Education technology is the key to compliance in a COVID liable world

2020 WAS a revolutionary year for the cleaning sector as COVID-19 changed the way cleaning is considered by service users, deliverers, staff, and supporting industries.  

Cleaners have become recognised as essential workers, there is a heightened awareness of the importance of cleanliness in assets and environments, and of liabilities, and the exploding awareness in the service user base has also created a demand for improved delivery, adaptability, saturation, and demonstrability of training.  

The pace at which businesses have been required to change is unprecedented and there is now a need to do so much more than ticking a box, as some do, with irregular 1-2-1 activity and 1-hit training. This alone isn’t enough to ensure people and premises are COVID-Safe. 

COVID-19 has created an increase in liability for the cleaning sector and the need for greater more demonstrable compliance.

If 2020 was a year of transformation in cleaning standards, 2021 and beyond is going to see an increased emphasises on being able to demonstrate compliance. Accountability is going to become increasingly important and where compliance is concerned if training is not constantly updated, available and applied, or you don’t have the data to demonstrate engagement, you may as well have not done it at all. The ability to share, and prove, training for all will continue to be more critical to safety, compliance, and customer assurance. 

Speaking to insurance companies has highlighted a shift in requirements away from what has been the historic norm, and towards a growing expectation for improvements to happen quickly.  With Company liability being something that requires addressing in new ways, and COVID liability here to stay, a new burden of proof is being created and there will be a greater need for far better saturation of training with full live data reporting.  

Basically, training some and proving it with a signed piece of paper or a spreadsheet is no longer going to pass the bar. Standards of reporting will need to be much higher and will be thoroughly scrutinised more than ever before.

Companies will need to be able to deliver any training, standard or responsive, to whole-workforces, specific teams or individuals, and be able demonstrate results through live data reporting, showing exactly what training is deployed to whom and, who has done what, when, all in real time.

As compliance is set to be a growing and significant issue facing the cleaning sector in 2021 and beyond, we wanted to share how companies who are already engaging with UhUb’s Education Technology have benefitted. This is what they had to say…

How is UhUb education technology helping with you from a ‘traditional’ compliance requirement view?  

Jamie Wright (MD) Incentive QAS
“In our initial stages of working with UhUb we have already utilised the documents section to ensure we have important standard documents embedded, such as our company health & safety policy and insurance certificates.  Our roadmap includes uploading our whole standard site file in order to reduce the amount of paper copies we have to produce for all contracts, many of which require annual updates.  The next phase will be to share contract specific documents as we do with contract specific training modules already on UhUb.  This will include Risk Assessments and Method Statements along with COSHH assessments and site-specific inductions”

Iain Fraser-Jones (MD) Greenzest
“At Greenzest we have fully embraced UhUb’s capability beyond the delivery of training. We now encompass the wide range of information and engagement tools that not only streamline our operations but ensure we no longer need to print mountains of documents for our site files with reams of repetitive data around COSHH or SSoW. We are able to upload this data onto our UhUb Documents file for a particular site which allows all of our site staff to access it. From a compliance perspective being able to demonstrate through data that training was delivered and passed is an absolute necessity.
As such UhUb has reduced our administration, improved our training & compliance, and our carbon footprint”

Gemma Bowers (HR & L&D director) Regular Cleaning
“We are moving to using UhUb to help with training in all areas of our business.  From educating people on policies and procedures, to using new programmes and software. As well as enhancing UhUb’s Induction, Core and Advanced skills with more personalised training on site specific equipment, cleaning regimes and procedures. Stephen and Paul from UhUb are so receptive to ideas and developments, we’re constantly discussing how we can utilise UhUb and really integrate it into everything we do. UhUb really is the training platform we always wanted, enabling us to share our own videos and information with the added benefit of also providing readymade courses specific to our industry. The training reports really help, as we can demonstrate to our clients with live data what training has taken place and when, so they can see that we are delivering training and we’re not just ‘talking the talk’.”

Lee Andrews (CEO) DOC Cleaning
“In terms of documentation, the ability to provide our workforce with instant access to this important information has been a huge benefit. Given the ever-changing requirements and guidance in the current climate we are able to revise our documentation on UhUb and then inform all staff that documents have been updated via messaging. This means that the latest guidance is available in a matter of hours to all, as opposed to spending time printing and distributing the documents to site. Aside from this, we’re able to satisfy our own requirements to ensure that staff always have access to relevant COSHH, H&S and other guidance documents whilst carrying out their usual duties.”

How will UhUb be used to provide compliance, risk mitigation and protection in the ‘COVID liability’ world we are getting used to? 

Jamie Wright (MD) Incentive QAS
“The emphasis on cleaning and disinfection will remain high on everybody’s agenda as we emerge from the pandemic and I believe it is the responsibility of the cleaning industry as a whole to ensure the importance of a hygienically clean and regularly disinfected environment does not waiver.  Through UhUb we are able to continually train and re-train our staff in the basic cleaning principles, new methods and changing guidance as it occurs – all without having to physically be with them.  With the restrictions on our movement during the pandemic UhUb has been a welcome addition to our business and shows the cleaning teams we are still investing in them, and the senior leadership team can be confident we remain continually compliant.”

Gemma Bowers (HR & L&D director) Regular Cleaning
“It is becoming a prerequisite when tendering for new business to demonstrate how you train colleagues to be COVID compliant, and what tools you use to communicate compliance, best practice and to mitigate risk for all in the service chain. UhUb plays a big role for us to show our colleagues what our expectations are and how they must keep themselves, our clients and the public as safe as possible. UhUb also plays a big role in us reassuring our clients and enabling them in turn to reassure their clients, occupiers and visitors.”

Lee Andrews (CEO) DOC Cleaning
“With regards to COVID-19, many clients are now putting in place their own risk mitigation requirements. Using the reporting tools we are able to demonstrate that all staff are aware of the risks and have completed all necessary training, whether it’s been developed by UhUb, DOC or is client specific.  So far, we have certainly seen UhUb help in the event of a claim as the ability to access the live training reports removes any ambiguity over the level of training that has been provided to staff.  For us though, the biggest development has been the ability to distribute our own training and task lists, which helps ensure that we are offering a truly bespoke training package to all employees within one simple system.”

It’s clear that demands and methods for training and engaging cleaning staff have changed, and 2020 made that happen at a greater pace than expected as Education Technology is accepted by many as the way to go. Understanding education technology is to understand how important it is to be compliant with live data, and to have an engaged, motivated workforce that, with saturation of up to the moment, flexible and wide-ranging training, can help your people improve and enable them to deliver higher cleaning standards with greatly reduced risk.  

2021 will see a continuation of changes in the way the sector operates, and we believe this is for the better. Scrutiny on education and its saturation will improve the sector, from how workforces are engaged with to being able to demonstrate training practices and compliance.

The post COVID world is an exciting opportunity if you are ready to embrace it.

Stephen Goodall is managing director and founder of UhUb.

For more information visit https://www.uhubglobal.com/

Tel: 0203 291 3439