Why Doesn't My Technician Take Their Shoes Off?

It may sound counter-intuitive to wear shoes while you’re cleaning. After all, aren’t you tracking in more of the dirt, debris and, worst of all – germs – that you’re trying to eliminate? However, for many different reasons, the most important of which is safety, our technicians from maid service in Evanston wear shoes while they clean our clients homes.

Wearing shoes can prevent accidents, like slips and falls, from occurring. To put it more bluntly, at THIS maid service in Evanston, safety is our number one concern. Not only do our clients need to be safe (and we make sure that they are by putting each of our potential hires through a very rigorous interview and training process), but our technicians need to be as well.

Wet floors and accidents go together like bread and butter, or like peanut butter and jelly. A wet surface, especially one that is made of tile, can be very slippery. While some types of flooring are made with natural “grooves” (called burnishing) that provide some traction, most do not. Caution must be taken on these wet floors in order to avoid accidents. This is true not only in the home, but also in stores, shopping malls and even offices, and is the main reason why you see “caution: wet floor” signs everywhere that you go.

The floors in your home are slippery when they are wet, and as a result, a home cleaning technician must wear shoes while in a client’s home at all times. However, those shoes are not the same ones that you saw them walk in wearing. In order to avoid the cross contamination that can occur between homes and from the transition between walking from their car to your front door, all Fresh Tech Maid technicians must change their shoes before entering your home. Our technicians from maid service in Evanston are trained to have a reserved pair of tennis shoes specifically for each client’s house. This makes sure that no cross-contamination occurs, and the technician is properly outfitted.

There are several steps involved in avoiding a household hazard. Having our technicians wear shoes while cleaning in order to prevent an accident is just one of those. Since we are dedicated to maintaining proper safety levels, we make sure that we adhere to all of these steps. The other ones are:

- Recognizing hazards.

This step involves being able to identify something that could possibly be a hazard. For example, a freshly washed floor that hasn’t yet had a chance to dry is obviously a hazard. However, items that can easily fall off of a counter while it is being washed, and things that are hung tenuously on a wall also fall into this category.

- Avoiding hazards.

Once you’ve recognized a hazard, you can then avoid it. This involves slowing down when walking on a wet floor, moving cautiously around items that hang precariously from walls, and taking caution not to knock things off of counters and other flat spaces. The main word to pay attention to in this step is “caution.” You – and our technicians – need to be careful. This is an important component of our technician training.

- Controlling hazards.

This next step involves not only preventing the hazards from happening, but taking the steps to ensure that they won’t happen to anyone else. A better way to explain this is with an example: a glass cup sits at the edge of a counter holding a few fresh flowers. It could easily be knocked over by anyone, creating a large amount of glass on the floor. The technician should move it entirely to clean underneath it when washing the rest of the counter. She then places it back on the counter, but not at the edge – instead, she moves it towards the back of the counter, closer to the backsplash. Hazard controlled.

- Wearing appropriate footwear.

We have already covered this one extensively, but here is a quick overview: wearing shoes with non-skid bottoms can prevent a number of injuries, and will keep both our clients and our technicians from getting hurt when they slip on a freshly cleaned, wet floor.

There are many steps involved in avoiding an on the job hazard. Our technicians from maid service in Evanston are trained in recognizing them, avoiding them and controlling them, all while cleaning our clients’ homes. Yes, our technicians do wear shoes while cleaning your home, but that it for their own safety. Also, check out our article on the proper tip for your Evanston maid service here!