For those who don’t know, a day hiring porter service is a business that provides “porters” or staff that are responsible for ensuring your facility is clean and presentable to anyone and everyone that works, lives in, or visits your facility during business hours. They’re a little different than common janitorial services and facility maintenance services for a few different reasons.
Most people outsource their needs to multiple providers who operate before and/or after business hours. What day porter services often offer includes basic cleaning, general maintenance, trash removal, bathroom maintenance, front lobby support, and more. They’re broad and non-exclusive, and exist specifically to provide their services during business hours versus after. If this sounds useful to you, here are the key factors to consider when hiring day porter services:
The Scope of Services Offered
A key factor to consider is the scope of services every day porter service offers. Day porter services should be like a jack-of-all-trades daytime team for your facility, so the greater the scope, the better. Also, pay attention to whether or not each candidate is open to seeing if they can expand their services to meet your needs.
The Cost(s)
The cost of services is always an important factor to consider when hiring any professional services provider, but something especially important when hiring day porter services. First, you want to create a budget range. Then research and shop around for a few different providers. Be careful for providers that quote too low, especially if the quote includes a wide scope of services – this can be a red flag!
Client Reviews
A standard consideration when hiring day porter services is to read through each company’s online reviews. Don’t read too much into the good reviews, and don’t ignore the bad ones. Also, it wouldn’t hurt to search each company on the Better Business Bureau’s website.
Security
Depending on the nature of your work and what goes on within the confines of your facility, you may need to ask the day porter service providers you’ve narrowed your search to whether or not they conduct background checks when hiring porter staff. The same could be said for staff contracted to provide services before or after business hours, but hiring a porter service during business hours presents serious liability issues. You need to know whether or not one of your day porter service candidates employs any staff with criminal history, and if they do, reconsider the risks to your company’s property and human capital.
Compliance
Depending on the city and state your facility is located in, a day porter service provider will be subject to certain laws and regulations. This means that, to be in compliance and operate legally, most day porter service providers will need to have certain licenses, a minimum insurance policy, and it wouldn’t hurt if they were bonded. When you reach out to day porter service providers, don’t forget to ask about these things.
