In Conversation - Industry Key Workers

Key Workers

A very emotive subject!

The British Cleaning Council have stated:

If you provide a service to an institution or business that is classified as critical, necessary and relevant (cleaning provision in hospitals; social care; courts; Government estate; supermarkets and the food supply chain; the transport network; national infrastructure and utilities), and their employees are classified as a ‘Key Worker’ and the services you provide is required to enable them to continue to function safely, it means your staff are also deemed to be part of the ‘Key Worker’ group. This is because without your support/services, these critical functions may not be able to operate.

We (BICSc) are continually being asked what we are doing to get cleaning operatives recognised as key workers? Unfortunately, this isn’t as straightforward as people may think. The difficulty around this matter is having a clear definition for cleaning operatives across the board.

Let’s think about this (under normal circumstances), is the cleaning operative working for say an FM Company in an office to be considered the same as a cleaning operative who works in a hospital or care home, whom right now incidentally, do fall into the key worker group as defined by the Government.

This isn’t in any way dismissing those who clean offices or schools (bearing in mind that some are open for key workers) or any other facility – in fact, it’s an illustration of how difficult defining who is and who isn’t to be considered as a key worker.

As recently reported by our CEO Stan Atkins, we are part of an industry that does not have its own Standard Industry Code (SIC). Perhaps if it did, this would be considered progress?

We will continue to play our part; by raising the standards of education and to build awareness of the cleaning industry through professional standards and accredited training.

Perhaps, the question that could come from us in the future could be;

Should industry entry-level training become legislation?

Final thoughts…..

This is a subject we could discuss for hours, for now, we know that so many of you continue to deliver vital cleaning and hygiene services across the globe, for this we cannot thank you enough.

Stay Well | Stay Safe

Our Mission

The British Institute of Cleaning Science is the largest independent, professional and educational body within the cleaning industry with over 40,000 Individual and Corporate Members in the UK and Internationally.

To raise the standards of education and to build awareness of the cleaning industry through professional standards and accredited training, thereby;