Bridget Gardner, Principal Director, HPC Solutions

How was 2021 for HPC Solutions? What were the highlights? What were the challenges?

As for many in the cleaning industry, 2021 was another big, fast-paced year for HPC Solutions. It’s gratifying to pause as my 20^th year in the cleaning industry draws to a close and acknowledge just how far this industry has grown and changed, along with my place within it.

The biggest personal highlight for 2021 was the BSCAA’s and HPC Solutions joint submission to Standards Australia for a new Cleaning Performance Standard.

Based on a model I first wrote about in INCLEAN magazine almost four years ago called the Cleaning Activity Levels (CAL) model, our submission proposes to standardise the definitions for specifying and measuring cleaning performance.

A major highlight was what we achieved for the customised visual Cleaner’s Manuals we offer with our Clean for Success program.

These manuals contain up to 50 cleaning task sheets, with step-by-step photos and simple instructions for cleaning every surface and soil level.

We used to follow a cleaner around onsite taking photos, but this year we built a massive image library of task steps: 6000 images and counting.

This allows us to customise each customer’s manual with their cleaning products, processes, and branding, in a cost-effective manner, with a far superior result.

The key challenge I faced in 2021 was having demand for my high-performance cleaning expertise outpace my capacity to deliver. I’m looking forward to addressing this challenge in 2022.

Is there an achievement that you’re particularly proud of from the past 12 months?

Apart from the Cleaning Performance Standard, another notable achievement was being a member of the International WELL Building Standard’s ‘Task Force on COVID-19 and Other Respiratory Infections’ and submitting a list of improvements to WELL criteria for cleaning services and products.

When the WELL Health-Safety Rating was released in August 2021, I was really proud to see many of my suggestions had been adopted.

This shows that WELL recognises the role cleaning plays in keeping buildings healthy – and that anyone can be a leader and make a difference.

What are the major opportunities you will focus on for HPC Solutions in 2022?

While our online training portal project had to be sidelined during 2021, the build will start in January. We will start by converting existing High Performance Cleaning courses into a virtual Learner Management System (LMS), including short courses about how to support buildings to achieve ratings for the WELL Standard, Green Star-Performance, and NABERS.

As with all HPC Solutions documents and programs, our online courses will use simple language and images to explain information and support you to implement what you learn with practical templates and resources.

Stage two will see us move the Clean for Success courses onto the LMS platform. While feedback from current program participants has been overwhelmingly positive, I’m excited about the potential of the LMS to achieve two of the most requested improvements:

To allow for self-paced learning and program development, and
To build a community of business owners / manager who are passionate about high performance cleaning, to support and learn from each other.

How has the public’s expectations of ‘clean’ changed as a result of the pandemic and what impact will they have on the industry in 2022?

The pandemic has shone a light on the once invisible role of cleaning. But while a focus on cleaning skills, products, and processes may help to raise standards, there is a fear that this extra scrutiny will come at a cost; especially if raising quality and accountability is expected without raising the contract price.

Reporting systems and requirements have steadily grown over the last decade, such as for workforce management and fair work compliance, and for sustainability and wellbeing via building rating systems.

Therefore, the demand for greater transparency around cleaning processes should not be surprising, or even feared. Perhaps the underlying concern is that the loss of invisibility could mean a loss of autonomy? That would be missing the bigger opportunity.

What challenges and opportunities do you see in the wider market in 2022?

In my opinion, competition from the gig economy with its self-managed workforce, and undercutting by opportunists, poses a far bigger threat to the bottom line, than customers demanding to know how their building is being cleaned and what their money is buying.

In fact, the opposite is true. Because it was a lack of awareness (and interest) about what it takes to operate a skilled, well-managed and well-resourced workforce, that helped fuel the competitive race to the bottom.

So as the pandemic drags on, 2022 is an opportunity to switch the focus on reporting as a way of enforcing rules and holding companies to account, toward a proactive way of communicating the value and process of cleaning well.

But to do so, you first need to be confident that your procedures can deliver a quality outcome and your cleaners are following them. That is the core reason I developed customisable Cleaning Manuals – so that managers can use it to train their cleaners in the most effective, consistent processes.

According to recent research by Microsoft¹ 41per cent of workers worldwide are considering quitting their jobs.

With labour shortages biting, staff training is more than an investment in safety, skills and performance, it is an opportunity to keep them motivated and employed.

Because when workers know exactly what they are meant to do, how to do it, and why it is important, it builds their confidence, and a sense of pride and purpose in their work.

What advice would you give to fellow leaders in the cleaning industry?

I have two pieces of advice for my fellow leaders:

Be loud and proud about the value of cleaning well and the need for skilled workers and supervision.
Share your knowledge and learnings instead of operating in competitive silos, and everyone will benefit.

^{1 Microsoft research:}^{www.microsoft.com/en-us/worklab/work-trend-index}

This article first appeared in the January/February issue of INCLEAN magazine.

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