The first impression a customer forms is often the quality of cleaning, whether that’s a good impression or not. Customers expect a clean and hygienic place to conduct business, to them this is a given. For example, a business selling high-value products or services are expected to have a higher level of care in their appearance, often because of the more expensive materials in their fitout. Other services like food and toilets are expected to have a very high standard of cleaning and with a high hygienic appearance.
However many situations arise when what is usual practice isn’t good enough or the staff aren’t aware that things need to change as the situation changes. The real danger is that complacency is a comfortable state. Whether that is complacency in cleaning staff routines, tasks or attitudes, or their supervision, complacency always leads to falling standards, not instantly, but over time. Without an active and continuous improvement plan, it’s only when the complaints come in that it shows complacency has been firmly rooted in.
Let Us Take A Real Deep Dive Into Your Cleaning Systems And Methods!
Long-established cleaning programmes often become tired over time, which is reflected by declining quality and cleaning standards. The first step in evaluating existing cleaning provisions is to know where you stand now, this requires a systematic review of all aspects of your cleaning services and operations (workflow studies).
To do that you need to have someone completely independent of all parties to give an honest and unbiased assessment.
It is always good practice to document all business and organisational operations, particularly if the organisation seeks to follow quality management principles (for example ISO 9001). Cleaning is no exception; cleaning is an integral part of ensuring the quality of products and services are consistently met.
Good quality cleaning documentation removes any ambiguity between cleaning staff and management in the cleaning service provided and the expected cleaning standards to achieve. Sufficiently detailed documentation provides an on-going benchmark with which cleaning standards can be measure against, aiding efficient continuous improvement routes.
Read more about how we can provide cleaning documentation and manuals
Cleaners and housekeepers with the right skills and knowledge that matches their capability are a valuable asset. Conversely, poor or no skills can place the organisation at great disadvantage in wasted productivity, or unnecessary and costly liabilities, loss of reputation through customer and staff complaints over cleaning standards.
Training is a valuable tool to harness the right people with the right skills in the workplace.
While working close with you in reviewing your current cleaning services, we analyse your workplace and cleaning needs to identify any gaps in services.
To ensure the entire cleaning operations are run at optimal effectiveness, and run at that level day after day continuously, detailed documentation is created.
The implementation of cleaning systems is just as important as the creation of those systems. The roll-out needs to be managed to reduce disruption and to ensure all staff are fully onboard with the changes.
Quality and performance indicators (KPI’s and Quality Checking Systems) are tightly integrated into the cleaning systems, to ensure cleaning standards are continuously met and the workflow is at optimal performance.
Everything we do is completely focused on providing you with optimal and measurable performance. Whether it is routine cleaning operations or specific and highly unique cleaning systems, being results-oriented ensures that optimal performance is always front and centre.
We don’t stop once every aspect of the work has been completed, we like to ensure the cleaning operations maintain a high level of optimal performance in the months after roll-out.
Disputes can cause severe service disruption, potential financial liabilities, and reputational harm. It is therefore essential for all parties involved to resolve the dispute as quickly as possible before resorting to litigation.
However, when disputes do arise between parties there is often a need to bring in an independent expert to provide a detailed audit and assessment, and unbiased report.
With 30+ years experience in domestic and commercial cleaning, auditing and assessing cleaning and hygiene standards, and issuing detailed reports to support litigation proceedings and help resolve disputes. We can assist as an independent unbiased experts at all stages of a dispute.
This article starts with a true[1] story about a tragic incident on a wet floor that resulted in severe head injuries and chronic mobility disabilities. This is a story which mirrors many incidences of the 1000-plus reported[2] slips on wet floors every year. Setting the Scene The story starts in a large city hospital, and as is…
What is needed in a cleaning system? A complete cleaning system is a combination of many different parts that must work together seamlessly to meet the three most fundamental requirements of cleaning: Aesthetics, Hygiene and Safety. Most people consider the function of cleaning to be purely one of aesthetics – to remove the daily soiling…
There were two almost identical cases completely independent of each other that involved disputes between the contracting organisation and the cleaning contractors. These two cases were large multi-floor office buildings owned by two separate UK PLC’s contracting two separate cleaning companies to provide routine and ad hoc cleaning services. As both cases were effectively identical,…
We were instructed to investigate the cause of a pupil slipping on a main corridor in a large school. Although the incident thankfully didn’t result in serious injuries, it was sufficiently serious to warrant a hospital visit. Unfortunately, there were no witnesses to the incident, but a number of other pupils and staff mentioned similar…
Slips and trips in the workplace are the most common cause of injuries, often requiring extended periods off work and repeated visits to a hospital. 90% of these cases involve broken bones, but in all cases the pain and suffering inflicted is a great financial risk for business and society as a whole. It is…
Another facility, based in London, under went a complete new build of their cold storage of package food produce, ready to be shipped out to the customer. This facility housed one of the largest and tallest subzero food storage facility in the country at that time. The nature of our work was how to advise…
We were instructed by a prominent private school in London to ascertain the nature of complaints from suspected poor cleaning standards. It was also suspected the falling standards were because of an ongoing internal dispute. The premise of the instruction was to provide evidence of cleaning standards achieved and independently assess those observed standards against…
Our independence from any manufacturer and supplier and any other company within the cleaning industry is one of our central tenets – we believe it is the only way to give truly unbiased advice. With this at heart, we were able to provide full auditing services to a couple of very large companies who had outsourced…
This next case involved a food production company who had outsourced the periodic deep clean process to an external experienced cleaning contractor. The requirement for the contractor was to supply their own cleaning chemicals, cleaning equipment and labour, and provide a deep cleaning of all food processing and handling equipment and all washable surfaces (floors,…
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