14th Mar 2024
Did you know that we work for an average of 43.1 hours a week? If you look at those hours compared to the rest of our waking hours that is a big percentage of our time. If our staff are spending all this time working in the business, then it’s imperative that during this time staff feel respected and valued.
In a recent review, a staff member mentioned that it upset them that they had people say the phrase “just a cleaner’ on several occasions; sadly, one of these occasions had been in premises they were cleaning. When we spoke about how this made them feel the words ‘undervalued’ ‘unimportant’ and ‘taken for granted’ were used. I cannot sum up in words how saddened I was to hear one of our team members was made to feel that way.
“I speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbage man or the president of the university.” (Einstein)
As a company we do our hardest to show that we value our staff, we pay the real living wage, give additional holiday, give staff their birthday off paid and have team members of the month and quarter. We are grateful that staff are loyal, and this means that we have an experienced team who can offer a brilliant service and are entitled to respect.
Respect isn’t only a feeling of regarding someone well for their qualities but treating them with dignity and appreciating what they do.
“Respect other people’s feelings. It might mean nothing to you, but it could mean everything to them.” (Bennett, 2020)
This is really important to us as according to the Human Resources Employee Engagement Statistics, 63% of those who do not feel treated with respect intend to leave their job within two years.
Last week we sent out our staff satisfaction survey. We hope the results from this will help us show the commercial cleaning team our appreciation by making positive changes. Alongside this we want to work with our clients and community in championing the importance of our workforce. We will encourage changes, starting with the smallest of things such as saying hello to your cleaning staff, as it is these little things that build up and show appreciation and respect to staff on the premises.
