Jeff Gilkey is an industry veteran. He’s the Manager of Custodial & Safety Services at Franciscan University of Steubenville, where he started nearly 14 years ago; before that, he was a housekeeping manager in the healthcare field.
During that time, he’s seen a lot of change.
“For years, I just did everything on paper,” Gilkey says. He recalls charting out complicated, color-coded cleaning schedules for the hospital on poster boards. When he arrived at Franciscan in 2006, he introduced paper inspections to his team.
We met Gilkey at an ISSA convention back in 2015. “I was looking for software to advance our staff,” he recalls. He talked to various software providers, but was struck by what the janitorial app offered, as well as how interested the OrangeQC team was in his team’s needs.
We recently caught up with Gilkey to see how OrangeQC has changed things for his team.
Photo courtesy of Franciscan University of Steubenville.
Better data on performance
OrangeQC has helped Gilkey deliver specific, measurable reports on quality to his boss. “When I have my weekly meeting with my boss, I’ve gone from saying ‘We’re doing pretty good,’ to ‘Here’s where we are. Here’s the graph, here’s the reports, here’s where we are,’” Gilkey says. “There’s a big difference between ‘pretty good’ and ‘94%.’”
In turn, when Gilkey has once-a-week meetings with his direct reports, he’s able to give accurate, responsive feedback to their performance.
He asks his coordinators to complete about five inspections a day. Before his weekly one-on-ones with them, he pulls up OrangeQC to get a sense of how they’re doing.
He doesn’t micromanage their day-to-day tasks, but the inspection software makes it easy to see how well they’re keeping up.
Easier to get everyone on the same page
Gilkey says OrangeQC has “absolutely helped with communication.” When he looks over the reports and notices deficiencies in a certain area (say, bathroom vents), he’s able to pass the information on to his team, either verbally or through a work order.
It’s also boosted his team’s accountability. For example, because OrangeQC inspections have timestamps, he can see if someone is only inspecting a room for two minutes and let them know it takes longer to do a thorough inspection than that.
Professionalism and visibility
“I feel that OrangeQC gives [coordinators] more of a sense of professionalism when they’re walking around the buildings and they have their iPads,” Gilkey says.
Especially in a university environment, it’s important for his team to come off as professional, efficient, and tech-savvy. “It looks a lot better than walking around with a clipboard,” he says.
A big thank-you to Jeff for sharing his experiences with OrangeQC!
OrangeQC is refreshingly simple janitorial software that empowers your team to own quality control. We’d love to connect and give you a free one-on-one demo of our inspection app and website; click here or email info@orangeqc.com.
