As the worse of the winter weather subsides (although never say never), many facility managers and business owners are taking the opportunity to review their winter gritting and snow removal contracts.

Therefore, we’ve compiled this helpful comprehensive guide of the critical aspects you should look for when reviewing tender responses from a winter maintenance contractor for gritting and snow-clearing services.

Research your prospective winter gritting and snow removal contractor.

Experience – length of operation doesn’t mean a lot if the senior management lacks the necessary expertise in the winter maintenance industry. It would be best to trust the advice you’ve been given due to all operations’ health and safety implications. Therefore, check out the credentials of those at the top. A simple LinkedIn search will do the trick.

Training – You want to ensure that the winter maintenance contractors’ employees have a robust continuous training programme for personnel on-site and offsite. This will ensure that the team supporting you is of a high standard and that the contractor is invested in delivering excellence.

Our HQ team qualified in the City & Guilds Winter Service Operations Supervisor and Monitoring Training Course. Read more here. In addition, every year, all our seasonal workers receive in-person training, including Health & Safety, equipment usage instructions and practice, plus everyone gets a complete guide on the requirements of their allocated sites.

IOS Accredited – Given the high-risk environments winter gritting and snow removal contractors predominantly work within, they should be invested heavily in creating a business with answerable standards.

In 2021, AccuGrit was awarded three ISO Certifications; ISO 9001 (Quality Management System), ISO 14001 (Environmental Management Systems), and ISO 45001 (Health & Safety Management), which requires meeting extensive criteria. Read more about this here.

Technology – The winter services industry has evolved over the years to be more dependent on innovative technology to supply the reliable and accurate information required for proactively planning responses in a snow or ice event.

AccuGrit uses technology that enables our Met Office-trained employees to observe conditions to monitor a live snow event on our weather radar and asses actual ground temperatures in the control room 24/7 during the winter season at every site location. Please find out more about our technology here.

Insurance – Public Liability Insurance (PLI) provides clients with the peace of mind during the winter that their contractor can compliantly support them in the event of a relevant claim.

In addition, through the AccuGrit client portal, our customers have 24/7 secure access to all the relevant reports, including site inspections and service evidence.

They will be willing to visit your site in person to create a winter maintenance plan with you – Seeing is believing, therefore for a contractor to be able to provide you with an in-depth and accurate scope of services, complete with a site map of working areas that fulfils your brief, then a winter maintenance specialist advisor should visit your site to discuss all aspects of your requirements with you.

AccuGrit also arranges for all employees fulfilling the contract to visit the site and be introduced to the key client contacts to establish a relationship.

Transparent communications will be a high priority – Customer satisfaction should be the cornerstone of any service provider, which means clear and concise communications and information. Importantly pricing and payment terms should be unmistakable with no hidden costs. In addition, the details on the activation of any work, including ways to cease operations, should be readily available, and health & safety and critical documents, easily accessible.

AccuGrit clients can access a portal to review scheduled or concluded work records. Through the portal, clients can also choose to receive notifications at each stage of gritting; these include: 

• Notification of intention to proactively grit after receiving our weather forecast 

• A live notification as work begins at a location

• Notification when a site visit has been completed live from the site

• Tracking data to cover all operatives on-site, whether pedestrians spreading or driving a vehicle 

• Before and after pictures from each operative on site of the work they have completed. 

In addition, we issue detailed daily KPI reports, which are market-leading in the quality of details you receive.

Please get in touch if you would like to request a free site inspection or discuss how we can support your business.