble lights, projectors, and extra wires for connection to make your facility fully prepped for the event.
Day porter responsibilities aren’t confined to cleaning tasks but include all those tasks needed for the proper and uninterrupted functioning of a facility. A porter adapts to the daily activities and schedules of a commercial facility. It enables them to respond quickly to situations or emergencies.
For instance, there was snowfall last night, which means the day porter will first carve or clean out the snow from entryways and parking spaces.
Bursting of water pipes, faulty taps, nonfunctional kitchen appliances, gas leakage, roof leaks, tank overflow, trespassing, thefts, etc., are other such instances where a day porter responds immediately and takes control of the situation.
Even if controlling the situation requires expertise or professional hands, a day porter can just take temporary protection and prevention steps to stop the situation from aggravating further. For instance, a pipe burst needs the water flow to stop immediately by turning off the stopcock or blocking the outlet.
Most important of all, the day porter will instantly inform the facility manager or concerned department and report the issue.
A day porter also contributes to the safety and security of a commercial facility, which gives peace of mind to the manager, facility owner, and employees. The porter’s duty hours start much earlier than the business hours. They conduct a walkthrough of the entire facility to check whether everything, including technology devices, machinery, furniture, decor, and expensive stuff is in place.
The porters will especially check all the sidetracks and entrances to ensure there is no trespassing or infringement on the premises of your facility. During the duty hours in the day, they check and control instances like forced entry of an unauthorized person. The porter also reports any issues related to broken windows, unwanted graffiti or posters, and vandalism at the commercial facility to the owner or manager.
Putting it simply, the day porter services include enforcement of basic security services to ensure uninterrupted business hours.
To fulfill the above duties, day porters must have the essential skillsets and qualities. While they gather skills and expertise over time with experience, these are some must-have qualities you should look for while hiring.
The ability to provide timely services is the greatest parameter of a successful day porter. Anyone can clean a place but doing it at the right time sums up a day porter’s duty. The need to get the facility fully clean and hygienic before the business starts its full operations or the employees/clients start pouring in.
Besides, a day porter has a whole list of tasks to do the entire day! Juggling between them and managing to complete them is challenging. This makes time management a foremost important quality of a day porter. It helps them to do their day-to-day efficiently and on time without causing stress.
A day porter needs brilliant communication skills to deliver their duties! Whether, it’s about responding to emergency issues, reporting to the facility manager, or collaborating with the night cleaning staff, communication is the essential skill they need.
Also, they need to communicate with employees, clients, visitors, co-workers, managers, and other staff on duty. All in all, good communication is a demanding quality of a day porter!
It helps them deliver various cleaning tasks while assuring excellent reception of guests, client service, and handling situations of crises.
Hiring a day porter with organization skills is also crucial because it ensures that they keep track of essential cleaning supplies, restock and organize them, and also follow a proper cleaning schedule.
Also, organization skills are essential to ensure they keep back at their exact place after cleaning racks or shelves in store shelves, warehouses, etc.
The day porter also should have abilities to detect security issues or safety failures at the facility at the earliest. They take a walkthrough of the facility regularly and inspect all devices, electrical fittings, wiring and network connections, tanks, and pipes for safety assurance.
Along with identifying any potential safety hazard, the day porter must have the training to make contingency plans and report the incident immediately to a concerned department.
We all know the benefits of a clean workspace or business space. Hiring day porter services is therefore mandatory for the cleanliness and maintenance of the workspace. While it improves your business image, it also helps the staff to be productive.
Want to how? Well, learn about these assured benefits of a day porter's services to realize why it’s imperative for your commercial facility.
Having day porter services for your facility is quite like having an extra team of staff for cleaning. Your dedicated cleaning personnel are available at one time of day, usually before or after business hours.
What about the dirt or litter that accumulates faster in high-traffic areas like restrooms, break rooms, and floors? Keeping these spots as it is for the whole day will make them unhygienic and unfit for use.
And, cleaning of entire mess later will add to the tasks of the night personnel.
Day porter cleans up common or high-traffic areas continuously so that excessive mess is not created.
To prevent the spread of infections or illnesses, disinfecting the surfaces and high-touch points of the commercial facility frequently is the need of the hour. But, who is going to ensure that everything is disinfected?
The day porter's duties comprise disinfecting the surfaces and areas touched by employees, visitors, staff, and others in the office. They keep on sanitizing door handles, elevator buttons, staircase railings, desks and tables surfaces, etc., throughout the work hours. In other words, they provide an added layer of protection against the spread of viruses in busy workplaces.
This is an immeasurable benefit of hiring day porter services! Having a specific day cleaner on-site reassures the facility manager about the efficient handling of cleaning needs in an emergency.
The facility managers also find it relieving that the health and safety of every employee are taken care of by maintaining a pristine clean, and hygienic work environment.
Unlike the usual cleaning staff, the day porter cleaning staff has an eye for detailing and is keen on making every corner and surface shiny and clean. They are a valuable extension of your core cleaning team and cater to all cleaning needs excellently during business hours and before the evening cleaning staff arrive.
Also, they have the training and expertise to handle minor repair works or respond to crises at the workspaces to prevent disruption of business hours!
You can eliminate all types of safety and security hazards by hiring day porter services. Whether the climate leaves the floors at the entrance snow-covered or slippery or there’s an unfortunate forced break-in last night, a day porter immediately addresses this when they come on duty.
More importantly, their day starts by taking a tour of the facility to ensure everything, from devices and equipment to furniture and safe locks, everything is in fine condition.
All in all, a day porter takes care of miscellaneous cleaning duties along with keeping a close tab on the security features and expensive assets of the building.
While hiring day porter services, you will come across several service providers that offer the same. But, how to know who is the best for your facility? To find a day porter who will take the best care of your commercial facility, assess the following facts.
Of course, you want your commercial facility to be in the hands of trained cleaning staff. The hired service provider must equip their day porters with the right skillsets to handle different cleaning duties. They must make them capable of cleaning technology devices or equipment, doing emergency repairs, and addressing the regular safety needs of your work facility.
Experience is the key to excellence in services and it applies to every field, including day porter cleaning. Experienced day porters will assure you of higher-quality services. Thus, look for a day porter provider that has been in the cleaning business for years and can provide you with unmatched services.
Seek referrals from other commercial facilities nearby or friends who own a business. They can suggest a service provider with a strong training ground and proven track record.
The service provider must be able to provide you with a day porter or porters when you need them i.e., exact during your business hours. Also, what about extra hourly needs? If your dedicated night cleaning staff is on leave, are they going to send your additional staff to step in?
Can they offer any interim day porter for extra cleaning work before special events or client meetings? Check all these availabilities with your service provider.
Partner with the most professional service provider that will also provide you with all the essential supplies and cleaning equipment.
More preferably, they should use green supplies i.e., eco-friendly cleaning agents ensure no toxic fumes or residues are left after cleaning. They should know about the cleaning standards and protocols and use only industry-approved or EPA-approved cleaners and disinfectants.
Make sure your hired day porter service provider is professional enough to handle timely reporting, daily attendance, and payroll of the porters. It means they should ensure that your day porter shows up on time every day and is not negligent or dishonest.
Also, they must inform you about sick leaves or reasons for the absence of a day porter and arrange an alternative porter who will cater to your daily duties.
Also, don’t forget to enquire about ancillary services. You may need your porter to perform some additional duties sometime, such as cleaning windows, carpet steam cleaning, power-washing, polishing the railings, and trimming the garden outside.
It’s better to check in advance whether they will be able to do these extra tasks when your designated cleaning staffs are not available for a day to do these tasks.
A day porter gets paid at least 10% to 20% more than a daily janitor per hour service. If you are looking forward to hiring day porter services, you might think it will be expensive on your daily budget.
However, that’s not the case always! The hourly wage rate or price of day porter services in the USA varies on several factors. The most significant ones are the location, size of your facility, and duration of your services. Learn here how to optimize your day porter service cost.
The farther your commercial facility is, the greater the cost of hiring day porter services. If it is situated far away, the day porters have to travel a lot to reach your facility, which will need extra time and expense.
Needless to say, hire day porter services by finding a local professional cleaning company in NYC to keep your costs lower.
This goes without saying that the larger the size of your commercial facility, the more a day porter is going to charge for the services.
In general, they set the price of their services based on the square footage they have to serve. Thus, you can have a rough estimation of day porter services. However, if you want to optimize the cost of your day porter services, consider negotiating the terms. Decide the core areas and high-traffic spots that have to be cleaned regularly and the cleaning tasks that can be addressed by them.
Lastly, you can optimize the costs by altering the frequency of your day porter services. Decide whether you need a porter regularly or a few days of the week.
You can schedule your day porter services on alternative days or days when the dedicated cleaning staffs aren’t coming. In case, your commercial facility has too many rooms, decide the frequency of cleaning of rooms as per their traffic or uses. For instance, ask your day porter to clean the storerooms and sick rooms once or twice a week.
While both a day porter and a janitor are responsible for delivering essential cleaning duties, there are prominent differences between their services. Here’s summing up the key differences for you.
For an in-depth comparison, you can explore our detailed guide on 'day porter vs janitor'.
So, whom to choose for cleaning your facility?
Choosing between the day porter services and janitorial services won’t be tough if you are clear about your cleaning needs.
Hiring day porter services is the apt decision for your business facility when you are concerned about on-spot cleanliness for the safety and health of your employees. Given this, day porters are a must if your business space is densely populated with more employees and frequent visitors.
Choose janitorial services if you are concerned about maintaining the overall cleaning of your facility making every corner pristine clean for a professional appearance. Of course, you can afford this decision only if your facility is small-sized with low or moderate traffic.
A day porter is responsible for keeping your business space clean during regular operating hours. They are competent at handling an array of basic cleaning tasks, including floors, bathrooms, workspaces, and kitchens. They also restock the essential supplies in the kitchens and bathrooms.
They pay attention to the facility security and check every corner and room before starting and closing their duty hours.
In a nutshell, day porters keep a commercial facility supremely clean and beautiful looking – which is essential to make a business space look professional!
Even if you have daily cleaning professionals who tidy up your facility during the night or early morning, there are times when cafeteria tables look gross, or washroom bins get stacked with piles of trash.
To meet these small to large on-demand needs, day porter services are pretty much a necessity. They make sure your professional space, looks top-notch clean, and is a safe working space, to leave the desired first-rate impression on every client or visitor.
To get efficient and trusted day porter services in NYC, look no further than Sterling Cleaning Services! We are a team of competent cleaning specialists serving commercial facilities of all types, such as retail stores, office buildings, hotels, hospitals, schools, and gyms.
To get reliable day porter services for maintaining a sparkling clean and hygienic business facility, get in touch today!
Please reach us at any time to set up an appointment to review your commercial cleaning requirements. Sterling will provide an on-site review of your janitorial needs, then create a custom proposal that fits both your specifications and budget
ADDRESS
303 5th Avenue, New York, NY 10016
EMAIL US
LET'S TALK
Phone: 212-803-3328
Office Hours
Mon to Sat - 9 AM to 6 PM
