When you own a secure building, you need to know that everyone who walks through your front door is trustworthy and cleared to handle sensitive information. If not, you could be putting your clients at risk – or, your front door leads to a government building, and you could be risking national security.
This can make it hard to find secure services such as HVAC, construction, and cleaning. We’ve got good news, though: you can rely on Wilburn for secure cleaning services.
But don’t take our word for it. How do you evaluate a secure cleaning company? You need the utmost confidence that your environmental hygienists are here for the job and nothing but the job.
Let’s take a look at five ways you can evaluate any secure cleaning company.
Designated FSO
FSO stands for Facility Security Officer. A company with a designated FSO means that they take their security seriously. FSO’s manage security in their facility. They create and maintain a secure environment for employees, vendors, and company visitors. Beyond this, they also manage typical daily security—this includes monitoring surveillance cameras and entry access.
When it comes to secure cleaning services and FSOs, an FSO ensures that all employees are up-to-date on security clearances and background checks, and personally takes care of the paper work for each employee.
If your secure cleaning service doesn’t have a designated FSO, it’s easier for security clearances to expire without notice, for background checks to be less thorough, and for the proper paperwork to be delayed. When it comes to security, you want someone dedicated to the job whose whole position revolves around making sure the employees that enter your facility are trustworthy.
eQIP Background Check
eQIP stands for the Electronic Questionnaires for Investigations Processing system. E-QIP creates standardized forms for background checks and credentials. The system makes it easy to conduct background investigations for federal security and transmit personal investigative data to requesting companies.
eQIP is essential for secure cleaning services. Without a well-reputed background check, your secure cleaning employees are not properly vetted and could be bringing someone harmful into your building. All employees with an eQIP clearance must be sponsored by an agency—such as a secure cleaning service – and cannot apply for themselves.
When you see an environmental hygienist who is cleared by eQIP, you’ll know that they’re trustworthy. eQIP goes back through your family, family friends, job history, supervisors, neighbors, and all residences. It’s a lot of information that requires real effort on the employees’ part and is extremely thorough.
Confidential Security Clearance
While there are four different types of security clearance, your secure cleaning service needs to have a confidential clearance. You may at first think this is unnecessary. After all, they’re just cleaning the building. However, notes can be left on desks; papers that should have been shredded can be thrown in the trash that the hygienist takes out. These scenarios are why confidential security clearances are important.
A security clearance determines whether or not an employee is trustworthy enough to safeguard sensitive information. The security clearance goes hand-in-hand with the eQIP background check to provide a full picture of your janitorial staff. An excellent secure cleaning service will have employees with confidential security clearance and a thorough background check.
The last thing you want is for employee negligence leading to the leak of confidential information. Using a secure cleaning service that is properly trained in how to dispose of confidential information and how to handle confidential information is important in limiting the release of important information.
Current Certifications/Clearances
Certifications and clearances are not one-and-done deals. They require recertification every so often and must be kept up-to-date. It’s a serious offense if an employee from a supposedly secure cleaning service enters a secure facility with an expired security clearance.
The level of security clearance determines how often they need to be refreshed. For the confidential security level, employees will need to be reinvestigated every 15 years. However, this time frame becomes shorter and shorter for higher clearances. Each time the security clearance is updated, the eQIP is updated as well.
A person can change in a decade and a half. This is why it’s important to keep clearances updated.
Security clearances aren’t the only thing you should make sure is up-to-date. An excellent secure cleaning service will also offer green cleaning services. In order to determine their commitment to green cleaning, your secure cleaning service should be GS-42 certified. This green seal certification is a sign of a company that is committed to environmentally- and people-friendly cleaning practices. The certification involves continued training, exams, and changed business practices.
Use a Well-Reputed Cleaning Company
The reputation of your secure cleaning service is just as important as their security clearances, background checks, and personnel. Choosing a company with a good reputation means choosing a company that will be around for a long-time, has given other customers excellent experiences, and is easy to work with.
It may sound like common sense, but reputation can make or break a company. Choosing a secure cleaning service with a good reputation means knowing that you won’t have any serious information breaches or bad cleaning experiences.
The Wilburn Company is proud to provide a fully cleared and vetted staff to service secure facilities. Each of our staff members has undergone stringent background checks to meet federal standards, guaranteeing the maintained security of your facility. Founded in 1998, we now clean over 8 million square feet with over 450 cleared employees.
If you’re looking for a secure cleaning service who knows their job and has a staff that goes above and beyond and is cleared to work in secure facilities, contact the Wilburn Company today. You can trust us with your secure facility.