Entrepreneurs, you can't cut corners on cleaning

Q: I would like to warn other small business owners about the dangers of violating city codes. In my case, unbeknownst to me, an employee cut some corners and a city bureaucrat shut me down for a month. It was devastating. — Al

A: I hear you, brother. Not far from where we live is a little breakfast place that my wife and I used to frequent. The food was good, the prices fair, and we liked the owner.

You may notice that the preceding paragraph was in the past tense. We don’t go there anymore. We weren’t the only ones. As time went on, something shifted at our little diner. They cut back on staff and more than once we were faced with coffee cups with smudges and grimy water glasses. Eventually, as I said, we stopped going there.

A few months later we saw a report on the local news that said that the health department temporarily shut down the restaurant for cleanliness violations. The last time I drove by, I saw the owner inside supervising what looked like a complete remodel. They even had to change the name of the restaurant (apparently the online reviews became so brutal that they decided to re-boot and re-brand from scratch.)

How much money do you think cutting some corners and not being clean cost that little business? Easily in excess of $10,000, what with fines and do-overs.

Yes, small business are run on lean budgets for the most part with owners constantly looking for ways to reduce their overhead, and yes one line-item that might get cut back is cleaning supplies, what with the cost of chemicals, labor, training and so on.

Wrong. Shortsighted. Myopic.

The fact is that prioritizing and emphasizing cleanliness is important. But don’t just take my word for it, or the word of our sad restaurateur, consider the statistical evidence:

Researchers for Kimberly Clark Professional conducted something called the Hygiene Intervention Project:

►  Hand sanitizer, wipes and facial tissue were placed on workers’ desks and in select areas of the office, and employees were trained on the need to sanitize these areas regularly.
►  Instructional cards and signage were placed on desks and break rooms, and
►  Highly touched objects were measured before and after the hygiene intervention.

The results were remarkable, especially in terms of the bottom line. The interventions reduced the probability of infections by 80%, and that in turn reduced absenteeism by almost 50%.

And while you are aware that absenteeism costs your business money, take a look at just how much money: The estimated annual cost of hygiene intervention is $44 per person per year. With, say, an office of 100 employees, that equals $4,400 per year. But the potential savings in reduced absenteeism however is a whopping is $66,000 annually. Wow.

And even for your small business, the cost savings by reducing absenteeism can be significant. According to the Journal of Occupational Environmental Medicine, the lost productive time for each employee due to absenteeism is $1,320 per employee per year. This alone is a smart reason to emphasize cleanliness in your business.

Beyond that, there are all sorts of ways to create a cleaning culture that will save you money. Training of course is paramount; by stressing the importance of clean, you will be ensuring that customers and employees alike will be healthy.

The bottom line is that there is a time and place to cut back in your business, but the cleanliness of your shop and the health of your team necessitates that hygiene not be one of those places. By stressing the importance of clean, you actually save money.

Steve Strauss, @Steve Strauss on Twitter, is a lawyer specializing in small business and entrepreneurship and has been writing for USATODAY.com for 20 years. E-mail: sstrauss@mrallbiz.com. Website: TheSelfEmployed.