ISSA announced that SMG Services, LLC (Service Management Group) has certified to the ISSA Cleaning Industry Management Standard (CIMS) and CIMS-Green Building (CIMS-GB) criteria. Both certifications were designated “with Honors”.

"Excellent customer service (is) the ability of an organization to constantly and consistently exceed the customer's expectations," said Harry Cohn, President, SMG Services. “This certification confirms that SMG has the management principles and framework in place to maintain and grow our customer focused organization.”

CIMS-certified organizations must demonstrate compliance with the five core principles of the Standard—quality systems; service delivery; human resources; health, safety, and environmental stewardship; and management commitment—and undergo a comprehensive assessment of management and operational execution. Compliance with the CIMS-GB criteria illustrates SMG Services’ commitment to delivering green and sustainable cleaning programs. The CIMS-GB designation will help SMG provide customers with precisely what they need to secure points under the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance (LEED-EBOM) Green Building Rating System, while greening operations overall.

As part of the certification process, an independent, accredited assessor conducted on-site reviews of SMG Services’ systems, processes, and documentation. The assessor also visited randomly selected SMG customers to ensure that the organization’s activities are consistent with its documented systems and processes.

“SMG is extremely proud to be one of the few companies in the industry to receive both CIMS certifications ‘with honors’,” said Robert Weintraub, CEO, SMG Services. “The benefit to our customers is that it offers assurance that our management systems and processes are in compliance with the industry’s leading standard and best practices and it identifies us as a credible, quality and customer-focused organization.”

Included among the elements of CIMS are making sure an organization has a site specific scope of work that sets forth cleaning service requirements and ensuring that the organization has a quality plan for assessing whether such service requirements are met, as well as service delivery, workloading, purchasing, employee training, worker health and safety, and corporate organization requirements.