Changing the foundations
Joe Saisi, Operations Director at The Churchill Group, says cleaning companies need to ‘rip up the rulebook’ from tender all the way through the contract.
Many of our old assumptions about the workplace are being questioned. From the rate of change to the best ways to manage wellbeing or bring people together, organisations are asking new questions and innovating. Cleaning providers servicing the workplace sector need to respond or are at they risk of being left behind.
It can be hard to move on from deeply entrenched practices. Working
through the process of tender right through to maintaining a contract at an exceptional level and investing in innovation is complex. With so much to consider, it can be challenging to stop and reimagine the various elements.
At the previous rate of development in the workplace sector, iteration and gradual improvement was enough, but recent years have brought rapid growth. Providers hoping to keep up need to reconsider their approach. Those at the forefront of the field are tearing up the rulebook.
Changing expectations
The relationship between client and provider begins with the tender process. Though providers know they must stand out at tender, the process used tends to be cookie-cutter: call for bids goes out, providers submit their bids, and the chosen partner signs up for a number of years.
Organisations are facing increasing turbulence, however. There are so many variables to a cleaning contract, and these may need to change with an organisation as it evolves. Service providers must offer and implement agile models that can change and scale according to need.
Leading the way
Agility enables providers to react effectively to change, which is hugely important, but organisations will look for providers who are also proactive and this, too, starts with the tender. The need for change applies to virtually every organisation but as clients focus on developing their own core procedures, more peripheral activities can be overlooked, including cleaning.
Clients may call for bids which provide a cheaper or more efficient version of the incumbent, or may look for a cleaning provision that presupposes the site will be at full capacity and expect that when occupancy dips, the cleaning services will fall by the same amount.
Industry-leading providers not only provide a service, they educate their clients and suggest alternatives to the traditional models.
40 | CONTRACT CLEANING
“Cleaning providers servicing the workplace sector need to respond or risk being left behind.”
Continuous change
These changes only scrape the surface of those taking place in the workplace cleaning sector and undoubtedly there’s more to come. Some innovation may suit certain clients and not others. Some clients may take more convincing to adopt changes. What’s most important is that providers continually improve their offering and keep up to date with developing systems. Understanding, leading the way, and being able to adapt to change are crucial features in the new world of work.
www.churchillservices.com
twitter.com/TomoCleaning Introducing tech
A core part of working proactively is accurately understanding your provision in relation to the client’s site and modelling the most effective changes. Technology is leading the industry in this regard. Already, technology is a major focus for the hard FM provisions, but many soft services providers are overlooking it.
Desk-booking systems and occupancy sensors can be used to track workspace use and target cleaning to high-use areas. This allows organisations to prioritise high-use areas and scale back cleaning when occupancy is low, without risking leaving spaces unclean.
A more precise, checklist-based tracking system can also be used by introducing QR codes to the workplace. Cleaning operatives can scan these codes to see exactly what tasks need to be carried out in each area, when it was last cleaned, and when it was last used.
This data can also be shared with clients so they can better understand their own spaces and how their workforce chooses to use them, from understanding what space types are most popular to what day of the week is most likely to see high footfall.
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