Celebrating cleaning skills
April 1st 2009 The UK’s best cleaners have been recognised at an awards ceremony in central London, organised by Asset Skills.Additional reporting by Gerardine Coyne
We’re talking about real success, and encouraging success. It may not be the most fashionable industry – but it’s one of the most important,” said Richard Beamish chief executive of Asset Skills, introducing the Team Clean Challenge Awards Presentation in London on April 2nd.The awards ceremony was to honour the UK’s best cleaners and recognise them as skilled workers. Entrants took part in two cleaning competitions organised by Asset Skills. One contest, the ‘Open Strand’was open to industry, the other, the ‘HMP Strand’, took place within prisons.
The heats for the open contest took place last year.The award for best cleaner in the 2008 Team Clean Challenge went to Annette Giblin, from Rentokil Initial, BP Hull (pictured above with Stan Atkins, CEO of BICSc).The joint first prize for best cleaning team went TC Contractors (right, below) and Rentokil-Initial (right, above).The runner up team was MITIE Prime.
“Each year we change the Team Clean Challenge,”explained Chris James, director of research & development at Asset Skills.”This year, real life situations included stairs, hard floors,washrooms and offices.
We use real set ups and real mess.We trashed the University of Southampton’s toilets, and students who weren’t supposed to be there complained about the state of them!” The numeracy skills needed for estimating and costing, including VAT calculations, are also now built into the training.“It’s always interesting to see how each team in the competition deals with client demands,”James continued.“If the client says ‘I want this room back in 10 minutes’ – which is a realistic scenario – do the teams go into headless chicken mode, or are they cool, calm and collected?” Each team consists of a manager, supervisor and two operatives.The manager has to do the costing, estimating and planning, and also risk assessment.“They came in cold, not knowing what to expect and they did brilliantly,”said James.The supervisor, according to James, is often described as the lynchpin, the voice between management and operatives, however, he said it was the operatives who were critical to achieving the end product.Teams compete against the criteria/requirements of the areas to be cleaned in the competition, rather than each other.This year the judges’ feedback centred around planning and prioritising of work as areas needing more focus.
“The Team Clean Challenge has been extremely well received by employers and is growing in popularity,” stated Beamish. “It gives the industry a chance to showcase on a national stage how skilled and well trained their cleaners are.They form an essential workforce, ensuring we can all live and work without fear of disease.”
The HMP strand was held in 16 prisons earlier this year.The top award in this strand went to HMP Pentonville, London.The runner up team was HMP Winchester. In the prisons’ sector, the competition highlights to inmates how cleaning is a worthwhile job to consider for the future. It also flags to employers the quality training on offer within prisons.“Because of the nature of the job,we haven’t got any of the trainees here today,“said Maggie Walsh of Working Ventures UK, instead representatives from each prison collected awards on behalf of the winners.
Teams were put through rigorous assessments of their practical responses to a set of scenarios.The challenge had to be adapted to prison conditions, “as prisons aren’t too keen on hyperdermic needles for some reason,” said Walsh wryly,”but we managed to make do with the inside of biros instead.”
“A job is key to preventing re-offending,” explained Walsh. Inmates who take the training programme learn numeracy, language and management skills.“This year we have had the first direct job offers from an employer – Housing Group has employed five offenders, and a BICSc certificate was one of the conditions of employment, which all trainees have now gained.”
Simon Boddis from the Ministry of Justice praised the prison scheme in his address and its aim to get offenders into work.“Most offenders want to stop offending, but they don’t know how, and they don’t have the skills to work.Don’t believe the media that tells you they want to stay in prison.Offenders have led chaotic lives, and skills and jobs give much needed stability.”The fact that the training takes place based on actual day-to-day scenarios is the main reason Boddis backs it.“Real training is important, because it leads to real jobs.”
Boddis also praised the positive impact that the training has on inmates.“Most prisoners have never had a certificate, or someone saying ‘well done’.They are vilified in the media, so their self-esteem is low. I agree with Churchill and Mandela who said:“You should judge a society not on how it treats the best of its citizens, but how it treats the worst.” More articles from Asset Skills: | 
