Welcome to the first Cleanzine broadcast for 2024. Happy New Year to you and let’s hope that this coming year's better for all of us than the last few have been! I must say it’s not started well for those who’ve had to overcome the recent weather extremes including volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides, flooding, excessive heat and drought – along with the not-so-natural disasters and struggles mankind’s constantly creating - and while I’d like to say, “Things can only get better” I won’t, since that’s not a given. Fingers crossed though… 

  

While tying up the loose ends on this issue I listened to Chris Guilfoyle’s latest ‘Cleaning Up Business’ Podcast, which featured Phil Smith, managing director of Indigo Integrated FM and co-chair of the Living Wage Foundation. As Phil’s also founder/chair of The Hill Club, (the UK cleaning industry’s networking club) and a Court Assistant at the Worshipful Company of Environmental Cleaners – and with that, a Freeman City of London, he knows an awful lot about the industry and how it works and I have to say, listening to the podcast was an hour very well spent. 

  

For example, I’d thought I knew everything about the Living Wage and with that, had often wondered how, with businesses having to try and cut costs, (including cleaning costs) cleaning contractors could afford to pay even the legal minimum – let alone the £2-ish higher, voluntary Living Wage. After all, if the client can’t afford to pay a higher price for the contract then where’s the cleaning contractor going to get the money from to cover higher wages? 

  

Phil’s simple explanation of how employers can make the Living Wage work for them – rather than, perhaps as some people think, against them, was well thought out, logical and easy to understand. He talked about the development of cost models, for example, to find ways to enable a lot of the increases in wages to be absorbed, while improving productivity and employee loyalty, too. Adjusting shift patterns is a good ploy, since this allows you to reduce the percentage of downtime in each shift… say when it comes to employees getting uniforms and equipment out of the cupboard, getting ready for the shift, and then doing everything in reverse at the end of the shift. That’s done every shift, and the percentage of time it takes out of a two-hour shift as opposed to a four-hour shift is really high, isn’t it? There’s more like this and lots about the industry in general, so if you want to learn more, watch at https://lnkd.in/eUAfAF-8 or listen at: https://lnkd.in/eTyZt8Pa