Tesco uses a RAG audit. RAG stands for Red Amber and Green.
The cleaning specification is tied down very tightly. Every single part of the store is described and there's a "what clean looks like" statement for each. Every week, the entire store is inspected and each area given a green, amber or red rating.
At the end, the number of greens, ambers and reds is counted and an overall score calculated and the audit is then scored.
It sounds very fair and accurate. If an area is clean it gets scored green. If it's not, it gets a red. However, things are always subjective and a store manager can always find a fault if s/he wants to. I know of one store where the (menopausal) manageress always gave red audits no matter what the store looked like. She thought that she was being clever and driving up the quality of the cleaning by saying that clean wasn't good enough. She wanted spotless and mirror-finish on everthing. In the end, the cleaner gave up trying and the store became filthy!
Of course, what the store manager was doing was bullying. You might imagine that the cleaning company area manager would stand up to this and insist on the audits being done fairly. But no. The cleaning company area manager simply passed on the bullying down the line to the store cleaner. "You've got to keep the customer happy," was his constant sheep-like bleating. And this guy was so proud of his RSM army background!
The cleaning contractors try to outdo each other in meanness and penny pinching. They pay minimum wage and keep the hours down so it's never quite a full-time job. They skimp on chemicals and supplies. Most of the workers in some stores are Eastern European with little or no English. The companies' attitude is that if the don't like it, they can just pack it in. If the store is then short staffed, the cleaning manager has to do the work.
Of course, the cleaning is not done by Tesco employees, but by cleaning companies' employees. But they're not cleaning companies, they are managing companies who manage the in-store cleaners. By and large, the managers have absolutely no idea about cleaning. They have never done the job, only ever seen it done.
I had one manager who tried using a scrubber drier one day. It was quite an old Numatic machine. He didn't even know that there was a manual valve to control the water flow. This valve is often shut off after the machine is used to prevent any leaking. When it's started the next day, the valve is opened. He didn't know this. He threw off his jacket, took off his tie and said, "I'll show you how to do it." and cleaned the entire shop floor with just a dribble of water to the pad. You can imagine what a rotating abrasive pad did to the floor working almost dry.
The same manager used the identical machine in a different store. On this machine, the valve was good and didn't leak, but the vacuum side was very temperamental. It would wash the floor beautifully, but you had to be very wary of the seal on the dirty water collection drum. He didn't know this. He left the floor looking like a wet motorway covered with a thin film of dirty water. Rather than mopping it up, he called me to drive 60 miles to fix it.
Having had experience with Tesco and the cleaning companies, I'd always advise anyone to avoid both.
Work for yourself, or work for a small local company where the boss has built it up from a one-man-show to a thriving company. But keep away from national companies.
Thanks CIU. This rant is now over.