Mauro Viola Executive Director, ServiceFM

How was 2021 for ServiceFM? What were the highlights? What were the challenges?

Last year was a time of challenge and change for ServiceFM.

We, of course, faced the challenges of the pandemic and working with our trusted partners to ensure the safety of their workers and clients and the hygiene of their sites.

We’re excited by the new relationships that we developed during this time, cementing ourselves as a company that provides excellence in service.

Through good management, we operated efficiently, even during the lockdowns in Victoria and New South Wales. We learnt a lot about our capabilities and watched our workers grow in stature.

Apart from the development of our business, our highlight was most definitely the transformation of our company to ServiceFM.

We are now a proud and recognised multi-service provider following our business and brand transformation.

The transformation completed a two-year strategic project to meet the changing needs and demands of our clients – they were telling us they wanted multi-service provision, one throat to choke, if you will. We have responded.

What will be the immediate focus for ServiceFM in 2022?

ServiceFM will continue to consolidate business opportunities now arising from our transformation into a multi-service provider as our nation emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic.

One way we’ll do that is by continuing to act as a trusted partner in the infection control space where we’ve proven our value to our clients in the past two years.

We now have distribution rights to a new infection control solution that ensures clean shared air in the workplace, Airofresh.

We’ve learnt that clean shared air is just as important in ensuring the safety and hygiene of all our workspaces.

Our product, Airofresh, is an ingenious air-purification solution that cleanses indoor environments by using water vapour in the shared air to destroy all organic chemicals as they pass through the device and beyond.

Airofresh’s technology destroys airborne contaminants without using chemical applications or catch and store filters and is carbon neutral

It destroys airborne viruses, including COVID-19, fungi, mould, bacteria and gases in the air – continuing to clean the environment even once it has left the system.

How has the public’s expectations of ‘clean’ changed as a result of the pandemic? What impact will these new expectations have on the industry, in terms of cleaning standards and processes, in 2022?

COVID-19 has placed extreme importance on adopting measures that prevent airborne pathogens infecting staff or visitors to workplaces.

For many of our clients, there has also been a further shift towards understanding non-toxic and green cleaning solutions.

The use of alcohol-based disinfectants for hand sanitisation has also come into question, along with the high use of toxic cleaning chemicals that leave residue – impacting on health and wellbeing.

We are now seeing the issue of toxic dust, that remains from cleaning chemicals, being breathed in. Not to mention the skin issues arising from constant use of alcohol-based hand sanitisers, which should be of concern to us all.

Firstly, ServiceFM has recognised the need for clean shared air. As a result, we’ve added Australian-made Airofresh to our suite of infection control services so our clients can better protect themselves, their employees and customers from the risks associated with COVID-19 and other viruses and contaminants.

We also continue to champion the use of Nanocyn disinfectant and sanitiser, which can be used as a cleaning solution and hand sanitiser.

The pandemic has given us all a greater understanding of how we can reduce risk and downtime due to sickness in the workplace. Cleaning is no longer about just looking neat and tidy; it is about a clean and healthy environment on the surface and in the air.

What is one issue in the industry you would like to see addressed?

In our industry there are times where I think there’s a price rush to the gutter. We need to work with our clients so they understand that choosing the cheapest option isn’t always the best option.

The recipients of our industry’s services need to understand the ethical and legislative risks that come with accepting the cheapest quote.

As an industry, we need to understand the risks we are placing on our clients by offering unfeasibly cheap quotes.

We all have costs and contract quotas that we must meet, but we can all do better for our frontline workers and further reduce risks to our clients. We provide a valuable service and the quotes we offer should reflect the value of that work.

Looking forward to 2022, what advice would you give to fellow leaders in the cleaning industry?

Don’t fear change – embrace it.

Value yourself and the service you provide – we have learnt the importance of soft services during the pandemic. Don’t let that value slip.

Pay your workers properly – as we return to ‘normal business’ – expect the government’s focus to return to investigating wage theft. Keep our industry clean.

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

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