Why is it that we focus on cleaning for appearance — how things look and smell — and then complain that our industry and profession gets no respect?
Why is it that healthcare costs are skyrocketing, cleaning investments are being cut mercilessly and cleaning jobs are commonly won — but not always kept — based on the lowest bids?
Isn’t the problem that we are putting the cart before the horse?
The cart, in this case, being the crisis in the quality of indoor environments and skyrocketing healthcare costs, while the horse represents cleaning for health and the value thereof.
Isn’t it time to stop the madness?
Yes, of course it is, and this text aims to help point the way.
Supplemental Strategy
However, it should first be noted there are already movements underway that strive to hitch the right horse to the correct environmental cart by groups such as ISSA and IEHA.
These groups and their hardworking staffs respectively promote numerous endeavors to promote the professionalism of the industry.
ISSA promotes the Value of Clean, the Cleaning Industry Management Standard (CIMS) and the Clean Standard — defining long-term health-related management, cleaning and value standards — and IEHA has Integrated Cleaning and Measurement (ICM), which is intent on measuring the “before and after” of cleaning with a goal to quantifiably reduce unwanted matter or contaminants in environments.
Both ISSA and IEHA, in addition to other groups and organizations championing the cause, are helping to establish the true definition of cleaning to measurably improve the places where we work, learn, live and play.
These efforts, if supported, will affect the perception and reality of cleaning’s positive value in a mighty way.
Still, these organizations cannot do it alone and need the support of the 2.3 million cleaning workers in the U.S.
It’s more a matter of “united we stand and divided we fall” when it comes to achieving and defining success in this area. 
Therefore, let us collectively identify how the problem began and try to understand the way out of this trouble.
Are you ready to take the path less traveled to a better professional place?
Citing a well-worn cliché: A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.
Well, are we ready take to take that first step?
Visit www.HealthIntentionalCleaning.org for more information.
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