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Surely you can simply tell your current cleaning provider that you no longer wish to use their services and that's it! Wrong.

Thinking of going out to tender for cleaning services? For most companies the two main reasons for going out to tender for cleaning or replacing their existing cleaning services supplier, is an unhappiness with the quality of the service provided or the price they are paying for the service.

Unfortunately, when the cleaning provider is a company and the cleaner provided is an employee of that company, it gets much trickier. Under these circumstances a piece of legislation called the Transfer of Undertakings and Protection of Employees (TUPE) Regulations come into effect.

TUPE is a regulation which protects employees' rights when a contract transfers from one company to another - this is known as a service provision change and does not only apply to cleaning!

Employees of the old cleaning company will automatically become employees of the new cleaning company (or to you, if you are taking the services back in-house) on exactly the same terms and conditions as they had when employed by the original cleaning company. From the employees' perspective, it is if their contract of employment had always been with the new cleaning company - all of their rights are preserved, including continuity of service.

So what does this mean for you, given you was unhappy enough to re tender in the first place?

Well, the first thing it means is the cleaners who were cleaning your premises will be exactly the same as before! Sounds strange, doesn't it? You are unhappy with the quality of cleaning so you change cleaning company but still keep the same cleaner!

So what can you do? Well the first thing to consider is if the employee is really to blame for the poor quality service. In some cases the fault may lay with the cleaning company and their management and supervision (or lack thereof). In other cases, the employee may just not be up to the job.

Therefore, you need to ensure that their performance is addressed by their new employer and that they clearly define exactly what is expected of the employee, timelines for improvement and, importantly, the consequences to them of not meeting required standards. If implemented correctly this is a sure way of either the cleaner leaving of their own free will as they are not enjoying the close supervision or, in the extreme, creating a case for dismissing the cleaner for inability to perform their duties to a satisfactory standard.

Be prepared to give the new company a few months to address any issues caused by the employees they are inheriting - there is nothing they can do in the first week so set your expectations accordingly and within a few months you will hopefully have the cleaning service you deserve and will be getting real value for money.