FEATURE
THE HUMAN TOUCH
Stan Atkins, Chair of the British Cleaning Council, looks to the future and sees cleaning increasingly converging with other services as the sector emerges from the shadows.
Looking ahead, the British Cleaning Council is increasingly concerned about a potential skills gap which could quickly escalate into a skills crisis. The BCC’s own research demonstrates that as an industry we’re going to require over 380,000 cleaning operatives over the next decade simply to replace those retiring. This is in addition to 84,000 vacancies we expect to see created by organic growth in the sector.
These figures were also calculated before the potential impact of Brexit was realised, and however we end up after leaving the EU, professional cleaning could see itself wrestling with a massive challenge of recruitment, retainment and upskilling just to keep pace with demand.
The BCC, and its members and industry partners, are all working together to develop new training standards and career pathways within cleaning.
We are involved in the development of a Level 2 Trailblazer apprenticeship and are closely watching the government’s progress on its new ‘T’ level vocational qualifications.
The need to attract more young people into the industry and is also high on the BCC’s agenda, and we’ve recently set up a cross-sector working group called Project 35.
Being chaired by WAMITAB’s CEO Chris James, Project 35 will focus on how we specifically address the lack of young people coming into the cleaning, waste and hygiene industries.
Part of that process will involve us researching young people's perceptions of the industry and looking at what we need to do to
engage with them more effectively, enthuse them about working in the cleaning industry and getting them to take that first step on a cleaning career ladder.
The BCC cannot do this alone, and we need the whole sector to recognise that we are facing a situation where we will have jobs but there might be no one to take them.
And even though some may think automation will be a silver bullet to fix a lack of frontline cleaning operatives, that won’t solve the problem of a shortage of technicians which we’ll need to operate a fleet of robotic scrubber dryers.
I also think we’re a long way away from when a machine will be able to undertake the increasingly skilled, detailed and specialist cleaning tasks needed to maintain a new generation of ‘smart’ buildings.
Other developments linked specifically to recruitment which I foresee include the increasing demand for daytime cleaning staff who will be required to work around people in offices, shops, factories and public buildings.
This will require a different skill set to the traditional ‘office cleaner’, and recruiters will be looking for individuals who are comfortable interacting with customers as well as being able to clean a workplace efficiently.
I believe such human ‘soft skills’ will also be in demand to fulfil a new type of role in the near future which is echoed by our recent research.
The BCC anticipates that over 22,000 ‘personal service’ cleaning roles will be created by 2024, but I envisage these will increasingly be more than just domestic cleaners. With our
6 | TOMORROW’S CLEANING YEARBOOK 2018/19
aging population, and the need to keep people out of hospital and care homes for as long as possible, many of these domestic roles will I believe morph into a new hybrid profession where healthcare, shopping and companionship services will be combined with cleaning and other domestic tasks.
We’ll also see more agile, mobile and multidisciplinary firms spring up, blurring the lines between cleaning and other facilities management services. Many of these will operate a business model driven by the type of digitally-based approach to logistics which currently underpins companies like Uber and Deliveroo.
So, while I do see a bright and positive future for cleaning ahead, clearly a significant shift in how we attract and develop staff will be required to fulfil the sector’s growth potential. In parallel, a new breed of multi-tasking service providers will evolve both within domestic and commercial cleaning, which will utilise all of the latest technologies and digitally-based applications to provide highly flexible and efficient cleaning provision combined with other added-value services.
It’s exciting stuff, but without a pipeline of young people to fill these new types of cleaner-technician- FM roles, then we’ll struggle as an industry to maximise the opportunities which lay ahead.
For more information on the British Cleaning Council visit:
www.britishcleaningcouncil.org
twitter.com/TomoCleaning
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108
