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https://vimeo.com/479971384)
“Cleaning and hygiene personnel are skilled in their own right and are proud to play a vital role as a first line of defence against Coronavirus by keeping buildings hygienically clean, but it’s becoming more difficult to maintain the standards required because of severe staff shortages.
“We desperately need the Government to help, otherwise the public’s health will be put at risk and more and more of our staff will pay the price by burning out.”
Cleaning and hygiene is one of the biggest industries in the UK and personnel ensure that workplaces, supermarkets, hospitals and healthcare facilities, leisure centres, transport hubs and many more buildings remain germ-free and safe to use.
Anecdotal evidence of sector businesses reporting significant recruitment issues has been reinforced by a recent BCC survey of cleaning and hygiene industry firms, representing over 30,000 employees in total, which recorded nearly 2000 vacancies. The BCC is continuing to survey sector firms and will release updated figures on final confirmation.
However, the trends to date include one firm saying the number of vacancies had increased by 252% in the last six
months, and another by 267%, both astonishing figures.
The majority of companies taking part in the BCC survey reported that staff leaving included foreign nationals going home or employees moving to other roles which have received Government assistance, such as HGV driving or in hospitality.
The immigration system introduced in the wake of Brexit classified cleaning and hygiene operatives as low-skilled, making it much more difficult for overseas staff to find work in the sector. The cleaning and hygiene industry has always depended on employees of all nationalities, but UK nationals have been traditionally hard to attract to the industry.
The BCC is urgently calling for the Government to work with the industry to ensure an immediate solution to the staffing issues and, in the longer term, help ensure that there is a clear skills pathway to ensure the industry becomes an attractive career choice.
www.britishcleaningcouncil.org
TSA plans Sustainability Pact
The Textile Services Association (TSA) is putting together a Sustainability Pact, designed to support commercial laundries in their drive to deliver a more sustainable future.
The Pact will also support the hospitality industry’s net zero carbon objectives, but, as Shyju Skariah, Technical Services Manager at the TSA, highlighted: “We just don’t want to focus on net zero carbon. We also need to be tackling water quality, reducing waste – this is so much more than a simple net zero tag.”
The TSA has set up a Sustainability Steering Group made up of representatives from laundry operators, machinery and textiles manufacturers, and end-users including representation from UK Hospitality. The objective for the
group is to ensure a holistic approach is taken, whether it’s considering the complex end of life textiles recycling project, which will save millions of tonnes of textiles from landfill, or looking into simple measures, such as using low energy light bulbs.
Skariah added: “The laundry industry has already come a long way in optimising and fine-tuning its processes and operations in a more sustainable way. We have seen water usage slashed from 20L a kilo down to 2L, and energy usage halved, but we want to go much further. Nothing is off agenda with this steering group.”
The Steering Group’s first task is to set up the initial Sustainability Pact, which the laundry industry will sign up to. Skariah continued: “We’ll run training workshops with experts so TSA members really understand what net zero means and how it can be achieved. We’ll create tools for individual companies to track progress. Each company will set their own roadmap, enabling the TSA to compile an industrywide pathway.”
The Pact will be added to as new sustainability ideas and concepts are developed, along with the practical means to initiate them.
David Stevens, CEO of the TSA, commented: “Following COP26 and with the climate change issues being addressed at a corporate level, there has never been a better time to set the most challenging sustainability objectives for the UK commercial laundry industry.”
www.tsa-uk.org www.tomorrowscleaning.com WHAT’S NEW? | 7
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