Clean Force managers, Jim Dinuccio and Paul Fraser, started Clean Force in 2001 with a vision to create sustainable award-wage employment opportunities for people with mental illness. In the early years Clean Force relied heavily on government funding. With perseverance and a merger in 2005 with WISE Employment, the enterprise continued to evolve and Clean Force today is a financially self-sufficient, successful social enterprise. Parent company, WISE Employment, an Australian not-for-profit employment services provider, was established in 1992 to assist people with disabilities into employment.
WISE currently delivers the DES (Disability Employment Services) and Workforce Australia Government employment contracts, whilst operating two social enterprises: Clean Force Property Services (Victoria & NSW) and ELS (Tasmania). These social enterprises provide commercially viable services, and produce employment opportunities to allow people from disadvantaged backgrounds to enter the workforce. Clean Force has a blended workforce with approximately 50% of employees from disadvantaged backgrounds including those with a disability or mental illness.
The rest of the staff are professional cleaning and grounds staff from the open workforce who choose to work within the blended workforce and work towards the mission of Clean Force. The Clean Force mission is to build capability, independence and resilience for all staff so that everyone can become open employees within Clean Force delivering 100% productivity helping other employees who need support to thrive in the workplace. Clean Force also encourages staff who identify among the following groups: new arrivals (including recently settled refugees) people receiving welfare benefits those living in social housing other part-time cleaning professionals Additionally, 19% of the workforce are from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds.