British Cleaning Council
Changing perceptions - a stronger future for the cleaning industry
our industry, and after the recent EHRC report that op- portunity can’t come soon enough. I’d never claimthat the
By Doug Cooke, chairman, British Cleaning Council.
Septembermeans the holi- days are over, the kids are back at school, and there’s nowwall towall football on TV, but at leastwe can start to look forward in earnest to the BCC’s autumn conference. We’ve had a bitmore for-
ward planning this year and havemanaged to book some really thought provoking speakers. The conference also gives us the opportunity to focus on some of the good things that are happening in
cleaning industry was per- fect, we still have a lot of work to do, but I feel Imust respond when it’s criticised by outside bodies. The EHRC report painted a rather grim picture in some of its find- ings. But it focused on such a tiny fraction of this huge in- dustry - just 1%of workers were asked to give evidence - that its overall worthmust be questioned. Because of this report jour-
nalists and themedia can now paint lurid headlines about ‘exploited cleaners’ and ‘uncaring contractors’. The BCC has laid out its stall very clearly on this.We do acceptmalpractice has to be rooted out, but we do not ac- cept that it is as widespread as the EHRC report claims. If
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you look hard enough at any sector you will find unsavoury practices. But I was pleased that the
report did also give some positive coverage to initiatives that the BCC proudly sup- ports, like daytime cleaning and the living wage. It’s these practices, along with the new technologies, that will begin to change people’s view about our industry. To that end we’ve chosen
the theme of ‘changing per- ceptions’ for this November’s BCC conference as we really do want to get across how much we are changing and taking on board new ideas and solutions. One such idea, that I’ve
spoken about on a number of occasions is the living wage, which is now verymuch a mainstreamconcept with both parties in favour of it. There are now numerous studies that show the living
wage and daytime cleaning can help keep employees for longer and,maybe just as importantly, keep themmoti- vated andmore productive. High staff turnover used to
be a reason whymany con- tractors thought it not worth investing in training. But if staff are treated well and paid the living wage they are more likely to stay with the firm, and somaking it worth- while giving themtraining and guidance. But our industry is now fo-
cusing onmuchmore than just employee relations; cor- porate social responsibility is now verymuch the order of the day in business and soci- ety, and we now have a duty to be environmentally aware, to support the local commu- nities in which we work, and to become involved in activi- ties like volunteering and charities. So I think that the BCC con-
ference theme of ‘changing perceptions’ is very apt this year. After the EHRC report I think we should bemore will- ing to discuss the positive things we’re achieving.We can never, of course, rid our- selves of the odd bad apple but having a set of values that we can all believe in will guide us in the right direction and keep the public on our side.We have to remain com- petitive and sometimes we do have tomake tough deci- sions, but that doesn’tmean we have to forsake our other responsibilities. I look for- ward to having a really lively debate about all this at our conference thisNovember.
reason to support the showas itmoves to London in 2015.
grants programme - another
Show, co-owned by the BCC and Quartz BusinessMedia, are poured back into the
Profits fromthe Cleaning
For further information on the British Cleaning Council and details of itsmembers contact: The General Secretary, BCC Ltd, 478-480 Salisbury House, LondonWall, London EC2M5QQ, UK T: 020 7920 9640 E:
info@britishcleaningcouncil.org W:
www.britishcleaningcouncil.org
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