Quality commercial cleaning driving social change
Video: Telstra as Clean Force client
Clean Force managers, Jim Dinuccio and Paul Fraser, started Clean Force in 2001 with a vision to create sustainable award-wage employment opportunities for people with mental illness.
In the early years Clean Force relied heavily on government funding. With perseverance and a merger in 2005 with WISE Employment, the enterprise continued to evolve and Clean Force today is a financially self-sufficient, successful social enterprise.
Parent company, WISE Employment, an Australian not-for-profit employment services provider, was established in 1992 to assist people with disabilities into employment. WISE currently delivers the DES (Disability Employment Services) and Workforce Australia Government employment contracts, whilst operating three social enterprises: Clean Force Property Services (Victoria & NSW), ELS (Tasmania) and PepperGreen Farm (Victoria). These social enterprises provide commercially viable services, and produce employment opportunities to allow people from disadvantaged backgrounds to enter the workforce.
Clean Force has a blended workforce with approximately 50% of employees from disadvantaged backgrounds including those with a disability or mental illness. The rest of the staff are professional cleaning and grounds staff from the open workforce who choose to work within the blended workforce and work towards the mission of Clean Force.
The Clean Force mission is to build capability, independence and resilience for all staff so that everyone can become open employees within Clean Force delivering 100% productivity helping other employees who need support to thrive in the workplace.
Clean Force also encourages staff who identify among the following groups:
- new arrivals (including recently settled refugees)
- people receiving welfare benefits
- those living in social housing
- other part-time cleaning professionals
Additionally, 19% of the workforce are from culturally and linguistically diverse (CaLD) backgrounds.
Clean Force offers varied pathways into employment:
- supported employment program for people on Disability Support Pension (DSP) with major vocational barriers, accessible also via NDIS employment supports and funding
- open employment stream for disadvantaged people wanting to enter into the general work force
Easy on the environment
At Clean Force we support our customers to reduce their impact on the environment. We use eco-friendly cleaning products and actively look for ways to minimise our consumption and waste.
Clean Force: Testimonials
“Clean Force have always been very professional in their dealings with Telstra, their prices have been competitive, and their quality of work is of a high standard. As an organisation we are proud to be associated with Clean Force who provide the bridge for people to enter the workforce who without that assistance would often remain excluded. Based on our experience we would have no hesitation recommending Clean Force to supply similar services for other organisations.” – Michael Marrett, National Contract Specialist, Telstra
Telstra has been one of Clean Force’s valuable commercial cleaning clients for years.
“We outsourced our maintenance cleaning for Clean Force based on reputation, quality services and value for money. The fact that Clean Force delivers all of this while providing an invaluable service to the community is great. A real win-win situation.” – Erich Buhler, Property Area Manager, VIC Metro from Defence Housing Authority
Find out more about our quality commercial cleaning services, catch up on Clean Force news, or contact us to enquire about social enterprises driving social change.