The last thing you need as a Facilities Manager is the legal fallout from a client or staff accident as a result of a hapless mishap. In fact, you provide relevant health and safety training to your staff to ensure that that very situation doesn’t happen. So why would you hire a contractor who doesn’t hold the same values?
In 2020/21 441,000 working people experienced injuries at work (2021, Labour Force Survey, HSE.gov) from slips, trips or falls, mishandling or carrying objects, being struck by moving objects, or worse. Unfortunately, many of these were probably preventable.
This is why we believe that you should be working with contractors who have Health, Safety and Environment certification (HSE). And that’s why we make it a point to provide CHAS-certified commercial cleaning services.
In this post, we want to take you through a guide to the Contractors Health and Safety Assessment Scheme, so you can confidently choose your next commercial cleaning company.
What is CHAS (The Contractors Health and Safety Assessment Scheme)?
The Contractors Health and Safety Assessment Scheme (CHAS) was created in 1997 by a group of experienced health and safety (HSE) professionals. The aim was to provide training and assessment services to help businesses across all sectors comply with UK law (HSE, Government website).
The CHAS group would go on to develop the Safety Schemes in Procurement (SSIP) and the Common Assessment Standard, providing further risk management and compliance benchmarking in HSE.
Facilities Management is one industry that requires special consideration when it comes to HSE, as supply chain management and logistics often see several contractors on site with your clients at any given moment. Failures in safety protocol can have far-reaching impacts, not just for those involved, but in financial and productivity losses for your business. That’s before you consider reputational damage. So it makes sense to mitigate and manage risks early on.
Whilst there are other competitors we chose to work with CHAS and we believe hiring a commercial cleaning company who has CHAS-certification is vital in the pursuit on HSE compliance.
Benefits of hiring a CHAS-certified commercial cleaning company
Seeking out a cleaning company that has CHAS certification can bring many benefits to your facility, its operations and its people.
You see, it gives you
- Compliance peace of mind - HSE compliance is just one part of your job as a busy Facilities Manager (FM). Employing contractors who understand what is required of them to enter, work and leave your site safely is crucial. The biggest benefit to a CHAS-certified cleaning partner is that HSE compliance is always top-of-mind.
- Partners who understand risk mitigation and management on site during service delivery - commercial cleaning isn’t just about the hygiene standards of your workplace. Great commercial cleaning partners will foresee potential safety hazards with service and facility usage even after their job is done. They will spot the finer details, like odd bin placements in offices, or slippery floors in care homes and take those risks out of the equation.
- Less logistical delays - in order for your business to flourish logistics between contractors and staff must be seamless. With a high level of compliance from all concerned, you are much more likely to avoid delays in logistics and services between one facilitator and another, meaning your staff can go about their duties unhindered.
- Client “wow” factor - customer experience is everything these days and quite rightly you want your customer to be wowed by their experience in your facility. Whether you are operating an office building, health care facility or even a shopping centre, good practice in HSE is something that should be considered and delivered almost invisibly.
How to check if a company is CHAS approved
CHAS-registered companies can be found through the online CHAS portal, where you can make your search geographically or by industry sector. You will also find contractors who have been certified will be able to provide credentials during meetings, as well as a badge on their website.
Eco Drift Ltd offers full CHAS compliance in our commercial cleaning services and here’s why
We are lucky enough to provide commercial cleaning services to a wide array of clients, across several industries in Reading and Hampshire. From buildings like The Blade to the University of Portsmouth.
As you can imagine different locations and their uses, mean different obstacles to cleaning and HSE. This means that while we benchmark our own brand of spotless cleaning standards, we need a different approach to implementing these onsite.
Over the years we have made it our mission to become a partner to our facilities managers. This gives us a unique understanding of their HSE demands and compliance, and our role in helping FM professionals deliver high-quality services to their clients.
As such, each of our team members is trained to understand not only how to deliver our high-quality, eco-cleaning services, but also to carry out their service provision in the safest way possible. Allowing us to be onsite when our FMs need us, working in an environment where we may come into contact with other contractors, staff or even clients.
Going through the CHAS process allowed us to simplify our in-house HSE compliance processes and most importantly give our clients the peace of mind they need, ensuring that that one part of their job is made easier.
In the Reading and Hampshire area and looking for a commercial cleaning partner to help you with your facility management? Contact Antoni today!