We were delighted to be invited to tender for the cleaning contract of the school in 2014 and have been providing them with a fully managed cleaning service ever since.

Moving from In-House to Contract Cleaning

Bristol Grammar is a busy vibrant school with various events running after school, during the holidays and at weekends; the site is permanently in demand and the school’s cleaning requirements change on a daily basis. Having managed their cleaning in-house for a while, the Facilities Manager was looking to outsource:

“Managing the cleaners ourselves worked for a while but we didn’t have the necessary back up and that was becoming a problem. If staff were off sick, we didn’t have a full team and standards were beginning to slip. The school wanted to move forward and we knew that we would need a more professional solution.”

Initially they chose a local company to look after their cleaning requirements, but it soon became clear that they were not able to provide the flexibility or consistency required by Bristol Grammar. The Facilities Manager subsequently put the contract out to tender.

“We wanted a well-managed, professional cleaning company. We were looking at ways to make the school cleaning run smoother and Rapid made some good suggestions for supporting us in making the necessary changes.”

The team of 28 cleaners including a Day Janitor and Site Manager, means the school has Rapid Clean staff on site from 8am until 8pm, Monday to Friday and occasional weekends. The role of Day Janitor was a recent addition that the school was greatly in favour of.

“Having a janitor on site enables us to be proactive rather than reactive. It’s working really well for us and Carol is an excellent Site Manager.”

The Site Manager is supported by a Rapid Contracts Manager and Operations Manager who are on hand for advice and regularly visit the school. Jeff Whitton, Managing Director of Rapid continues to meet up with the team every quarter but as the FM says…

"Our relationship with Carol is so good that we rarely need to contact head office any more. This is what we wanted to happen and I can honestly say that since we got the right team of people here, it’s working really well."

We run a quarterly awards scheme exclusively for the cleaners at Bristol Grammar School, which has been great for morale. We recently provided the team with a celebratory lunch that enabled the whole cleaning team to meet Rapid’s Managing Director, Operations Manager and Contracts Manager.