IU Health contract ceases for local cleaning company

Groff Enterprises, a Bloomington-based company that offers cleaning and other maintenance services, will no longer service IU Health Bloomington Hospital’s off-site clinical locations and offices beginning March 31.

Its contract expires on that date, and its work will instead be managed by Groupe Services France, an international industrial and commercial cleaning company that has an Indiana branch headquartered in Indianapolis. This change will only affect off-site locations. Cleaning and maintenance for the hospital itself will remain in-house.

While there might be concerns that Bloomington Hospital is shifting jobs from a local company to a larger, more distant one, Amanda Roach, media relations coordinator for Bloomington Hospital, said the hospital is simply going with the strongest candidate.

“In order to assure quality, service and consistency in the cleaning of IU Health Bloomington off-site locations, we decided to go through an request for proposal process for cleaning services with the anticipated outcome of selecting just one provider,” Roach said. “We conducted a very typical RFP process, which is done in businesses very often.” 

In a request for proposal process, the organization seeking services requests proposals that includes various criteria for the services. Companies can submit proposals, and some are invited to give presentations and be interviewed by the selection committee.

Groff, as well as other current vendors, was invited to participate in the RFP process.
 
“The company ultimately selected by a task force of IU Health Bloomington employees overseeing this process is GSF,” Roach said. “A fair opportunity was given to all involved in the process to compete for our business.”

Neither Groff nor GSF could be reached for comment.

— Sean Moore