Cleanzine: your weekly cleaning and hygiene industry newsletter 18th April 2024 Issue no. 1110
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Cleaning businesses need to take a systematic approach to support sustainable growth
A lack of standardisation and business process is a clear barrier to building a valuable contract cleaning company according to Paul Ridden, CEO of SmartTask.
Speaking at the Manchester Cleaning Show, Paul highlighted the importance of taking a systematic approach using the latest workforce management software to gain operational control and implement consistent procedures, so growth can be handled in a sustainable manner.
"For any successful business, there will always be some growing pains along the way as business owners and managers face the challenge of scaling up without losing visibility and control over resources," he said. "As an operation expands there is a constant balancing act of achieving a quality service while maintaining profitability, but how is this possible if it becomes impossible to monitor and performance manage your team?"
Many manual or paper-based procedures that have worked well to start with may no longer be appropriate as a company reaches a certain size, so will need adapting. Therefore, it is important to continually explore where certain processes can be streamlined and automated to achieve the necessary transparency and management control.
"The aim should be to simplify internal systems, thereby reducing the administrative burden, while ensuring quality service is consistently delivered across the business," argued Paul. "It is always easier to keep a contract than win new ones, so using workforce management software sensibly to better manage and maintain customers will ultimately result in lower attrition rates and greater margins."
In fact, this type of software can now help manage the entire lifecycle of a contract, providing a joined-up and systematic approach from employing scheduling and time of attendance through to exceptions monitoring, compliance management and performance reporting. Furthermore, it brings together critical data which can be shared across the organisation using smartphones, tablets and desktops to improve real-time communications and support historical analysis.
Finally Paul discussed how the technology can help extend a contract cleaning company's proposition to differentiate within the marketplace. It offers a way of adding value to a customer enhancing what can be provided or simply delivering higher levels of transparency for complete peace of mind.
"The adoption of a workforce management tool can support the introduction of enhanced or premium services, above and beyond what was previously possible," he said. "As an example, our new staff onboarding and screening module that we have just launched at the show will provide a means of safely offering a range of personnel dependent on the nature of a location and required security clearance. This is available alongside our existing employee scheduling and workforce management software to achieve the highest levels of visibility and control."
SmartTask is an advanced and simple-to-use employee scheduling and mobile workforce management solution that enables companies to better plan and manage their workers, so they are at the right place, at the right time. SmartTask combines intelligent rostering, live monitoring and integrated proof of attendance across both static and mobile teams, making it the ideal tool to improve operational control, enhance customer satisfaction, and support duty of care to staff.
19th April 2018