The importance of cleaning in most business contexts is often underestimated. While it’s obviously essential to keep even the most sanitary of offices tidy and safe from germs and bacteria, when it comes to hazardous environments, the importance of cleaning-related issues definitely steps up a notch.
Hazardous environments can pose unique challenges when it comes to cleaning, often requiring specialised decontamination processes that are specifically designed for certain chemicals. It shouldn’t need to be stated how important it is to get this right, both in terms of direct harm being caused to employees and more general environmental damage.
As a result, it’s imperative that you choose a cleaning provider that’s capable of safely tackling the unique risks present in your work environment. They need to be able to get things done perfectly as close to 100% of the time as possible, with a far smaller margin for error compared to ‘standard’ cleaning crews.
If you’re struggling with your search, then you’re in the right place. We created this article to provide a detailed, step-by-step guide on what you need to know when choosing a provider, to increase your chances of getting it right the first time around.
To get things started, it’s first essential that we have a concrete understanding of the broader context. The term ‘hazardous’ when applied to the work environment is typically used to cover workplaces in which a wide range of different hazardous substances, often chemicals or biohazards, are present that can pose a direct risk to life.
In this context, the main purpose of hazardous environment cleaners is to try to minimise or eliminate that risk, allowing both the general public and employees at the business to work safely and avoid elements of heightened danger.
This brief introduction should have hammered home just how important it is to choose a competent provider. Should the cleaning provider get things wrong, the risks are significant. People won’t ‘just’ get to work in the morning and find that the bins haven’t been emptied, they could potentially risk chemical burns or exposure to other very serious hazards.
Hazardous environment cleaners will often do more than just clean up existing messes. They can be involved in more general risk assessment, providing their intimate knowledge surrounding accidents that they’ve experienced during their years out in the field. This can be absolutely essential when it comes to regulatory compliance, which as we’ll see is a significant concern when it comes to handling hazardous environments.
There’s a lot that you need to be aware of, with these arguably being some of the most important points to know about when choosing a provider.
It’s true that in some instances, it might be appropriate to go with a newer, more innovative third-party provider, but when it comes to dealing with hazardous environments, experience is incredibly important. You don’t want a fresh provider that’s pivoting from cleaning safe environments, you need a provider that knows exactly what they’re doing already.
Make sure that you identify a provider with extensive experience when it comes to dealing with environments with a similar risk profile to yours. You need to understand that you’re not just getting help for manual labour, you’re also tapping into the insights that they’ve gained from getting things right (and wrong) thousands of times in the past already.
In order to ensure that the provider you’re using is appropriate, you need to ensure that they’re serious about safety. A good way of identifying this is how they treat their own employees; after all, if they’re willing to cut corners in this area, there’s no telling where else they might also do so.
You need to choose a cleaning provider that provides specialised training to their employees, constantly updating it to take into consideration the latest knowledge on the subject. Researchers are always coming up with new, innovative ways of dealing with hazardous substances, and it’s essential that the provider you go with is keeping their workers up to date in this area.
When it comes to cleaning up hazardous environments, it’s essential that every single potentially contaminated area is tackled. As a result, there are strict protocols in place to ensure a thorough approach is taken at all times.
There are often standardised techniques and pieces of equipment, specifically designed to be used with certain hazards. This will differ slightly depending on the precise nature of the environment you’re working in, but no matter where, it’s essential that you identify a provider that follows these protocols to a T. Not only will it often be a practical necessity, but it can also have significant ramifications on regulatory compliance.
Most hazardous environments are subject to a range of strict regulations, both from HSE and other more industry-specific regulatory control groups. Getting the right cleaning provider will be one of the single most effective things you can do to ensure regulatory compliance in these areas.
As a result, it’s important that you choose a provider that considers these kinds of issues a priority. You need to make sure that they take paperwork seriously, and that they’re highly diligent when it comes to documenting the various cleaning processes they carry out throughout the day.
This will require a commitment to ongoing regulatory training at every level, from executives to waste disposal operatives. They should be able to provide you with extensive advice on what needs doing, providing you with a point of expertise to help avoid future potential issues.
They also need to show a high level of accountability. The nature of the job will likely dictate that it’s not always possible to adequately clear things up in time. This is acceptable, but it’s not acceptable if you’re not always informed beforehand so that you can alert your employees and take any necessary precautions.
The provider that you go with needs to take communication and transparency incredibly seriously. While this applies to more relatively trivial matters, such as billing processes and clear pricing structures, it also applies to their approach to cleaning more generally.
You need to be sure that you can effectively communicate any concerns or requirements you might have via clearly established communication channels. Some of these concerns won’t be so urgent, but others will likely be highly time-sensitive, meaning that you need to be absolutely certain that they’ll get back to you in a timely manner.
As mentioned before, things will go wrong when it comes to cleaning spaces such as these. What matters is that you’re clearly informed of these issues. There should be clearly established protocols for reporting issues, through a centralised database that logs them with a timestamp. This will be a practical necessity, and could also prove essential in order to illustrate regulatory compliance in the event that an accident were to occur.
Open, professional communication also means that the service won’t stagnate in terms of efficiency or quality. An ongoing dialogue will allow all parties to make suggestions and respond to criticism in a constructive manner, constantly improving the overall approach taken to cleaning and hazard management more generally.
While it’s important that the provider themselves are able to display a high level of professionalism and capability, to really understand how effective they are, you’ll need to look for evidence in other forms.
One of the best ways of assessing hazardous environment cleaners is to look for online reviews from past customers in a similar niche to yours. You’ll likely know a range of other key industry players that face similar hazards to those present in your own workplace, and it can be helpful to ask which providers they’ve used in the past, and what their overall experience was with the service.
On the other side of things, providers that aren’t transparent with their reviews may have something to hide. It’s worth looking in locations other than just their website for reviews, such as on Trustpilot and their Google reviews page. The insights you’ll gain through this kind of research can be absolutely invaluable when it comes to avoiding unproductive cleaning providers.
In the ideal world, you’d know exactly when you’d need to have the workplace cleaned weeks in advance, with no deviations from that plan, but in the real world, everyone needs to be a lot more adaptable. This is especially essential when it comes to cleaning hazardous environments.
While it’s not the end of the world if an office worker spills coffee in the kitchen on Monday and the cleaner can’t come until Tuesday evening, with toxic chemicals and other hazardous substances, this is absolutely not the case. You need to be sure that the provider you go with will be able to respond to emergencies in a timely manner, so that you can keep your employees and customers safe.
Ask them about their approach to incident response and management, so that you can have a clear idea of what to expect in the future. Even if you operate a relatively stable work environment, it’s still always better to hope for the best yet plan for the worst.
In terms of adaptability, this is important in the long term as well. You want to choose an option that’s able to grow with your business, adapting to ongoing changes and shifting demands. If you choose the right provider, you won’t have to look for another for some time to come, saving you time, money, and effort in the long run.
You want to identify a service that doesn’t use the same cleaning approach for all of its clients. While there will be some standardised processes, each and every business will face unique risks and challenges, and these need to be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
You’ll be able to gain some insights into their approach quite early on. Companies that are able to adapt their service for specific environments will ask plenty of questions, and will proactively aim to understand your needs rather than waiting for you to tell them. It should feel like a two-way dialogue, with each side aiming to communicate both potential issues and how they might be solved.
This approach to hazard management is incredibly important, as illustrated by the widespread use of risk assessments. The cleaning provider will need to actively look for potential risk factors, engaging with the people who actually spend time in the hazardous environment in order to gain real-world insights. This is absolutely essential in order for the service provider to make their technical expertise as effective as possible in real-world scenarios.
This should have solidified the importance of hazardous cleaning by now. It’s absolutely imperative that you choose a competent provider, in order to protect your workers, your brand image, and your business from legal action.
You need to choose a provider that already has extensive experience in your industry or one with similar risk profiles. They’ll be able to leverage that experience in your favour, helping you to create as safe a work environment as possible.
It’s imperative that you choose a solution that communicates in a clear and consistent manner. You need to be certain that you’ll be notified in case they’re unable to clean any areas and that you’ll be able to get in contact with the cleaning provider in the case of any time-sensitive incidents, no matter when.
The above information should have you in a position to make an informed decision. It will take a little bit of work and some consistent research, but the implications of getting it wrong are simply too severe to ignore. If you get the choice right, you’ll likely have a cleaning provider that you can rely on for years and years to come.
Want to work with our team directly and learn more about our approach to hazardous environment cleaning services?
Get in touch via our contact form today or call directly on 0161 282 6444.
SMC Premier Group Ltd
117 – 119a Stockport Road
Stockport
SK3 0JE
0161 282 6444
Other Offices: Liverpool
Monday – 9am-5pm
Tuesday – 9am-5pm
Wednesday – 9am-5pm
Thursday – 9am-5pm
Friday – 9am-5pm
Saturday – Closed
Sunday – Closed
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