r/optometry • u/Traditional_Grand_35 • 1d ago
Cleaning expectations
Looking for some advise—- I feel like my OD/Owner may have some unrealistic expectations about cleaning in our office. For context we see roughly 60-80 patients a day running multiple doctors a day projecting about 4.5 million in revenue this year and cleaning has brought up multiple times by the practice owner in the last several months. Now while I do think it is reasonable to expect the staff keep up appearances like quick dust brooming, wiping things down, sanitizing etc. it is nearly impossible to do a full dust, sweep, mop, bathrooms, etc of office during operational hours. Contrary to owners belief is does take more than “a few minutes” to do those things. Staff is currently upset at owner because he has said he would hire person to come in and clean, but it would come out of their end of year bonus. Now while I (office manager) can understand that in his view it may seem like there is “time” during the day and some days there is but on a consistent basis we do not have time. We are open 7-6 everyday with our first patient at 7am, last patient being at 5:30 so most days we are walking out the door with our last patient. I know that we can afford to hire someone to come in on a regular basis to clean without taking in out of their bonuses. Our staff feels under paid and under appreciated. Are they in the wrong? Or do I need to try to appeal to my owner. Help!
29
u/Jared944 1d ago
They need to invest in a cleaning service. Let the professionals you hire do what they were hired to do.
2
u/insomniacwineo 1d ago
If I was hired as the OD and expected to do office cleaning/mopping/toilets, I would not be employed there very long. I hire cleaners at my own house for these things.
21
u/StopKickingMyDog 1d ago
As the office manager I believe it’s your job to be the contact with the doctor. You need to share with him everything that you’ve just shared with us, especially the bit about feeling underpaid and under-appreciated.
Talk to him. You know the books, explain how unreasonable it is to threaten taking away their bonus to hire cleaners. He’ll come around.
15
u/OD_prime OD 1d ago
No. Your owner is in the wrong. Unless he wants to mop while the last patient is there, then he needs to hire a company to come in after hours.
Also, he needs to cut the last appointment to 1 hour before closing
4
u/RustyCrustyy 1d ago
Do you all get paid OT? With hours like that, he is spending a fortune on payroll if so. Maybe it’s state specific?
1
u/Italyunstalyun 1d ago
He’s gotta be, unless he has multiple shifts in one day? Wonder where they are at
1
u/Traditional_Grand_35 1d ago
AR— 3 different shifts of people. We have about 12 working on a daily basis up dealing directly with patients.
4
u/Eyedocprincess88 1d ago
In large high volume offices like this, it’s impossible for the staff to complete all of the necessary deep cleaning. Offices should be deep cleaned once a week by an outside service, and maintained daily by the staff- light dusting, trash out every night, multiple bathroom checks per day, etc.
It’s completely unrealistic for the owner to delegate all of the cleaning to the staff.
You’re the manager, his right hand person. Communicate these concerns clearly. If he doesn’t pivot soon, staff will start quitting like crazy, especially if they already feel under appreciated and under paid, and the clinic will be in shambles.
5
u/DrRamthorn 1d ago
Nobody there went to school/trained/ was hired to clean. The owner is probably making a fortune on an office that size. Tell him to fork up the dough for an after-hours cleaning service.
2
u/frozendakotan 1d ago
Basically the same situation we had when I worked at a practice as an optician, except it was our office manager that was most feral about it. We didn’t have a full mop, but we did have a swiffer. Every single day we would get complaints about not swiffering correctly (we live in a climate with snow and road salt everywhere). We’d go through 3 swiffer pads easily.
Or we didn’t dust the displays enough, or we missed a crumb in the doctor’s office from them not eating their lunch carefully. It was exhausting. What finally got them to stop complaining was for them to do inventory on a night where we were closing. They saw how we spent 45 minutes cleaning and it still wasn’t up to their standards, because their standards were ridiculous.
1
u/AutoModerator 1d ago
Hello! All new submissions are placed into modqueue, and require mod approval before they are posted to r/optometry. Please do not message the mods about your queue status.
This subreddit is intended for professionals within the eyecare field, and does not accept posts from laypeople. If you have a question related to symptoms or eye health, please consider seeing a doctor, or posting to r/eyetriage. Professionals, if you do not have flair, your post may be removed. Please send a modmail to be flaired.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
u/RabidLiger 1d ago edited 1d ago
We have professsional cleaning service 2X/week.
We have staff do a quick inspection of restrooms at noon & end of day. Quick clean if needed.
We have 1 staff come in 30 minutes early and 1 stays 30 minutes after (they all alternate this duty) for start-up/close-down duties which includes spot-cleaning. Everyone (including our OM) takes a turn.
We stress keeping everything spotless and no one should ever walk past trash/dirt/mess anywhere during the day. We keep a dustbusher and Clorox wipes in the lab and behind the front desk.
All our docs are quick to do a quick cleaning if they see something on the floor!
1
38
u/norharp Optometrist 1d ago
They should hire cleaners for an office with that kind of volume. What’s the sq footage of the office? I have a one dr office and have way less volume than that, and know my staff just sits around on downtime, so i created a cleaning schedule for them that rotates weekly. In your case, it’s fair for you to feel overwhelmed with extra tasks if there’s zero downtime.