Monthly Archives: April 2022

How Do Retirement Village Facility’s Window and Pressure Cleaning Requirements Differ from General Commercial Buildings?

Retirement Village Window Cleaning

As the property services department for an aged care facility, your role in finding various contractors is not an easy problem to resolve. While your facility has the same structure as many buildings, your residents have requirements and sensitives unique to the aged care industry. Understanding the differences is key to ensuring a smooth process with all stakeholder’s needs being met effectively and with the least impact on residents and management.

Aged care facilities are a specialised environment

An aged care facility requires meticulous cleaning throughout. Deep cleaning has never been more necessary than right now. Some of our most vulnerable members of society reside in these facilities.

An aged care facility requires the same cleaning standards expected in a hospital. You can find the Health Department guidelines for cleaning residential care facilities here. Many residents receive medical treatment in an aged care facility like a hospital.

Residential care facilities can also be the final resting place for residents receiving palliative care and maybe in the last years or months of their lives. 

Providing an unobtrusive service that is friendly, quiet, respectful, and detailed is key to ensuring everyone is happy with the service provided.

Building trusting relationships

Building an ongoing trust relationship between the individual residents of an aged care facility and the management team of each site is paramount to maintaining rigorous standards. Your contractor must develop relationships with the residents based on respect and trust.

The residents may have recently left their permanent home for several reasons, but they usually need extra support or medical care. For some residents moving into a care facility can be a massive upheaval. Your visit could cause anxiety, and contractors need to be sensitive to this possibility.

If a resident is unhappy, this can cause unnecessary stress, primarily for the resident and the facility’s management team. Hence, it is essential to keep each individual happy throughout the cleaning process.

Shimmer Window and Pressure cleaning follow a four-pillar methodology always to provide a safe, professional, environmental, and efficient service.

Communication and sensitivity

Communication between management teams and residents of aged care facilities is key to all aspects of the Shimmer methodology. When scheduling work, we will always be prompt and prepared by ensuring professionalism and efficiency.

We will never turn up unannounced. A window cleaner scheduled visit can significantly disrupt an elderly resident. Being disrupted by external window cleaning can be frightening and make the resident feel their privacy has been invaded.

According to the Australian Government, Aged Care Database, just over half of the people in residential care facilities has dementia. Abrupt changes to the environment can cause confusion and disorientation to the resident. A forewarned manager can remove residents from the area for the duration of the clean.

Internal and external cleaning of windows can involve moving plants, furniture, and personal belongings. The residents must be allowed to decide when and how you move their valuables. Your contractor should also ensure that everything is put back how it was found.

Shimmer Window and Pressure Cleaning believe in continuous improvement and will always ask for and act on any feedback at the point of cleaning. Our contractors are sensitive to the needs of the residents and management team. We aim to please all stakeholders.

Attention to detail

Your window and pressure cleaning contractor should recognise the requirements that retirement villages and aged care facilities must maintain accreditation to ensure residents are safe and well cared for. 15% of Australians are now over 65, so it’s vital for our aging population that these facilities are maintained immaculately.

Shimmer’s four-pillar methodology of safe, professional, environmental, and efficient will ensure that we always clean to required standards. When we visit your facility, we will conduct a full audit following the regulations and ensure that the site is immaculate.

Working with the management team in an aged care facility

Aged care managers, like building managers, have high-pressure jobs. An aged care manager oversees the care program for residents and leads a team of aged care employees. While ensuring the delivery of high-quality care, they also supervise nursing and other care staff to meet legislative requirements.

Developing a good relationship with the aged care facility manager is vital. The manager is the first person a resident will approach if they are not happy about something. Your window cleaning contractors mustn’t be a source for complaints. Dealing with complaints about an outside contractor should not be one of those jobs out of all the necessary jobs a manager performs during the day.

When an aged care facility manager receives complaints, so will the property services department. As the property services department, you are inundated with vital tasks and don’t need to be dealing with unnecessary complaints.

Shimmer’s four-pillar approach is designed to ensure that managers can do the important job of running a facility while we carry out the vital job of keeping it clean.

General commercial premises

As you can see, the aged care facility is a specialised environment that requires contractor sensitivity and building relationships for the partnership to work.

Cleaning commercial facilities require contractor sensitivity and trust relationships to be formed. Shimmer has provided Anglicare window and pressure cleaning services for 12 years as their preferred supplier. Our professional team have had extensive experience cleaning all their sites in Sydney twice a year, and our team are trained extensively in the sensitivities of this environment.

Whether Shimmer is cleaning aged care facilities, strata buildings, commercial or residential premises, our four-pillar methodology will ensure that the windows and exterior of the buildings will be left immaculate across all sites.

We recognise that each site has individual requirements. No two aged care facilities or commercial buildings are the same.

If you are looking for contractors who are Safe, Professional, Environmental, and Efficient, let Shimmer design a site-wide strategy for your aged care facilities and commercial properties today. Contact our friendly office staff to organise an onsite visit and obligation-free quote.

Please call us on 1300090914, email us at info@shimmerglasscleaning.com.au or click on our contact us form www.shimmerglasscleaning.com.au, and our sales manager will be in touch to discuss your site strategy.