Helping our teams deliver effectively for clients – the role of Nviro’s HR Business Partner
10 December 2024 Category: How Nviro colleagues support clients
At Nviro, the HR team plays an important role in supporting our workforce to deliver a high-quality service for our clients. They work closely with our operational delivery teams to ensure we follow the right processes and treat people fairly and with dignity. However, they also help managers to develop the skills they need to manage team performance so that our clients get the consistently high standards of service they expect.
We’re going behind the scenes with HR Business Partner, Melissa Coppini, to look at a typical day and how her role supports our colleagues to deliver clean, hygienic and safe environments for every client.
How does the HR team support Nviro to deliver for clients?
- Support mobilisations to make sure the contract is resourced effectively, and the service is a success from the start.
- Develop the Nviro management team with training so they can manage their teams’ performance effectively.
- Coach managers to help them with employee relations, reducing staff absence and turnover so that our clients have consistent and high quality cleaning on site.
- Ensure all policies and practices align with employment law and industry standards. This includes managing background checks and DBS checks. By upholding these standards, we help protect our clients’ reputations and ensure a safe and compliant work environment.
- Provide responsive support so that our management team can respond quickly to any client-specific needs, ensuring minimal disruption to service.
Some weeks we are firmly focused on supporting the mobilisation of a new contract, managing the TUPE transfer to bring the right resource on board and reduce the risk of being unable to deliver the service at the start; other weeks we are focused on delivering training and coaching managers to help them get the best performance from our cleaning teams so that clients get a great service.
Delivering clean, hygienic and safe environments: “Everything we do supports our teams to deliver clean, hygienic and safe environments that meet our clients’ needs. Whether that’s supporting managers to make sure their cleaners are performing well or helping them take action to reduce absence, our focus is to support the high standards of operational delivery.”
Reassuring new colleagues through TUPE: “During a new contract mobilisation, we spend around 70% of our time in HR supporting the TUPE transfers for new colleagues. People inevitably worry about change which can affect their productivity, their trust in their employer and overall, how they feel about coming to work. It’s our role to help them adapt to any changes and, reassure them and to make sure that a new contract starts successfully. We meet with the cleaners and site management team to introduce Nviro and explain our ethos and our terms and conditions, check their right to work and make sure that we have their correct details in order to pay them. Sometimes things like the annual leave year or pay dates may change and it’s our job to explain how that will impact them.”
Reducing the risk of a reduced workforce: “Although lots of the administration of onboarding is moving online, making it quicker and easier for the new cleaning colleague, we will still meet them face to face to introduce the company and start to build some rapport, so that they can ask any questions and be reassured that Nviro looks after its people. This approach means that we are more successful at on-boarding new colleagues and that reduces the risk of a contract not having enough resource on day one.”
Supporting a smooth transition: “In a new contract, we try to establish strong relationships with the outgoing provider to provide reassurance and confidence to the cleaners who are transferring in. It means that we can make sure that there is a cohesive communication plan, and that misinformation and rumour is minimised. It’s important that cleaners understand the changes and are clear about whether they want to transfer. With a TUPE transfer, the timings can be tight if cleaners or the management team decide they don’t want to transfer to a new provider, but building relationships helps make sure we find out what is happening as soon as possible.
When you are not supporting the mobilisation of a new contract, how do you support Nviro colleagues?
We support all our managers to manage their teams effectively; by training them and ensuring they are equipped with the right knowledge and skills to manage their teams in a way that gets the best out of people, which in turn means that our client’s needs are met.
Developing our service management teams to improve operational delivery: “We often support our Service Managers and Area Cleaning Managers when they need to have difficult conversations with their team members. Regardless of how good the team are, sometimes difficult conversations around conduct, performance or business changes are needed. We coach Managers, explaining why it’s necessary to have these conversations and the importance of making a record of the detail discussed. At Nviro, we use ‘records of conversations’ to document any issues before we progress to performance management or disciplinary and we advise our managers on how to record all the pertinent points to help both the manager and the cleaner be clear about expectations going forward.
Cleaning as a career: “We believe that cleaning is a career at Nviro, and we often look for the rising stars among our existing colleagues. Sometimes, although someone may be showing signs that they are ready for the next step, they may not have the confidence to, or the relevant experience within specific areas. The HR team offer support and mentorship in these situations, especially with the on-going management of people which can be challenging regardless of how experienced you are. It’s so rewarding to see colleagues’ careers develop and to watch them grow in confidence and ability.”
Empowering managers for future growth: “The HR team won’t have difficult conversations on behalf of the manager. But if we can help them to do it the first time, it makes it easier for them to have the conversation with other colleagues in the future. We want them to feel empowered and able to manage their teams effectively. We deliver training workshops on many, key HR topics, to upskill our management team and give them the tools and confidence in managing their cleaners effectively. We recently identified a need to be more prescriptive with Absence Management and have run a workshop for managers on how to effectively manage absence and implement the correct procedure, not only reduce absence levels, but also offer the appropriate support for their cleaners.”
What one word would you use to describe Nviro?
“Supportive”.
Nviro has over 30 years of experience and has helped hundreds of clients onboard cleaning teams and achieve successful mobilisations. Read our blog, ‘How to get ready for a TUPE transfer‘ to find out more.
