Staff Training, a key to success

Lewis & Graves’s training programmes are designed not only to give its staff the knowledge and skills to meet its contractual obligations, but also to give them the confidence to work on their own initiative.

Induction Training

Lewis & Graves sees this as a golden opportunity to set the standard from day one.

Induction training sets out an overview of the company then goes on to cover:

  • Terms & conditions of employment
  • Company policies & procedures
  • Health & Safety, to include:
    • Safe use of materials & equipment
    • Product task risk assessment
  • ISO 9001 QA and ISO14001 environmental procedures
  • Management structure
  • Contact telephone numbers

The above training is reinforced with a staff handbook and the site-specific manual. On completion of the induction training the new operative will work with a supervisor or an experienced cleaner until he or she reaches the required standard. This is achieved through instruction, demonstration, observation, correction of any errors and continuous monitoring.

In-house Training Certificate

This is based on BICSc’s COPC scheme, soon to change its name to CPSS, the Cleaning Professionals Skills Suite, which gives managers the opportunity to select tasks from the range of skills to meet Lewis & Graves’s contractual obligations for each individual site.

On satisfactory completion of the training, an in-house certificate is issued to the member of staff. The in-house training programme also gives the operative an introduction to COPC, the course that they will undertake in the future. This will help to allay any fears they may have regarding the actual COPC training and assessment procedure.

BICSc COPC scheme (soon to be CPSS)

The BICSc COPC scheme is intended to set an objective standard of competence for operatives in the cleaning industry. An operative who has been awarded a certificate may be regarded as being fully trained and competent with respect to the tasks completed. There are 48 skills in the range, covering basic and specialised tasks. Tasks are chosen to meet an individual’s needs.

At present we have four qualified COPC assessors, each one covering a set number of contracts.

Lewis & Graves is working towards having a person on every site that is capable of training the staff to BICSc’s COPC standard. Once the staff have attained the required level of skill, the trainer will contact an assessor to arrange a date for the staff to be assessed.

BICSc Training Centre

L&G has a BICSc registered centre which is based in a working site building, so our staff are trained in a real working environment.

In the past BICSc would issue a multi-site licence allowing staff to be trained at various other sites too, however, BICSc no longer issues a multi-site licence for pre-specified sites but a licence they call a HUB. L&G's HUB now allows it to train its staff at any of the sites at which it operates.

NVQ Level 2

A number of our staff have enrolled at college and are currently working to achieve this qualification.