Best Commercial & Professional Cleaning Company 2021 – Sweden

At SmartaVal AB, the key to a happier, more balanced life is simple: find more free time. As a vast majority of the population suffers the anxiety and stress of juggling the many aspects of daily life, the Swedish firm is on-hand with a full-service household solution. From domestic to office cleaning, gardening to maintenance services, SmartaVal can handle a vast array of household services, so that you don’t have to. In addition, SmartaVal works with businesses across Stockholm and beyond, promoting household services as a salary benefit for employees in an initiative that is seeing tangible results in happier, more productive teams. CEO and Founder Mila Viniavska tells us more. 

For Founder and CEO Mila Viniavska, achieving an orderly, satisfying life requires a careful balance of work, leisure, and the many other components that keep us busy; family, relationships, running a home, pursuing dreams, and all the other necessities of daily life. It is a tricky balance to maintain, but without it, life can soon become stressful and draining, leading to unproductivity and dissatisfaction.

According to statistics, 80% of the population of Sweden have experienced the overwhelming sense of lost balance, and Mila was among them. Feeling stress, anxiety and resulting poor health of managing life felt like the inevitable, when in fact the solution lay simply in finding more free time. In 2012, Mila founded SmartaVal to deliver just that.

A full-service company offering comprehensive services in household and commercial cleaning, window cleaning, gardening, and craftsman or handyman services, SmartaVal is designed to fit seamlessly into everyday life. Offering flexible, friendly service that is affordable and environmentally responsible, SmartaVal’s purpose is two-fold: to make clean and tidy spaces for better living and working, and to alleviate the day-to-day tasks that add to the pressures of working life. In brief, to make life happier and healthier.

It is a concept that is becoming increasingly prevalent across Sweden, as stress-induced sick leave has taken a sudden upwards turn. As a result, many employers across the country have begun to introduce allowances and household services as salary benefits to help reduce stress, enabling employees to concentrate more energy into their work and seeing a consequent rise in productivity and positive business outcomes.

“Imagine what would happen if companies’ revenues were to double as a result of our collaboration!” says Mila. “Promoting prosperous and long-term health as a business strategy is key for future employers.”

Indeed, many of SmartaVal’s business clients are passionate advocates for the household service salary benefit concept, as one customer attests: “The job is a big part of life and offering household-related services as a salary benefit is a smart way for a good leader to make it easier for his employees to make life come together. As an employer, you get increased profitability with satisfied employees, reduced sick leave and a really proactive part of rehabilitation work. It is an investment that pays off.”

Despite the glowing testimonials of employers and employees alike, there are some businesses that are yet to adopt the innovative rehabilitation and support concept as a salary benefit. For Mila, it is vital that this mentality changes: “Have you ever seen an employee perform to his full potential when he does not have time at home to rest and recover?” she queries.

In addition to its employee benefits, SmartaVal also offers additional B2B services across Stockholm and beyond. Specialists in office and property cleaning, stair cleaning, school, kindergarten and shop cleaning, complete with window services, SmartaVal breathes new life into workplaces and environments. The SmartaVal team works around its clients, operating in the mornings, afternoons, and after-hours, any day of the week, to ensure clients are fully satisfied with the whole cleaning experience.

SmartaVal’s personal services are similarly comprehensive. “Give me your to-do list and I will do my best to accommodate your wishes so that you will have time for positive lifestyle changes,” says Mila. Offering weekly cleaning services or one-off cleaning for a house move, spring clean, or tidying up after an event, SmartaVal provides a team of highly qualified, meticulous cleaners who will work around homeowners and clients to fit their schedules, going above and beyond to deliver cleans that exceed expectations, and make returning home at the end of the day a joy.

SmartaVal also has a team of experienced handymen which clients call on to handle everything from small fixing jobs to laying a new floor or repainting the house, all delivered with the company’s signature superior customer service and a quality guarantee. This guarantee extends to the firm’s other household services in gardening that is billed by the hour with no hidden costs, window plastering, and snow shovelling, as well as a full range of cleaning products and equipment to purchase. Whatever your home needs to achieve perfection, the SmartaVal team is on hand to deliver.

The firm also launched an ECO-Clean service that uses organic steam cleaning as a chemical-free alternative that is good for the environment and health. This service is one of the key areas in which SmartaVal is contributing towards a more sustainable future, and becoming the greener choice for customers across Stockholm. Its mission is to reduce the direct and indirect environmental impacts of its services and products by offering climate-smart solutions, streamlining processes to be more efficient, employing innovative technology, and working with partners who share its sustainable values. SmartaVal also listens to its clients to learn how it can improve on its sustainability initiatives, in order to understand how to better serve its customers and the planet too.

Moreover, the more you make use of the firm’s award-winning service, the more you will feel the benefits. Thanks to SmartaVal’s loyalty card program, customers are not only able to enjoy multiple deals and benefits, they are able to share them out to friends and loved ones too. This is just another way in which SmartaVal delivers on its commitment to make life a little brighter.

With a vision to spread goodness and joy, SmartaVal relies heavily on its team to extend that goodwill out to its broad network of clients. “We want our employees to work with passion, drive and customer focus,” Mila tells us. “For us at SmartaVal, the most important thing is that we work for a good cause. SmartaVal relieves people of their everyday life and gives them more time to live life. We have a clear vision that works both internally and externally to create a better everyday life for people. It should be fun to go to work, but it should be nice to come home!”

Thus, in giving its employees a purpose in their work, SmartaVal is able to instil a sense of pride in each member, that drives them to be better. As the leader of the company, Mila strives to build relationships of trust and respect between her and her team, ensuring that they benefit from a positive working environment that allows them to reach their full potential.

“My staff is the most valuable thing I have, as they are my proud ambassadors,” adds Mila. “In my leadership, I take advantage of my employees’ previous knowledge and skills [and channel it into] personal development. The staff has different backgrounds, ethnicities, cultures, religions and religious convictions. I work on the basis of the equal value of everyone, and my employees’ differences are my company’s asset and strength.”

Driven by the company’s values of Presence, Proactive, and Pro-Responsibility, SmartaVal’s team is committed to being flexible and accessible, organised, and focused on building long-term partnerships that facilitate sustainable development and social responsibility.

It is a core philosophy that translates into excellence as a team, and has seen Mila’s team recognised with numerous awards, including Glansföretag in the Clean Bright Awards 2019 and 2020, Prins Daniels Fellowship, Gazelleföretag 2018 and Arbetsmiljöpeppen 2019. These awards have been added to a roster which also features Winner of the Stockholm Prestige Awards 2020, Professional Cleaning Service of the Year 2020, a well-deserved final place as the Leadership Profile of the Year 2020, and now Best Commercial & Professional Cleaning Company 2021 in Sweden at the Corporate Excellence Awards.

Whilst the multitude of awards and brand recognition of SmartaVal placed it in a secure and well-established position before the pandemic, when Covid-19 hit in March 2020, the firm nonetheless had to adapt to survive uncertain climates like so many other businesses. As panicked cancellations increased and potential financial instability made rewarding employees an area for concern, SmartaVal quickly set about making plans to adjust. Fortunately, it found itself in a relatively secure position, that meant the staff’s reduced employment rate would not need to exceed 20%.

“We are glad that the pandemic has not affected us as much as we initially thought it might,” says Mila. “The situation is still unstable as we are occasionally affected both positively and negatively by various restrictions. As for the gardening services and window cleaning, we have not seen any noticeable impact on the business.”

Business operations have had to be adjusted in a lot of ways for SmartaVal, yet a physical presence is crucial in its services. As such, Mila has implemented strict protocols across the business, ensuring that any staff who have symptoms of Covid-19 stay home in accordance with the Public Health Agency’s recommendations. When the team does work, they follow strict hygiene practices to minimise the risk of infection, from keeping distanced from their customers to using full PPE.

However, with customers working remotely and office cleaning dropping in demand, SmartaVal is embracing technology as a means of opening up new opportunities for itself and its clients. “We have begun to look at how we can switch and what new services we can develop through enhanced skillsets to offer to customers digitally,” Mila tells us. “For example, we are exploring educative concepts such as cleaning coaches, ‘Order Consultants’, and a course for children called ‘Order and Order’.

“We also participate in an EU-funded project, called ‘On The Way Forward’. The project, funded by the ESF Council, will contribute to strengthening the members in household services in the form of skills development, employment measures or integration initiatives.”

Initiatives like On The Way Forward are  supporting Mila and her team’s continued commitment to moving forwards as a company, striving onwards in the face of adversity. “We change and we do not give up! We adjust the direction, but we continue to move towards the same goal. Of course, it may take a little longer, but we see many new opportunities that have opened up.” Having onboarded a coach and mentor in the company’s growth program that was initiated prior to the pandemic, SmartaVal has had a long-standing culture of support and positive thinking, built on a solution-oriented business model that looks ahead to long-term goals.

Changes in customer habits and transformations across the cleaning industry are inevitable following the pandemic, but for SmartaVal, many of them present new opportunities for success. Whilst hotel and office cleaning may take a back seat as a result of the drop of tourism and rise in remote working, and pressure on the financial situations of private clients may be of some detriment to SmartaVal, the firm is able to look to other areas, in particular where demand for higher standards of hygiene is increasing. “In public places, schools and preschools, hygiene requirements will be raised, which will lead to more demand and focus on price will be replaced by quality,” predicts Mila. Also, “people are staying at home and placing greater value on creating a pleasant, orderly and nice home and work environment, which leads to greater demand for household-related services. Adversity breed success!” she adds.

Thus, as SmartaVal looks ahead, it is with great enthusiasm, anticipating an increase in its clientele of companies that hope to make use of the salary benefit service, as well as seeing an increase in demand from private clients too. True to its founding mission, SmartaVal puts the control back into the hands of its customers, giving them the choice to claim back the freedom of time. “But we won’t tell you what to do – it’s your decision!”, concludes Mila. “Just start with answering one question: do you live to work, or do you work to live?”

Company: SmartaVal AB

Web Address: http://www.smarta-val.se/