Contract Cleaners - A Guide For Businesses. Part 4
In this the fourth and final part of articles about how to
obtain the best service from your contract cleaner I look at the
remaining three questions, that can to some degree all be
grouped together.
Are your staff fully trained in appropriate Health and Safety
practices? Can this be verified? Can your staff speak and
understand English? Will your staff be able to understand
written instructions?
In part 1 of this series I referred to the survey of the top 150
UK wide cleaning firms and I shall do so again. From this survey
it transpired that over 60% of the people employed as cleaners
by these firms were of non-UK origin and of these 68% could not
speak or understand English to a satisfactory level. The
remaining 38% of cleaners were British born but unfortunately a
massive 72% of these were considered illiterate.
Consequently when firms claim they give health and safety
training and all their cleaners are up to date with the COSSH
regulations you must take this with a very large pinch of salt.
If you have ever read the COSSH regulations or a safety data
sheet for a cleaning chemical then you will appreciate that to
actually understand them you have to have acquired quite a high
level of education.
On a far simpler level it may be that on occasions you wish to
communicate with the cleaners about some point or another. So
you leave a little note. The following day you question as to
why your note was ignored!
Very little more needs to be explained about this. The figures
and the possible consequences leading from them should speak for
themselves
If you follow these simple guidelines when next putting your
cleaning out to tender then you should gain a firm who will
provide you with excellent cleaning at a fair price but probably
not the cheapest. You pay your money and make your choice..