How to Make Your Training Soar

By Perry Shimanoff

While a bird is born with the 'equipment' to fly, having 100+ different muscles for moving its wings, a fledgling needs positive reinforcement and practice to become proficient. Mother bird may provide this by dropping food into a chick's open beak, gradually moving it toward the nest's edge, where she nudges it off the nest to try its wings. The young bird 'flies' — mostly downward for a soft landing — then returns to a perch to repeat the process, and over time, with mentoring from mom, builds strength, grace, and proficiency to swoop, dart, dive, swerve, perform a wide range of aerial maneuvers, and alight on a narrow branch — all because it was taught.

But what if a bird never learned to use its wings?  It would never fly.

Likewise, custodians with the right equipment who never learn to use it well (or at all) are like birds that cannot fly or fly well. Valuable and versatile equipment can be left sitting in a closet (like clipped wings) due to lack of mentoring. 

Custodians need positive reinforcement and practice (aka, training) with their equipment before their cleaning methods take flight.

Positive Reinforcement on a Full Range of Topics

Our mission as custodial trainers is to help fledgling janitors Work Smarter and Safer, Not Harder by providing mentoring on topics including:

• Train the Trainer (CMI)
• Basic Custodial Certification (CMI)
• Blood Borne Pathogen 'Best Practices' (CASBO and Others)
• An Introduction to Cleaning
• How to Read a Safety Data Sheet (SDS)
• Carpet Care and Spot Removal
• More Work with Less Sweat (Smart Cleaning)
• Floor Stripping/Refinishing
• Restroom/Classroom Cleaning 
• Custodial Management for Principals
• Customer Service
• Chemistry of Cleaning  

We provide training locally, so workers can 'test their wings' without straying far from the nest. Workshops are held directly at a school or local community venue, eliminating time and travel expense for attendees, while enabling them to apply lessons quickly in their facilities.

As reinforcement, we give away at least two cleaning tools to each attendee, often including a pH test kit, Kaivac SmartTowels (microfiber cloth with numbered quadrants to enable using eight fresh surfaces), and/or a UV inspection light.

Prompting and Practice

Workshops address individual learning-styles, from those who learn most by listening, reading, and watching, to those who learn best through hands-on and social interaction (e.g., the instructor asks workers to share their most challenging cleaning issue, then the group solves the problem together).  

Through onsite training and workshops, cleaning becomes better, safer, and more effective at lower cost, and workers come away with the skills to optimize equipment use, and, most importantly, having earned their wings and confidence as true professionals.

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