THE ‘SHINY’ AND THE ‘SERIOUS’
BCC Deputy Chair Paul Thrupp reflects on the awards season, while looking ahead to next April’s Cleaning Show in Manchester.
Over recent months many of the British Cleaning Council’s membership have celebrated their own industry’s achievements through their respective annual awards schemes. The CIEH, CIWM and BICSc were some of these who celebrated their ‘best of the best’ this autumn, and on behalf of the BCC, may I congratulate all the winners.
Last month we also saw the second European Cleaning & Hygiene Awards. Hosted in Rome, it was great to see two of the 11 awards being won by UK entrants – Julius Rutherfoord and SmartTask – while Ireland’s Derrycourt picked up further awards.
"If we can’t shout
about our successes and recognise
excellence, then who can?"
And while I know many people can be cynical about the value of award schemes, the bottom line is that they provide a platform to showcase and celebrate the fantastic work which goes on across the cleaning, hygiene and waste management sectors in this country.
Further, with much of what we do being still very under the radar of the general public (and even our clients a lot of the time), if we can’t shout about our successes and recognise excellence, then who can?
Celebrating what’s really positive, high quality and innovative in our industry is also what the BCC is continually looking to promote and support. One of our main vehicles for doing this is of course The Cleaning Show, which next April will be hosted in Manchester for the second time at Event City.
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This follows on from an incredibly successful debut at the same venue in 2016, where we saw over 2,300 cleaning professionals from across the country gathered together. It was also used as the backdrop to BBC Breakfast’s business news, hosted by Steph McGovern, on the show’s opening day. The April programme is still being finalised as I write this, but I’m sure that we will again see a fantastic range of live demonstrations, keynote speeches and hundreds of exhibitions stands.
Automation and robotics are likely to be high on the agenda, as will the new trailblazer apprenticeship which is being developed specifically for the cleaning sector. But among all the shiny new machines and latest cleaning products, gadgets and gizmos, there will again be a schedule of expert panels and seminars looking at some of the challenging issues we face in our industry.
Raising professional standards, career development and training, better wages and working conditions, improved quality control and better procurement practices are all bound to be covered over the two days, and we hope you will come along and add your voice to the debate. However, one issue which will be above all at the forefront of my mind is health and safety.
Like everyone, I was shocked by the awful news in mid-November about how a window cleaner had suffered serious injuries after falling while working at height on Oxford Street in central London, and on behalf of the Federation of Window Cleaners and the BCC I wish them a full and speedy recovery.
Around the same time there was also a widely reported story involving a cleaning operative apparently slipping on grease in a House of Commons kitchen – and winning £10,000 in compensation as a result.
"These incidents saw the national media shine a spotlight on the risks and issues
operatives can face on a daily basis."
Both of these incidents saw the national media shine a spotlight on the risks and issues operatives can face on a daily basis, and no doubt these stories will still be being talked about when we all meet in Manchester in April.
This is why the BCC is making health and safety a key part of the show’s conference programme, and why we are working alongside our partners at the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) on a whole morning of presentations, panels and debates linked to employee health, safety and wellbeing within the cleaning, hygiene and waste management sectors.
We therefore hope those colleagues who care deeply about safety in the workplace will join us in these sessions, and help us to ensure that risks to life and limb in cleaning are being continually reduced, for the sake of everyone.
www.britishcleaningcouncil.org twitter.com/TomoCleaning
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