High-traffic spaces present an ever-evolving array of challenges for janitorial services and business owners alike. Whether it’s bathrooms, lobbies, or hallways, the constant pressure can lead to anything from safety violations to illness outbreaks. Here, we’ll look at not just how these obstacles manifest, but also the strategies you can implement to mitigate them. 

Why Are High-Traffic Spaces So Difficult to Manage? 

There are a few unique challenges that high-traffic spaces present: 

• Cleaning schedules: Every step brings not just pressure to your floors, but harmful substances like dirt and allergens. Cleaning staff face a challenge: These areas often require immediate attention when it’s realistically impossible to slow down or halt foot traffic. 

• Brand aesthetics: Spills, streaks, and stains may not be hazardous, but they can compromise your brand aesthetics. When your common areas (including windows) can be marred by anything from cola to mud to fingerprints, the cleaning staff has to be ready with different products and techniques to restore the area. 

• Hazards: The two biggest hazards for high-traffic areas are germs and moisture. The average shoe has 421,000 units of bacteria on it, and the average transfer rate from bottom of shoe to clean tiles is up to 99%. Slip-and-falls and illness outbreaks can not only land a business in legal trouble, but the long-term fallouts can ruin people’s lives. 

• Staffing: In addition to standard staff turnover, high-traffic areas may also be restricted areas (e.g., the lobby of a courthouse). If these are restricted areas and you have third-party contract cleaners, it may be a compliance violation for them to venture into certain spots. 

How to Manage Your High-Traffic Areas 

Addressing your high-traffic areas starts with understanding the relationship between cleaning and traffic. Every time you need to clean, whether it’s to wipe down a door handle or mop an emergency spill, you’ll need to disrupt flow (and potentially hurt revenue). Here are a few strategies to get started. 

Modern technology 

Whether you retrofit your hallways with anti-slip materials or purchase a robotic vacuum, there are ways to make your high-traffic areas more resilient to wear and tear. When you can’t shut down hallways every half hour on the hour, look for modern, sustainable equipment that can improve safety and reduce damage. For example, an automatic floor scrubber will scrub stains, rinse, and vacuum as it goes, ensuring that floors are dry whenever traffic gets going again. 

Predictive maintenance scheduling 

Predictive maintenance scheduling can keep your cleaning equipment up and running during even your heaviest traffic periods (e.g., the holiday season). Tracking each piece of machinery can go a long way to avoiding breakdowns and potentially give you a stronger return on investment. For example, scheduling yearly inspections with the same servicing company. 

As you track your equipment, you may also notice patterns and trends that can help you alter your cleaning schedules, especially if your cleaning staff is running into multiple conflicts when they’re trying to get the job done. 

Staff training 

Better staff protocols and training can go a long way in managing high-traffic spaces_, though it’s really important for these conversations to go both ways. Skill development and education play a huge role in reducing hazards, even when it’s impossible to eliminate them, but your frontlines also have insights into your commercial space that books can’t provide. 

For example, if your busy customers are unlikely to notice or heed a yellow caution sign around a spill, then you may need to adapt your training to ensure that you’re taking into account the real-world challenges of high-traffic areas. 

The Benefits of Proactive Cleaning 

When high-traffic areas can seem to take on a life of their own, it can be easy to let people run loose inside. However, with just a few proactive steps, whether it’s purchasing new equipment or hiring an in-house team, you can cut back on the risks that threaten your and your staff’s livelihoods. Use our strategies to put you in the driver’s seat again and get more control during even the most chaotic seasons. 

Author bio: Chris Boschetto, President, is a second-generation owner of LEED-certified Trinity Building Services. Since 1987, Trinity has provided superior janitorial, specialized cleaning, and maintenance services to commercial clients throughout California. Boschetto takes pride in the family-owned business’s ability to deliver personalized service, with a priority given to the highest customer satisfaction.