Case Study

Clarion Housing Group

Clarion Housing Group is the largest housing provider in the UK, providing affordable homes to over 350,000 people. The Group operates in 170 nationwide authorities in a multitude of office buildings and community hubs, each requiring professional facilities management handling.
Their locations range from large corporate buildings to smaller local offices and centres.

The Benefits

An extremely positive relationship has progressed between Clarion Housing Group and Samsic since 2020, with the standards being the best that they have been in over 10 years, as stated by a senior member of management.

The biggest successes, alongside first-rate standards, include the deeper and easier level of communication, and how the treatment of each site has successfully uniformed standards across UK operations. All sites share the same ECAT system, the same uniform, the same relationship with the account manager and the same accountability for KPIs.

KPI audits now score a consistent 96% monthly, and the success of the contract has led to its growth, with further office sites and ‘Clarion Community’ added. Clarion Community is the community centre aspect of Clarion Housing Group, which includes Community Centres, Children’s Nurseries, and Food Banks, with 6 new sites to be added to the Samsic contract over the next 6 months.

The strength of relations within Clarion Housing Group has also meant happier cleaning operatives. Teams have become closer and more efficient, and the turnover of staff has reduced. Operatives and facilities managers’ report a friendlier workplace environment. Clarion Housing Group always know which cleaners are on-site and are kept up to date with any changes.

The account manager for Clarion Housing Group reported that “we’ve taken the time with Clarion Housing Group, and they know they are important to Samsic”, a statement reflected in the feedback provided and the growth and evolution of the Clarion Housing Group contract.

The Challenge

For Clarion Housing Group, the scale of their organisation presents a challenge. Quality standards can widely fluctuate across a large team of cleaners in multiple sites, and the uptake of new processes can be slow. Encouraging unified employee engagement and a high level of service consistency had been an area of ongoing difficulty in the
previous contract.

Smooth communication had been a major issue with the previous incumbent, and this is required across all sites to ensure that processes are consistent. Despite having had the use of a dedicated account manager previously, Clarion Housing Group required a truly hands-on approach that would be able to unite their offices to achieve high service
and cleanliness standards across their organisation.

As a large organisation with a lot of employees and a large community outreach, Clarion Housing Group also wanted to ensure their environmental and social governance was first-rate and, therefore, a priority to their facilities management supplier.

Major focuses for the Clarion Housing Group and Samsic partnership therefore needed to be:

  • Communication between Samsic and Clarion Housing Group Senior Management.
  • Consistency of cleanliness standards and uniformity across all sites.
  • The development of Clarion Housing Group’s facilities management ESGT responsibility.

The Solution

To create the long-lasting change that Clarion Housing Group required, Samsic provided a dedicated account manager, to prioritise the account with the utmost attention to detail and service and collaborate with Clarion Housing Group management. This approach would foster close-knit relationships between sites and seamlessly fit into Clarion Housing Group’s own facilities management team to enhance communication.

Weekly meetings with site managers and monthly meetings with Clarion Housing Group senior management were introduced. Regular meetings ensured constant communication between the account manager and the 15 facilities managers, with issues addressed quickly, problem resolutions and ideas shared amongst the wider team, and consistency of service encouraged.

To improve quality standards on all of Clarion Housing Group’s office and community hub sites, we introduced the use of ECAT, our Electronic Compliance Audit Tool. ECAT allows us to provide real-time, accurate, consistent, and comparable performance data. All audits are supported by photos and are time-stamped to evidence areas of improvement and ensure accountability. By introducing ECAT, we can resolve issues quickly and enable staff training where required.

Through ECAT, we have also presented KPIs (key performance indicators) to Clarion Housing Group in a detailed monthly report; each report including every site under the current contract. The KPIs also help to improve Clarion Housing Group’s social and environmental governance through process efficiencies and eliminating the need for paper, as well as ensuring we are performing a world-class service.

KPIs for Clarion Housing Group include:

  • Average Audit Scores; quality of work
  • Attendance
  • Management of Consumables; to avoid service failure and waste with nothing going to landfill
  • Completion of scheduled periodic cleans

The account manager is involved in all Clarion Housing Group ESGT meetings to ensure Samsic is working in cohesion with the client to help improve their environmental and social impact. Solutions presented to encourage ethical working have included: local recruitment, often through the Clarion Housing Group community portal; introduction of Nordic Chem and Toucan – which are Samsic Innovations, to reduce need for harmful chemicals and waste; and social innovations such as the WageStream – a platform that provides access to employees’ accrued wages at any time of the month – and site ‘Employee of the Month’ promotions.

What we value most about working with Samsic is the dedicated Account Manager assigned to our contract. Nothing is too much trouble as she takes responsibility and ensures the contract runs smoothly. Any issues are resolved by her personally and she regularly provides us with information regarding products and services which help us to be more sustainable and environmentally friendly whilst reducing costs and increasing efficiencies on how the cleaners work
Area Facilities Manager (Eastern Region)
Clarion Housing Group

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