A case study of a risk assessment for general office cleaning

A commercial cleaning service took on a new contract to clean an office complex. Before sending cleaning staff to the offices, the manager of the cleaning service carried out a risk assessment using guidance provided by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

To identify the hazards, the cleaning service manager visited the office complex and walked through the areas where cleaning staff would be working, noting things that might pose potential risks. Following this, he consulted the health and safety representatives of the cleaning service about these risks, taking into account the needs of any particular staff members, such as whether they were pregnant or aged under 18.

In order to gather further information, he then had a meeting with the client company during which a number of issues were discussed. These included the client company’s own standard of housekeeping, such as the immediate clearing up of spills and keeping walkways clear, as well as the action to be taken if a fire broke out. He also established what facilities and equipment would be available to the cleaners, including the amount of storage space available, as well as the availability of sinks and taps, etc. and agreed on a method of reporting near-miss accidents and risks discovered by cleaners (e.g. damaged floor tiles).

Following the meeting, the manager created a risk assessment document. He wrote down who could be harmed by each risk or hazard identified and in what way, and he then described what controls, if any, were in existence to manage these hazards. The manager then compared these to the good practice guidance set out on the HSE’s website and identified any areas where improvement was needed.

The manager discussed the findings with the cleaning staff, making sure they understood the risks of the job and how these risks would be monitored. One cleaner, whose first language was not English, had difficulty understanding this, so the manager arranged for translation to be done by a bilingual cleaner from another team. Finally, to ensure that all the cleaning staff had access to a copy of the risk assessment, the manager pinned a copy in the cupboard where cleaning equipment was kept.

Preparing for a virtual job interview

Businesses are always looking for new ways to increase efficiency and profits. For example, organisations often reduce costs by conducting virtual job interviews. The video or Skype interview benefits both interviewer and interviewee, especially when an applicant would otherwise need to travel far. Despite the convenience though, it poses unique challenges.

How a virtual interview is the same

The typical interview process usually entails multiple steps. First, there is screening, lasting about thirty minutes. Its purpose is to ensure candidates have the basic requirements. In the second interview, they’re assessed for their technical skills and on whether they would fit the organisation. Virtual interviews follow the same steps so you’ll need to focus on the same core topics. Identify what the critical topics are based on the job description and prepare to talk about them. If you can, gather inside information so you can impress interviewers with your knowledge.

How a virtual interview is different

Normally, you travel somewhere for an interview. One advantage of that is that you aren’t responsible for the place, whereas in a virtual interview you must ensure you have an appropriate location and appropriate equipment. Modern technology is great when it works, but a pain when it doesn’t. So, it’s wise to check you can operate your webcam, especially if you don’t use it often. Test the headset too and find out how intelligible your voice sounds. It’s also wise to establish what software the interviewer is going to work with and give it a trial run.

Probably the biggest problem in a virtual interview is what the camera can see. You want the interviewer to see you as a professional. Having a messy or cluttered room behind you won’t help you achieve this image – a clear white background is usually a safe bet.

The most important part of your preparation is to run through everything first as best you can. Have a friend conduct a rehearsal with you before the big day. This will help you know how to behave in front of the camera. All things considered, though, virtual interviews should be treated like any other type of interview. Being at home requires as much preparation as a traditional interview. If you follow the steps mentioned above, you have every chance of getting the job you want. Good luck!

Tuning up your leadership skills

A Ever since management expert Peter Drucker compared the job of Chief Executive Officer to that of an orchestra conductor, the business world has been exploring comparisons and inspirations from the world of music. Now Warwick Business School Professors Deniz Ucbasaran and Andy Lockett are hitting all the right notes with their study of famous jazz musicians, Leading Entrepreneurial Teams: Insights From Jazz, providing some essential insights for entrepreneurial team leaders.

Ucbasaran and Lockett (together with Durham Business School Professor Michael Humphries) chose jazz for a number of reasons. For a start, jazz bands are synonymous with creativity, improvisation and innovation, all essential ingredients for entrepreneurship. Jazz groups and their members often operate in uncertain and dynamic environments, characterised by rapid change. Yet through collective endeavour many jazz bands find their own structure and harmony and become profitable enterprises – both creatively and commercially.

B The authors decided to focus on three of the best known names in jazz – Duke Ellington, Miles Davis and Art Blakey. American composer Duke Ellington was a pioneering jazz orchestra leader from the 1920s through to the 1970s. Trumpet player Miles Davis was instrumental in the development of a number of new jazz styles, including bebop and jazz fusion. Jazz drummer Arthur ‘Art’ Blakey became famous as the leader of his band the Jazz Messengers. The research focused on the way that these jazz greats created and ran their musical enterprises. In particular, Ucbasaran and Lockett focused on three specific areas of leadership activity: team formation, team coordination and team turnover.

There were strong similarities in the processes the band leaders used to assemble their diverse teams of talent. In particular, they looked for musicians with a different sound or way of playing, one that was unique to that band member and would improve the overall sound of the band. That feature was as much bound up with the personality of the individual musician as it was to do with their technical proficiency.

C But disparate teams, many different personalities, and high levels of creativity are a recipe for group conflict. And, sure enough, there was plenty of dysfunctional conflict and disruptive clashes of egos and personalities evident in the jazz ensembles. Traditional team leadership theory suggests that to get the best team performance the leader should foster conflict that is productive in its effects, while minimising destructive conflict. But this is difficult when the sources of productive and destructive conflict are the same; that is, differences in personality and thinking. So how do leaders deal with destructive conflict? It didn’t seem to bother the likes of Ellington, Davis and Blakey. Their attitude was ‘the music comes first’. The moments of musical genius when everything came together excused minor problems such as if individuals occasionally turned up late for practice, or stepped out of a performance for a quick snack.

D Teams must coordinate their behaviour and action to achieve an outcome. The team leader can assume a number of different roles when helping the team achieve its objectives. Some leaders are very directive, detailing what tasks they want team members to perform, and how they want them to go about those tasks. But that was not the approach Ellington, Davis and Blakey adopted. Instead, these leaders acted more as facilitators, empowering the musicians to collectively coordinate their behaviour and action to produce the desired outcome. As Ucbasaran and Lockett note, Miles Davis discouraged band members from rehearsing in case it led to musical cliches from over-practice. Similarly, he often asked his musicians to play a piece in an unusual key, so they did not rely on learned fingering patterns. The performers were not left entirely to their own devices though. All three leaders created a general framework within which team members could work, providing guidance but also the freedom to explore, express and make mistakes.

E The third aspect of leadership behaviour that Ucbasaran and her colleagues looked at was managing team turnover – people joining and leaving the team. In the jazz ensembles studied, musicians joined and left on a regular basis. Yet the high turnover of team members, despite the resulting loss of knowledge and skills, was seen in a positive light. That was partly because of the advantages of getting a fresh shot of knowledge, ideas and creativity when new members joined.

A common reason for the jazz musicians leaving was that they felt sufficiently qualified to go and run another band. The three band leaders were understanding about this, particularly as it was a process they had also been through. In some cases, in particular with Art Blakey, they actively encouraged and coached team members to become leaders. As the jazz icons Ellington, Davis and Blakey would no doubt agree, there is no magic score that if followed note by note will make you a great leader of creative talent. However, take an entrepreneur, a few cues from the aforementioned jazz trio, mix in a little improvisation, and you are more likely to hear the sweet sound of success. As Louis Armstrong once sang: ‘Now that’s jazz’.