A cleaning contract is only as good as the operative who turns up on Monday morning. So we don’t leave it to chance. WLC recruits, vets, trains and supervises every team member in-house, against a documented process honed over five decades.
Talk to us →Cleaning contracts don’t fail in spreadsheets. They fail at 06:30 on a Monday morning when the wrong person doesn’t show up. That’s why WLC has never used agency staff or sub-contractors, and never will. Every operative on every site is directly employed by WLC, recruited against a documented profile, vetted to a documented standard, and trained against a documented programme.
It costs more to run. It takes longer to scale. It’s also the reason our clients renew, our staff stay, and our standards hold up under audit. Five decades of trading have proved out one principle above any other: the people are the contract.
Every prospective WLC operative goes through the same documented six-stage hiring journey, before they ever step onto a client site. No shortcuts. No agency fill-ins.
Every vacancy starts with a written profile, what the contract needs, what the shift looks like, what the candidate must bring. We hire for fit, not just availability.
Applications screened against the role profile by our in-house HR team. Right-to-work, work history and contact details verified before invitation to interview.
Two-stage interview with an operations lead and the regional supervisor who will manage the candidate. Same questions, same scoring, every time.
Minimum two employment references, plus DBS Enhanced clearance where the contract or environment requires (schools, public sector, healthcare, resident-facing).
Walk the site, meet the supervisor, work a paired trial shift. The candidate sees the job. We see the work. Either side can walk away before sign-off.
Written contract of employment with WLC (never an agency). Uniform, kit, PPE, training plan and supervisor introduction all in place before day one.
Cleaning is a skilled job, even when it isn’t treated as one. A great operative reads a room, anticipates the day, knows when a corner has been missed and when a chemical has gone too far. We can train technique. We can’t train character. So our interviews are designed around the second.
Every new starter completes a structured induction before going live on a client site. From there, training continues on-site and in scheduled refreshers, against our ISO 9001 quality management system.
WLC values, expectations, conduct on client sites, uniform and presentation, GDPR basics and incident reporting. Sign-off required before site deployment.
Safe handling of cleaning chemistry, COSHH data sheets, dilution, dwell, PPE selection and incident response. Tested at the end, signed by trainer and trainee.
Manual handling, slip-trip-fall awareness, lone working procedures, FLT-aware working for industrial sites, and emergency procedures.
Practical training on scrubber-driers, vacuums, water-fed pole, microfibre systems and colour-coded equipment. Competence signed off by supervisor.
Site walk, fire exits, key-holding procedures, supervisor introduction and contract specification briefing. Paired shifts before working solo.
Annual refresher training, plus pathways into team-leader and supervisor roles for operatives who want to grow. We promote from within wherever we can.
Vetting isn’t a one-size-fits-all step. We tier our checks against the contract, the sector and the people the operative will be working alongside. The minimum is non-negotiable. The maximum is whatever the contract requires, and then a little more.
Hiring well only matters if we keep good people. Our supervision and retention model is built around that.
Every operative has a named regional supervisor with eyes on the floor. Issues get raised early, not via the client.
Regular supervisor walks, photographic spot-checks and contract-specific KPI scoring. Standards are measured, not assumed.
Regular check-ins, annual appraisals and clear progression pathways into team-leader and supervisor roles for operatives who want them.
Many of our operatives, supervisors and managers have been with WLC for over a decade. Continuity is one of our quiet competitive advantages.
All this happens before a single client sees a single operative. But it’s also what clients eventually feel: the supervisor who picks up the phone, the operative who’s still there two years later, the audit-ready training records, the sickness covered without a fuss, the school-holiday team that doesn’t need re-explaining.
It’s also why we’re still here, fifty-four years later, with clients who came on for a single building and stayed on for a portfolio.
Every operative is on WLC’s payroll. No agency, no sub-contractors.
Enhanced DBS where the contract or environment requires it.
Documented induction, COSHH, manual handling and refresher training.
Half a century of hiring, training and keeping the right people.
