10 Ways to Clean up Your Business

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A messy office leaves your business disorganized and with a poor public image. It is important to keep clean for you and your employees.

  1. Throw Away Trash – Keeping your office space open and free can be as simple as throwing away unnecessary clutter. If you have trouble getting rid of certain items try to separate every single item in your office into these four categories: keep in office, hideaway, potential trash, and throw away. Once you have narrowed it down, you are left with the items you must absolutely throw away and the items you may potentially throw away. For the items you still possibly want to keep, place a number on each item based on its importance and throw away the items that have a low number.
  2. Separate Your Office Into Zones – When you begin to separate your office space into work zones you will completely understand your goals. For example, having a zone specifically for computer usage, library research, and a spot for specific tasks such as (brainstorming, employee meet space, etc) will better organize your work day.
  3. Sticky Notes – This seems like an overused cliché tactic, but in reality, it works! Your office can get pretty dirty and at times it is hard to keep yourself updated on a specific task. Having a wall where you can place sticky notes for you to remember what you need to do is extremely helpful. Dedicating most of the notes to having a cleaning segment to give you a quick reminder to clean the desk or remove dust on the computer screen will ensure your office space is at it’s prime for your optimal work experience.
  4. Food – It is easy to get caught up in the chaos of the day and decide to eat lunch at your desk; let’s not forget the countless snacks. A great rule of thumb is: if you aren’t at your desk, it should look that way. The smell and dirtiness it leaves not only builds a messy workspace, but probably grosses out your office mates. Make sure to throw away anything you haven’t touched or thought about in the last 5 minutes. Plates, bowls and silverware are just building layers of bacteria. Staying on top of your food mess will also help you limit your snacking by tracking the amount of trash!
  5. Disinfect – After you have cleaned the food and paper clutter and random accessories you have collected throughout the year, it is important to take the next step. Disinfect. Keep disinfectant wipes close by for a quick and easy way to clean off your desk, computer, keyboard, phone and chair arms.
  6. Conquer the Internal Mess – Start with your computer desktop and move everything into properly labeled folders. After you can sense some direction in your organizing it is time to go deeper. That’s right, open up that e-mail inbox and begin to sort things into folders. You can either sort by subject or possibly folders of importance. Remember that all the unimportant items are deleted they go into a trash bin that needs to be cleaned out, also.
  7. Make Time – It is no doubt that if you make the time to clean all of these components of your work life that your days will run smoothly. Schedule the time in your work calendar so that everyone in the office knows not to cause interruptions. Creating a to-do-list is key when the piles of mess are overwhelming. Most importantly, have a positive attitude!
  8. Maintain – Once the initial cleaning is done, the future tidy will not take you nearly as long. Here are some simple steps to maintaining that pristine workspace you just made for yourself:
  • On a day to day basis, make sure to leave your desk de-cluttered. Allow yourself 5 minutes before leaving for the day to make sure everything is put in a designated place.
  • At the end of every week make sure to check supplies and wipe down your desk. Everyone knows there is nothing worse than coming in on Monday to a messy desk.
  • Every month go through the random paperwork that slipped through the cracks and find them a forever home in your filing cabinet.

Remember that all this hard work pays off in the end! You will now have extra time to make that extra cup of coffee around the afternoon lull, or possibly take a quick 10 minute walk outside during your break! At Service Uniform, maintaining a clean workplace for your services is important to us.

3 Outrageous Things We Found in the Laundry!

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We know it’s easy to forget things in your pockets before sending them to the wash. However, there are some wild things you guys have left behind for us to find! What are you guilty of losing in the laundry?

  1. The Incomplete Business Transaction –We were driving back to the office after a typical pick-up, when we received an atypical phone call. A customer frantically called us about an envelope he had left in his uniform pocket. An envelope filled with $3,000! Our driver quickly pulled over, went through the customer’s dirty clothes and found the envelope filled with cash. The customer was SO Happy to have all the money returned, he called the local radio station and shared his story.
  1. The Missing Wedding Band – This has happened on more than one occasion – with the culprits both the husband and wife. Inside shirt pockets, work pants, overalls or aprons. Most people find they have taken the band off to wash their hands, in hopes to not lose it down the drain or overflowing trash bin. Unfortunately, the busy day continues and they forget to put the ring back on. Don’t worry, we hold all rings until the rightful owner is identified.
  1. The Collector – It is easy to grab a handful of mints at a restaurant as you leave and stuff them in your pocket without much thought, but it is not so easy to fill your pockets with lighters. Between pants, a jacket and a coat, a customer managed to have 27 lighters throughout. This situation was comical for all involved, including the customer who seemed surprised himself!

Try to keep yourself out of these sticky situations and thoroughly check your pockets before sending your uniforms back to us.

The Perfect Colorado Road Trip

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Summer is a time for vacations and adventures. Here in Colorado, we have access to so many destinations, that we want to hit all of them! Here is our suggestion for putting together the ultimate Colorado road trip.

Glenwood Springs

While we know what a pain driving on I-70 can be, it is home to some of Colorado’s most beautiful views and towns. Be sure to leave on a weekday and you’ll be fine. Glenwood Springs is a must-visit destination, only three hours away from Denver. The majestic Glenwood Canyon offers amazing views of the Rockies and the Glenwood Hot Springs Resort offers a relaxing hot springs to lounge in! While you’re in the Glenwood Springs area, try out other adventures like fishing, rafting, hiking and horseback riding.

Colorado National Monument

Outside Grand Junction, on Colorado’s Western Slope, Colorado National Monument offers gorgeous red-rock formations, steep cliffs and breathtaking vistas. On your way to the National Monument, don’t pass up the many fruit and produce stands you may see on the side of the road–these fruits and veggies are the best Colorado has to offer!

Mesa Verde National Park

Are your kids interested in history? Don’t leave Mesa Verde National Park outside Durango off of your road trip itinerary. One of only 20 World Heritage sites in the US, Mesa Verde offers some of the most spectacular cliff dwellings in America, petroglyphs, and other ancient dwellings all set against a beautiful mountain background.

Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve

The Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve offers the largest sand dunes in North America–sand mountains in a sense. Play in Medano Creek that runs along the sand dunes in the summer, hike, ski, sled and snowboard down the dunes all day. Take the family camping in the middle of the dunes! A word of advice: If you’re hiking deep into the dunes, start as early as possible, so the sand and sun doesn’t burn your skin!

Here at Service Uniform, we love going on adventures. These are just a few of our favorite Colorado spots to include on our ultimate road trip. Let us know where your favorite Colorado road trip spots are on Facebook!

America in 1969: Our Birth Year

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In 1969, brothers Barry and David Putegnat founded Service Uniform. The third generation to follow in the footsteps of the family laundry business started in 1906 by their grandfather, the Putegnat brothers carried the passion for service to their new uniform rental service.

While today Service Uniform is the first and only company with the technologically-advanced Blue Chip System®, when the company was founded in 1969, there was a totally different atmosphere. Richard Nixon was the President of the United States in 1969, we put a man on the moon, and the very first Woodstock Festival attracted more than 350,000 rock-n-roll fans. It was a time of free thinking where young entrepreneurs were abandoning the traditional career path of working in the family business or finding THE job they would keep until they died. Young people were taking destinies into their own hands and starting their own businesses.

The climate of the uniform industry was much different in 1969 as well. For most service businesses, uniforms represented a type of hierarchy, with different colors and patches signifying rank. Conversely, the men’s business suit was considered a uniform for high-end businesses and sales departments across the country. While men were wearing business suits and working in high rises, women were still working as secretaries, asked to come to work in nice dresses and heels.

In the 1960’s, home washers, dryers and wash-and-wear fabrics made it easier for workers to wash their uniforms at home, and thus the retail laundry and dry cleaning businesses took a dive, forcing laundry businesses to come up with new ideas, thus, uniform rental companies started springing up all over the country.

When the Putegnat brothers came on the scene with the Blue Chip System® the industry was revolutionized. Instead of an inaccurate paper trail of uniform tracking, technology now aided in the collecting, washing and delivery of uniforms, making it better for the customer!

Why Accuracy is Important to Our Customers

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why accuracy is important

Accuracy and reliability: two of our foundational values here at Service Uniform. Accuracy is important to us not only from a business standpoint, but it is important to you, our customers. Here is how our process and our standards affect and improve your business.

The Main Reason Accuracy is Important

Accuracy, or a lack of it, will greatly influence the customer experience. When top-notch, the result is a happy customer that will be a long-time advocate of the brand–that’s our customers! We take order accuracy very seriously at Service Uniform. That’s because we know you depend on us! We get your employees’ uniforms to you on time and properly cleaned, inspected, and replaced if need be.

What Service Uniform Does Differently

How are we able to guarantee accuracy? Through RFID Technology. Our Blue Chip System® works both with barcodes and RFID chips at the same time. This ensures that we know exactly where your uniforms are at any point in our cleaning process.

How does the Blue Chip System® work? It uses two computer-aided sorts that put garments in perfect route, account, and wearer order. We identify and track each garment the second it enters our facility. We automate service orders on repairs, track garments through the cleaning process, return them to you on time with 100% accuracy thanks to this technology.

Service Uniform employs certified inspectors who proactively inspect each garment, every week. Our inspectors keep an eye out for normal wear and tear so we can proactively replace or upgrade them at no charge to you. It’s included in our service! You can rely on us to get your uniforms to you on time and in good condition because we take extra measures to ensure the best possible product is delivered to our customers.

Sign Up for Accurate, Reliable Service Today!

The best way to back up our accuracy and reliability promises is to provide excellent customer service along with our dual system tracking. If for any reason you’d like to contact us, our customer service agents are available to help you in any way you need. Fill out this form or reach out to us at 303-936-4701 for more information!

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