A Social Investment Report of Clean Force Property Services – an award-winning commercial cleaning not-for-profit driving social change – has reconfirmed its impressive contribution to the community.
As a WISE social enterprise providing employment opportunities for people living with disability, mental illness and other disadvantage, Clean Force offers quality commercial cleaning services for a broad range of large corporates and medium-sized businesses, and infrastructure projects as well as grounds maintenance.
The report by Social Ventures Australia explored what socio-economic return Clean Force’s Victorian and New South Wales divisions have had across its employees, customers and the government from July 2015 to June 2020. And the results were overwhelmingly positive.
Demonstrating the shared value of engaging Clean Force for commercial cleaning services, the study confirmed an outstanding $6.10 of social benefit to the community for every $1 invested. Furthermore, Clean Force contributed the equivalent of $26.6m of social outcomes with an investment of $3.8m from Government, WISE and Customers.
Over the last five years, in addition to hiring employees with disabilities, there has been a focus on hiring individuals experiencing disadvantage, including single parents, migrants and Indigenous Australians. This report aimed to capture the impact of those changes on social and economic outcomes created by Clean Force, highlighting what an important role the social enterprise plays in our communities.
The report found retention of its staff has been very high compared to cleaning industry retention rates. Clean Force supported 70% of its employees for more than five years and 39% for more than 10 years. More specifically, it supported 230 employees in FY20, an increase of 70% since FY16.
The mental health and wellbeing of all employees has improved substantially since joining Clean Force, as well as their workplace skills, confidence, quality of life and feelings of connectedness.
Clean Force employee Aaron Robinson, lives with Schizophrenia and has been with the company for more than eight years. Due to challenges with his mental illness, he struggled for many years to find employment and shudders to think where he’d be without the support and opportunity Clean Force provided.
“If it wasn’t for Clean Force, I genuinely don’t know where I’d be. I’ve paid off my house, I have a car, I have a wife and two beautiful children. I just love my life and will be forever indebted to my employer.”
“Clean Force has given me purpose, a new found motivation and focus. It’s so comforting being part of a company who understand and champion people living with mental illness.”
WISE Social Enterprise Manager, Jim Dinuccio, who co-founded the business in 2001, says he is absolutely delighted with the report outcomes, although admittedly not surprised.
“We already knew what a profound impact we’ve had across the last 5 years, not just to our employees but to the Australian community at large. And now we’re proud that these impressive results can quantify and back up the work we’ve been doing,” he says.
This is the second report of its kind to be commissioned by Clean Force, with the first completed in 2012. Since then, Clean Force has grown substantially, expanding operations to NSW while competing for higher value contracts that have seen the number and make up of its employees change.
For those interested in reading the full report, please request by emailing us here.