Cleaners are vital support staff in aged-care facilities. They are crucial in stopping the spread of infection, which is why partnerships with quality cleaning providers are so essential in combatting COVID-19 and other infectious diseases. That means partnering with cleaning companies that incorporate direct employment models and invest in their staff by providing continual infection control training.
What Does Direct Employment Mean?
Direct employment is when a company employs and pays its workforce directly rather than outsourcing this responsibility to a sub-contractor or an employment agency. This includes payment of salary as well as all entitlements.
Why Aged-Care Facilities Need To Partner With Direct Employment Cleaning Companies
Directors Of Nursing (DON) and other aged-care facility authorities need to have peace of mind in knowing that their cleaning service teams have the training and equipment to respond to potential infections and are being paid and treated in accordance with the Modern Slavery Act.
Direct employment means cleaning companies are 100% responsible for their employees. It means that they can guarantee that the staff they provide are:
- Paid to award wages
- Employed through transparent channels
- Given the latest training in cleaning, sanitation and infection-control
- Provided with necessary PPE, as well as any other materials required to provide a hygienic and infection-free facility
Cleaning and hygiene services are essential in creating safe facilities for aged-care residents. Direct employment means aged-care facilities can entrust one company to provide these services, instead of having to investigate an entire supply chain to ensure quality standards are met.
How Our Direct Employment Model Works
At BIC, we directly employ over 2000 staff and only use our own staff to fulfil contract requirements. This gives us complete control over how our people are employed, paid and trained, and allows us to maintain our strict quality standards.
Direct employment means we can verify that our staff receive fair pay (we pay the highest rates in the industry), as well as sick leave, holidays and superannuation. A significant source of COVID-19 spread was the fact that casual workers couldn’t take days off if they felt ill. Our cleaners have access to sick pay, meaning they can stay home when they are sick and not risk spreading illness and infection amongst residents.
The other advantage of direct employment is that it gives our clients complete transparency into our employment procurement processes. We know each member of our service team, and we can say with 100% certainty that they are lawfully employed, legally able to work in Australia and suited to the challenge of keeping aged-care facilities clean and hygienic.
Finally, our model of employment means we can provide facilities with dedicated staff. This allows staff to get to know the building and the residents and provide a consistent, quality cleaning and hygiene service. It also eliminates the risk of service team members transferring infections between facilities. If one of our service team members falls ill, we can ensure they stay home and don’t return to work until they have recovered.
Direct employment means we invest in our staff – we want them to be the best so they can give our clients the best possible service. We invest in our team through two key initiatives – by providing training and the latest in technology.
BIC Training Academy: Centre of Excellence
Driving best practice is all about training. We invest in our staff by providing them with continual and high-level training, and we provide all training through our own, BIC Training Academy facility. This Centre of Excellence is the first of its kind in the industry, and it ensures we can train all of our staff to a Certificate III in Cleaning Operations.
When COVID-19 hit, we immediately enrolled our entire workforce in pandemic and infection control training and have since provided continual refresher courses on hygiene and how to prevent and contain outbreaks. Having this facility at our disposal means we can rapidly respond to changing requirements and train our staff to respond to the exact needs of DONs, doctors, carers and residents.
Innovation
We invest in technology to provide our service staff with tools that make their jobs easier and more efficient. Our Interactive Customer Experience Platform (ICXP) offers an unparalleled connection between aged-care facility staff and our service teams.
Doctors, nurses and carers can make service requests via the Customer Service Kiosks and our service team members will be alerted via Wearables. This connection is essential in dealing with spills, and if a potential infection is suspected, facility staff can make an immediate request for a pandemic clean.
The technology also tracks response times and satisfaction levels to create a new level of transparency and honesty when it comes to providing performance reporting.
Directly employing our staff means we can guarantee the quality of our services. We don’t need to blindly trust our procurement chains because we interview, train and deploy each and every member of our team. The end-result is committed, highly-trained staff that have the capability to deliver clean, hygienic and infection-free aged-care facilities.
Partnering with cleaning companies, such as BIC, that offer direct models of employment is one way that aged-care facilities can arm themselves with the support they need to provide a safe environment for residents.
Learn more about our aged-care facility cleaning capabilities.
