Select the Best Work Uniform Rental Provider
If you are considering a work uniform rental program for your employees, you’ll want to find the best option for your industry and your budget. Should you go with a nationally recognized company or a local independent? Do you need enhanced visibility or specialty uniforms? What are the costs and how do you avoid providers that have high employee turnover and lose uniforms? Here are three steps so that you make the best choice for your organization.
Steps
- Determine what uniforms types you need. The right work uniform program provides your business with a lot more than uniforms. It can provide a level of safety for your employees and your customers and enhance the credibility of your business. From garments with features designed to keep employees safe on the job to specialized garments designed to maintain safe manufacturing processes for food and health products, or specialized uniforms for other specialized work, a work uniform program is a built-in troubleshooter for your business and demonstrates to your customers that you are diligent in your commitment to health and safety.
- Apparel Items: determine how you want to outfit your employees - i.e. what combination of shirts, pants, shorts, lab coats, aprons, etc., how many are needed for both men and women on your team.
- Enhanced Visibility Garments: feature reflective striping that helps prevent accidents that can occur wherever people and moving equipment intersect. From drivers to workers who share space with forklifts and other moving equipment to employees who work under low-visibility conditions, enhanced visibility uniforms provide added safety.
- Food Production Uniforms: employees who work with food or health products need uniforms that meet enhanced standards of safety, including uniforms that prevent loose items from falling into product and uniforms that are laundered under specific conditions for water temperature and rinse processing.
- Do a google search for "work uniforms" and ask other organizations using work uniforms to see who provides rental services in your area. National providers include Cintas, Aramark, Unifirst, and AmeriPride. Local independent providers vary per city.
- Determine whether a national vendor or an independent local partner works better for you. As the big national uniform providers buy up smaller, independent suppliers, customers looking for the right uniform rental service find themselves with fewer choices. The national chains often offer the lowest prices but higher rates of employee turnover and occasional invoice surprises can be good reasons to be cautious. Working with a local work uniform provider means you’ll be doing business with someone who is part of the same business community as you, and whose success depends on yours. However, local companies sometimes do not have the process consistency of the nationals, are not ISO 9001:2015 certified, nor the capital to invest in high-end automation.
- Consider whether you want any other rental items, including shop towels and wipers, floor mats, wet and dry mops, restroom and hygiene supplies, etc.
- Get quotes. Of course, business owners have to be mindful of where they spend their money, but as the saying goes: you get what you pay for. You don’t just want a reasonable price – you want to know that you are getting what you pay for. It doesn’t matter what price you’re quoted if you sign on with a company likely to ramp up your price year after year, or a company with unreliable service. From missing uniforms to shoddy repair and laundering practices, an unreliable uniform partner is going to cost you more in the long run. Look for evidence of transparent billing practices and happy customers.
- Pick your work uniform supplier and sign the contract. Contract duration is often 5+ years, and the work uniform company purchases the uniforms and lockers for you (this is incorporated into your weekly rental fee so you don't have to make this investment up front, and is why contracts aren't shorter).
Tips
- Get quotes from both national and local independent providers, ask them questions based on what you learned above and choose who seems to be the best fit. Just choose wisely, as work uniform rental contracts usually last for five years and can be difficult to break if things go poorly.
