Summer cleaning. There, we said it. They’ve only just settled back into their student accommodation after the Christmas break and we’re already talking about them leaving again. But, if you work for student housing services you’ll know exactly what we mean – Summer cleans are a monumental task and one of those looming to-dos that just feel so much better when they’re ticked off!
Which is exactly why we start planning at the beginning of the year, more time means more scope for client adjustments and shifting requirements. We can safely say our Smarter Service standard is the highest it’s ever been. Why? Because we plan, to succeed. We sat down with Michael Poppa, our Operations Director to find out a bit more about what goes into a successful Summer clean and how we’re keeping standards at an all time high!
During your busiest times, like Summer cleans, how do you make sure the team is working to the Smarter Service Standard?
“Well, we start to plan very early! And look at what the requirements are year on year, as they do change and vary with what we learn from the year before. A big part of what we do is look at how we liaise with our clients effectively. So we take those proactive steps in early meetings to run through any requirements for the coming months, as every year does vary. So the ultimate goal is to determine how we can work with them to meet their standards.”Summer Cleans are huge jobs! How do you coordinate operations at this scale?
“There’s definitely a lot of careful planning involved, a lot of cogs turning and plates spinning! The starting point is early on in that crucial liaison with the client.
It’s the information we’re given then, that helps us figure out:
- How can we plan it?
- What exactly do we need to do?
- What are the numbers like?
- Are they also doing some hotel turns?
A lot of the sites now have started to try to bolster their revenue by offering out Airbnb rooms. So we then have to convert those 43 week rooms into a hotel standard Airbnb room; service them for seven or eight weeks every time someone moves out, and then complete a further clean at the end of the 51 week period ready for that new student season.”
In 2023 we covered approximately 7,000 student accommodations, of which 82% were in London, 18% outside of London.
What can accommodation managers expect from the onsite team?
“The amount of teams we have on site will vary depending on the size of the site and the numbers that we need to deliver!
For example, in London we have nine properties that we service, but they range from property that is only 300 beds, up to properties that are 1,100 bed; so there’s quite a dramatic size difference in teams and staff needed. But the staffing number is always worked out based on how many rooms we need to complete on that particular day, against that magic number of three.”
The Magic Number 3: we base our estimates on the magic number 3, approximating each studio clean taking 3 hours and each cleaner completing 3 rooms in a working day.
“But the most staff that we’ll have on site will be 15 members of staff to one team leader. Then we’ll have three team leaders to one supervisor. Of course every single site also has a dedicated site manager that oversees what’s happening day-to-day. So it’s a clear hierarchy that works really well for us!
We also use an in-house app to keep us all on track. It’s a game changer for internal communications; not only telling us where tasks are, and when they are due, but it allows us to allocate specific rooms out to our staff. We can then see in real time when the tasks have been checked by a supervisor and marked as complete. We can also allocate a second check by the site manager, before we finally let the client know the room is now clean and ready for them to do a final check, ready for the students to return.”
When should universities and student housing services have booked in their Summer cleans by?
“Don’t panic if you haven’t already! We start planning from January until May. The first point of the planning is to have that initial discussion with each of the accommodation managers, at each of the properties to discuss their requirements and what they believe at this point their numbers look like! The numbers will always vary year on year and they can even vary between January and May, but if they have an approximation we can get the ball rolling!”
