What is the ISSA CITS Certification?

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What is CITS? There are a lot of people in the facility cleaning and facility maintenance industry that are just becoming familiar with the term. CITS stands for the Cleaning Industry Training Standard. It is provided through the International Sanitary Supply Association (ISSA), the leading trade association for the cleaning industry worldwide. CITS has been designed specifically to help address the need for training and improved professionalism throughout the cleaning industry. This includes the cleaning of facilities such as commercial buildings, educational institutions, office buildings and all other workplaces. It is designed to assist with the training and education of all commercial custodial and cleaning personnel whether they are in-house or contract service providers. The CITS program is authored by the American Institute for Cleaning Sciences (AICS) who are the leading authorities on the commercial cleaning industry.

CITS consists of several programs to give your cleaning staff a better understanding of how to clean a facility more effectively and efficiently. It is designed to create a healthier, safer environment, reduce waste, reduce risk, increase productivity and standardize the cleaning process. These programs include:

  • General Cleaning

  • Hard Floor Care

  • Carpet Care

  • Restroom Care

  • General Safety

  • Hazard Communication

  • Health Care

  • Value of Clean

  • Customer Service

  • Green Cleaning

  • School & Educational Institution

These programs are available through Accredited, Certified Trainers who can instruct your custodial staff in the proper and most efficient and productive means available to clean and maintain your facility. CITS ensures the workers cleaning your facility are trained and certified.

The basics of all courses in the CITS program cover

  • Expected Results

  • Tools and Equipment needed to perform each task

  • Chemical Products needed to perform each task

  • Personal Protective Equipment needed to perform tasks

  • Cleaning different surface types

  • Safety Considerations and avoiding Risk

  • Cleaning issues unique to your facility

At the end of each training session each participant will be required to pass a written exam to prove they have the knowledge needed to perform the job and gain the certification.

People are hired every day to clean buildings. It is commonly assumed that people inherently know how to clean a building. This has been proven over the years to not be the case. Workers need training and education to become productive, efficient and capable of performing multiple tasks in a set period of time. Training and education is essential to perform the job safely and quickly. It is necessary to avoid risk to themselves, risk to facility occupants and risk that may cause property damage. Training also reduces complaints that may arise from the condition or appearance of the facility.

CITS is the Standard in Cleaning. In fact, as you now know, it is the Cleaning Industry Training Standard. If you would like your cleaning staff to become more productive, exercise all safety precautions, avoid risk of injury and damage to property, increase the health of your facility occupants, and reduce complaints about facility appearance then CITS is your answer. If you are interested in having your cleaning staff become Accredited in their profession, please contact us at the Rhiel Innovative Solutions. We can help you achieve your goals.




ISSA CITS Certification

End of Summer Party

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As much as we hate to say it, it seems summer is starting to come to an end. The leaves are changing, the days are starting to get shorter and before you know it, it’ll be time for the kids to head back to school. Most parents say this is their favorite time of year. The kids are back at school and the adults get some peace and quiet during the day again. While this is parents’ favorite time of year, kids dread it. The bliss of sleeping all day and staying up all night is over. Instead kids have to go back to early mornings, piles of homework, and having a bedtime again. And with the season coming to a close, your family’s chances to use the pool are becoming less and less. So why not make the most of the little time left and have a back to school pool party? Kids get to have one last blowout before school and the parents can celebrate the kids going back to school! Here are some ideas to ensure you have the best party in the neighborhood.

Pull Out All The Toys – All pool owners stock up on toys. Noodles, large floats and inter tubes, water guns, you name it, and it’s probably in the pool shed. Most people don’t like pulling everything out at once because it never gets put away. For this party, take everything out! This could be the last time the toys get used this summer, and what’s a pool party without toys? Toys are fun for the adults too. Chase the kids around with water guns, lounge on a float, the possibilities are endless.

Feed the Madness – Swimming takes a lot of energy and what’s a party without food? You’re already outside using the pool, why not fire up the grill and make some hot dogs and hamburgers? They’re quick to make, everyone loves them, and they’ll keep for a while, in case not everyone is ready to eat at once. If you’re a horrible cook, like me, order some pizzas. Or better yet, make it a potluck. You supply the main food and every guest brings a dish too. That way there’s plenty of food to keep everyone energized and the party can last all night!

Crank Up the Tunes – Music can turn an average party into a major bash! You don’t need a DJ or an expensive sound system, just some speakers and an internet connection. One big thing kids and adults have in common is music. We may not share the same musical taste, but everyone loves a good beat. Music can also help your party have more of a relaxed feel. You can set up a playlist from your personal music library or use a free service, like Pandora, and pick a genre or artist and have a non-stop playlist for your party. A perk of using a free service is that you can still tailor the music to your preferences, like setting up a kid friendly playlist or a radio edits only playlist. This way you can relax and have fun too, instead of worrying about what type of song is being sang.

Summer might be coming to an end, but there’s still time for an awesome party. Click here to check out some fun pool games you can play at your party too!

 

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School Cleanliness: How Dirty is Your Child’s School? [Infographic]

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To demonstrate why effective cleaning is so important in schools, ISSA has created a useful and actionable infographic. Having a clean, safe, and healthy school is crucial to the development of young minds. Combining the insights here with ISSA’s new CITS certification is a great way to start this school year and create a healthy, safe environment for our future leaders.

How Dirty Is Your Child's School?
© ISSA

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What is Touch Point Healthy?

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This entry is a follow up to a post I made about a month ago dealing with proper surface disinfection. Take a few minutes to read that post first may help give you a bit of context.

By definition, Touch Point Healthy means that all of the touch points in a space have been properly cleaned and disinfected. Touch Point Healthy has evolved into a global health initiative that fully integrates technology with proper protocols to close the gap between where we are today in terms of healthy surfaces and where we want to be.

By combining the latest application technology with new, advanced disinfectants we can now cover surfaces more completely and effectively to reduce and eliminate viruses and bacteria. This promotes cleaner, more sanitary surfaces which lead to a healthier environment.

Pathogens in our environment  represent the introduction of stronger or changing microbes that our current  application methods have not been able to eliminate or prevent. Our protocols for cleaning and disinfecting have been lagging for years while viruses adapt and become more resilient to current chemicals and application techniques.

Taking advantage of new advances in disinfection and product chemistry is critical to not only have safe surfaces and space but to also be cost effective. Touch Point Healthy is a decision you make for the advancement of safe surfaces in your space for the health and well being of the people who occupy that space at any given time.

When your facility is TOUCH POINT HEALTHY you demonstrate that you are committed to proper surface disinfection and to the health and safety of the people in your building.

The Touch Point Healthy process relies on the use of the FACTS protocol as a way to measure the effectiveness of your current disinfecting program and where you need to improve. FACTS is an acronym that stands for:

(F) FREQUENCY-  Count your high touch point surfaces and compare to your surface treatment frequency to see if you are properly treating every touch point each time you are disinfecting.

(A) AGENT –  Check the appropriateness of your disinfectant of choice and compare it to your current disinfection needs. For example if your trying to kill a pathogen that takes 10 minutes of dwell time ( meaning how long the surface has to remain wet) most times the solution will either evaporate before the 10 minutes or will be wiped off by the person applying due to time constraints.

(C) COMPREHENSIVE – Review application methods to gauge the effective treatment coverage of the entire touchable surface.  Spray bottles do not achieve 100% coverage of a surface

(T) TOUCHLESS –  Witness how your handheld cleaning and disinfection methods only further spread the pathogens. Spray bottles are ineffective to cover the surface completely . Wiping off with a rag will only cross contaminate the surface and spread viruses and bacteria from one surface to another

(S)  SAFE – Consider exposure to pathogens, chemicals, inhalation and injury during touch point treatments.

Touch Point Healthy means safer and healthier surfaces which translates into safer and healthier spaces and safer and healthier people. Higher productivity & less absenteeism at work or school is a benefit to everyone. Click the button below to start a conversation about Touch Point Healthy!


touch point healthy surface disinfection