ARTICLE

Eye-opening experience

30 June 2014

Initial Washroom Hygiene is looking to change the washroom service industry by offering facilities managers greater visibility and transparency of operations through new online reporting tool ‘MyInitial’. The company's key accounts director Chris Evans explains more

Hygiene is at the centre of the workplace demonstrated by recent research conducted by the Centre of Economic and Business Research (CEBR) on behalf of Initial Washroom Hygiene. It shows how illness caused by a lack of hygiene maintenance, costs the economy £13.7 billion per year, equating to £700 per employee. Our new innovation, MyInitial, will help tackle this cost to the economy by helping facilities managers (FMs) maintain the high quality standards required to prevent illness at work and create a happier workforce. 

 

A free online reporting system, MyInitial has been developed by Initial Washroom Hygiene to enable FMs to remotely view, in real time, the status of their washroom servicing. At the click of a button, MyInitial provides visibility and transparency of service cycle status. Once a washroom has been serviced, the customer delivery representative (CDR) enters the details onto a PDA of exactly what has been carried out during that service. As well as the client’s signature, this information automatically synchronises with the MyInitial system, so the data is captured in real time. The customer can then immediately log on and view full details of the service that has been undertaken. MyInitial proves to clients that we have completed our core service for them.


For ultimate control, the system is completely user defined, allowing FMs within an organisation to securely login and only view the sites and customers for which they are responsible. Using one login, a multi-site customer can easily monitor and manage washroom services across their entire estate. They can view all of the premises they are responsible for, when the last visit was carried out, what services are provided on each site and when the next one is due. The software has been designed for infrequent users – you should be able to click no more than four tabs to find the answer to your question.


MyInitial implementation  

Already 3,541 separate premises, through 179 different contracts, are benefiting from the ability to view and manage their data using the MyInitial portal, and this figure is growing daily. The public sector in particular is under pressure to control costs and spend money wisely so we hope that the simplicity and transparency of MyInitial will help this. 


The key aim of this tool is to provide peace of mind for customers, place control in their hands and provide 24/7 access to information. It removes the time consuming admin work that businesses, particularly multi-tenanted ones, have to endure when maintaining their facilities. The data within the system can be easily exported and transferred into a business’ own management reporting systems and has the ability to store important documents such as service provider information and compliance documents in relation to individual customers’ sites. 


According to the CEBR research, 39% of office workers in the UK believe improving office hygiene would increase their level of job satisfaction, while the average UK office worker would be willing to sacrifice £130 per annum to ensure their offices are maintained to a higher standard. MyInitial will expand a company’s ability to maintain the hygiene standards required to improve the working lives of office workers and hopefully improve staff retention.


During 2014, Rentokil Initial UK is raising funds for Malaria No More UK (www.malarianomore.org.uk) a charity dedicated to helping end suffering and deaths from malaria. For every customer activating their MyInitial account, £1 will automatically be donated to Malaria No More.


Phase 2 enhancements

There will soon be a smart phone application enabling customers to view service visits to their premises on the move at any time of the day. An opt-in service visit notification email system will also be available, so that it will become even simpler to view when the washroom was last serviced. 


It won’t be long before systems such as these will become a pre-requisite in FM contracts. Reporting tools are becoming a must-have in the food manufacturing industry, and we predict the same will happen in facilities management. 


 
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