Manage HR Magazine
Justin Douglas, Founder & CEO of Corvus Janitorial, one of the leading providers of professional cleaning services. Since 2004, the company has served the cleaning needs of medical centers, businesses, schools, apartment buildings, and recreational facilities. With COVID-19 bringing the focus on providing cleaner, healthier, and safer infrastructure to alleviate the fear of infection among employees, Corvus Janitorial is well poised to offer services as per their clients’ needs. The company has enhanced its cleaning and disinfecting methodology with the electrostatic spraying method, believes in maintaining open lines of communication with clients, and offers franchises to fulfill many entrepreneurial dreams. Our team got in touch with Corvus’s Founder and Co-CEO, Justin Douglas, to understand the state of the janitorial services landscape during the ongoing pandemic and how Corvus has become a one-stop-shop for all cleaning needs.
With the newer variants coming in, what’s Corvus Janitorial’s approach to keeping your clients’ spaces sanitized?
There’s a tremendous amount of uncertainty whenever a new strain is announced. There is a wave of fear and anxiety that’s completely natural and probably appropriate. Our job is to ensure that our services meet the client’s needs and comply with the specifications needed to combat COVID, irrespective of the new variants. We believe in communication and building a relationship based on trust with the client. With the news of variants coming out quickly and the high velocity of change, it’s critical to work hard to forge that relationship with the client. We are vigilant about providing the services that combat COVID with open lines of communication, so we can comply and meet the customized schedule that our clients want.
What challenges are your clients facing to adapt to hybrid working environments, and how are you helping them overcome those challenges?
Each company has its unique policy concerning the working environment they are adapting. For example, a school’s policy might vary from a law office. There are recent trends of frequency of cleaning and rotating occupancies. Organizations require frequent disinfecting of the office spaces. Now, offices want cleaning to be done four times a week when before it was once or twice. The implementation of rotating occupancies and the need to clean only certain parts of the office has added another wrinkle. At Corvus Janitorial, we understand the various types of hybrid environments and are agile; our services are customized to hit the areas that will be occupied, and we can increase the frequency of cleaning as needed. Earlier, we’ve been looked at as a utility, but now we’re mission-critical to the organization’s success.
Could you elaborate on the services you offer, the process you have in place, and the clients you cater to?
Our process depends on the clients and their mission. Some of our clients want electrostatic spraying built into the cleaning specifications for particular days of the week. Other clients, especially clients with low frequency, will be on as an-needed basis. For example, if an employee tests positive, the client may need us to spray the facility that day. We think it’s good practice to build in scheduled electrostatic spraying once or twice a month, at least. It gives companies, employees, and organizations peace-of-mind. Electrostatic spraying and disinfecting with EPA-certified products is critical and works, and it also shows that the client is taking a proactive approach to keeping employees safe. There is sort of a psychological benefit and a literal benefit to taking these precautions to disinfect and sanitize.
What’s so good about electrostatic cleaning or electrostatic spraying?
It is highly efficient. The technique of disinfecting via electrostatic has a higher success rate. The charged particles and chemicals bond with the targeted surface and disinfect the entire surface area. It’s far more efficient in terms of speed, and can hit far greater surface area, faster. If not electrostatic, someone must reach each spot and wipe them down.
Any interesting clients you have had where you got to showcase the efficacy of your methodology and approach?
A client that comes to mind is a large theater that hosts concerts and musicals. It’s called the Fox Theater in St. Louis, Missouri. It’s an entertainment facility. It’s a known fact that theaters were hit hard. Gatherings were banned, but they are coming back to business with restrictions lifting up. Even though we’ve serviced the Fox for decades now, we still sat down with them to understand how to keep their customers safe. We began by amending the cleaning specifications; we added certain techniques. We spend more time coming in before and after shows and partnering with them to keep their stakeholders safe and their environment vibrant. The theater is now back in business, and we’re very proud of the role Corvus Janitorial has played in helping them realize their organizational goals.
There are various franchises of Corvus. Could you please tell us about the franchise program?
Anyone who provides cleaning services on behalf of Corvus Janitorial Systems, is a franchisee. The mission of the franchise program is to make lives better and help people start small to medium-sized cleaning companies. We provide sales and marketing support to them and operational support and financing. It is our way to help people pursue their entrepreneurial vision, have self-determination, control their own destiny, provide them the ability to scale their income and to be a proud owner. One such entrepreneur is Shedrice Banks from the Denver region. He started small and grossed about $1,000 of business a month through his outstanding service. Last month, he was billing about $15,000 a month in sales. It’s just tremendous growth, and it’s a result of his integrity, service offerings, dedication to clients, drive, and passion for improving his clients’ lives. Stories like this make us believe that our franchise is a terrific way to achieve their personal and financial dreams.
What’s the future looking like for Corvus Janitorial?
We want to focus on our existing clients and franchisees. In terms of expansion plans, we’re focused on Texas, a real opportunity for us, and a couple of other areas in Florida.
