A few years ago, we were faced with two main challenges. Firstly, how to maintain consistent soft services and cleaning delivery standards at all our client sites across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia? Secondly, how to differentiate Musanadah’s world-class service delivery standards from some other local FM operators delivering sub-par cleaning standards in the Kingdom? 

Geographic challenges

Unlike my experiences while working in the UAE, where shorter average travel times between main centers and client sites made inspection and L&D training visits easier, Saudi Arabia presented major geographic challenges. In a country covering 2.15 million km², with driving times between many major centres of over 4 hours or more, the question was how to ensure our training and cleaning service delivery standards remain consistent at every client site across this vast expanse, with soft services teams located in nearly every major city in the Kingdom.

Solution

Our solution was the introduction of BISCs international certification for soft services training and opening of BICSc-accredited LEAD Training Centers at key locations across the Kingdom.

The British Institute of Cleaning Science (BICSc) is the largest independent, professional and educational body within the cleaning industry, with over 62,000 individual and corporate members globally.

Musanadah’s BICSc-accredited LEAD Training Centers

Two years ago, Musanadah’s management team embarked on the ambitious mission to open three BICSc-accredited, LEAD Training Centers across Saudi Arabia in Al Khobar, Riyadh and AlUla, successfully completed recently. Notably, today, the UNESCO heritage site of AlUla is home to one of the world’s most remote BICSc-accredited training centers, located at this desert heritage site 665km from the nearest major city, Jeddah. This stands testament to our “no limit’s” approach to world-class FM service delivery. AlUla is also one of the first Saudi Vision 2030 projects to be delivered making this development even more significant.

Improved staff retention rates

Investing in staff training courses has provided several benefits for Musanadah and our employees, ultimately leading to improved job performance, job satisfaction, career growth and talent retention. Currently, Musanadah has employees from over 21 countries, and we have recorded the highest rates of staff retention and internal promotions since BICSc-accredited training was introduced. 

We have delivered training courses to over 1,000 Musanadah staff members and successfully accumulated a total of 3,355 training hours across one of the largest service regions in the Middle East region.

The entire team at Musanadah are committed to continuing this progress and look forward to further advancements.

Higher customer satisfaction

Overall, investing in BICSc accreditation and training courses has been a win-win for both employees and Musanadah, and has led to improved job performance, job satisfaction, and career growth. But also, most importantly, it has led to higher customer satisfaction levels, and improved client retention and contract renewal rates. This is strong evidence that our L&D strategy has resulted in positive outcomes for all parties. 

Staff training conducted at our LEAD Training Centers by BICSc-certified assessors ensures all Musanadah client sites receive the same world-class standards, regardless of their location in the Kingdom. This has become a strong differentiator and valuable competitive advantage for Musanadah in the fast growing but crowded Saudi FM industry.

This level of consistency, adhering to international best practice in cleaning, is greatly valued by Musanadah’s international and blue-chip clients and has resulted in higher levels of customer satisfaction, with contract renewals currently standing at over 98 percent.

About the author:

Sayyed Shabab – PBICSc, CBICSc, LBICSc Assessor is the Soft Services Head

at Musanadah Facilities Management – Saudi Arabia.