Dirty toilets and slapdash cleaning standards are responsible for the rapid spread of novovirus on cruise ships – and the hand sanitisers designed to reduce germs are powerless to prevent contamination, says US medical researchers.

In an attempt to stem the rise in outbreaks, cruise lines now routinely station hand sanitiser gels at restaurant entrances, but this simply does not work says a new study.

“It’s a tough virus,” said lead researcher Dr Philip Carling, pointing out that the pathogen can live on surfaces at room temperature for weeks “ It isn’t killed by alcohol hand rubs. Chlorine bleach is the only thing that works.”

For the study, the researchers tested public lavatories on 56 of the world’s largest cruise ships. Using a solution visible only under ultraviolet light, they marked the doors, toilet seats, flush buttons, hand holds and baby-changing tables in 273 facilities, then monitored them for five to seven days to see if the solution got cleared off.

The results were alarming, showing that only 37% of the public toilets tested were thoroughly cleaned every day, and in 18% of cases they remained uncleaned for more than 24 hours. On three of the ships, the baby changing tables were not cleaned at all during the monitoring period.

Leading cruise line Royal Caribbean International said it takes “numerous proactive steps to prevent, control and eradicate novovirus”, including “special cleaning of all ‘high-touch’ areas on the ship”.

“Those affected by the short lived illness generally respond well to treatment provided on board, and the illness itself usually resolves itself in 24 – 48 hours” said the cruise line.

Fred Olsen, which operates the twice-stricken Balmoral, said its public toilets were cleaned with chlorine based disinfectant on an hourly basis. In addition, it said, “every passenger must use the antimicrobial and cleansing foam sanitiser on entry to any restaurant or eating area”

Chris Haslam Times 22nd November 2009

Many people fail in life, not for their lack of natural ability, intellect or drive but simply because they don’t focus their energies like a laser, on their end goal.

In the contract cleaning industry, whether you’re a Site Manager, Supervisor, Team leader, Contracts Manager or a Surveyor it is too easy to simply become overwhelmed with normal day-to-day activities that all you can do is take one step at a time. Yes, this may help you get through the week but operating at this level will not move you any closer to achieving your BIG over riding goals. You will simply be treading water.

Here are some simple “rules” to ensure that you keep your ultimate objective in mind while at the same time achieving the incremental steps, which take you closer and closer to your goal without losing yourself in the minutiae of day-to-day working life.

First of all never forget that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail! It’s seems an old corny saying but it has a heck of a lot of truth in it.

You must imagine exactly the result or objective you want to achieve. Smell it, imagine it, and touch it. How does it make you feel? What positive outcomes will it have for you and your Team in the long run?

Once you have got your objective firmly fixed in your mind and you know this is what you are aiming for 100% you should then make yourself a road map with key stages or milestones that you know you must achieve. When you have it all thought out in your head put it down in writing! As soon as you commit your thoughts to paper it is as if you have carved it in stone. This way you stop your mind playing tricks on you and allowing you to forget / downgrade the importance / allow self-doubt to creep in and erode your single mindedness.

To further ensure your goals become reality when you commit them to paper, use the SMART acronym. This is a simple tool to use when writing your goals and objectives down.

Specific – Know exactly what your goal is.

Measurable – Know whether you achieved the goal.

Achievable – Speaks for itself.

Relevant – Relates to the big picture.

Timely – When will you reach the goal?

It’s said that only 5% of people actually write down their goals.

If you truly want to see improvement and growth in whatever you do, take the time to create SMART objectives then regularly hold yourself accountable by checking progress against these written down goals. Otherwise you will continue living one day at a time, working hard but not SMART.

As the winter flu season looms ever closer demand for swine flu hand sanitizers is rocketing but is our faith in these alcohol based solutions misplaced?

It is common knowledge that good hygiene can prevent the transmission of infectious diseases such as swine flu. This is backed up by the International Scientific Forum on Home Hygiene (IFH). Hands play an integral role in transmitting a virus as they regularly come into contact with known portals of entry for pathogens. These include the obvious ones such as the nose and mouth, alongside the less obvious, such as the conjunctiva of the eyes.

It follows on from this that good hand hygiene leads to a reduction in the transmission of viruses. This is where hand sanitizers come in. Even though nothing really beats good old hand washing a hand sanitizer can prove a useful ally in the battle against swine flu. Although no hand sanitizer is proven to prevent swine flu, according to the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) they do undoubtedly help protect you and your family from the H1N1 virus by limiting its potential for transmission.

Research has shown that unlike many methods of combating a virus, alcohol based swine flu hand sanitizers do not lead to viral adaption and the formation of a resistant strain. This is good news for the health conscious among you as it guarantees the effectiveness of swine flu hand sanitizers regardless of the form the virus takes. If the hand gel is used properly and applied to the entire hand for at least 20 seconds it provides a good alternative to hand washing. Swine flu hand sanitizing gel can be especially convenient if you are on the go and hand washing facilities are not readily available.

The high street retailer WH Smith has recently been condemned for their abandonment of professional contract cleaners. The company has disregarded these professional contract cleaners in favour of their own retail staff despite the swine flu pandemic. Smiths have delegated cleaning to every day staff as part of their general duties, a move that has been condemned by the British Cleaning Council (BCC) as well as the Cleaning and Support Services Association (CSSA).

In an attempt to cut costs the high street chain has slashed the use of professional contract cleaners to once a week in some of its stores. This has left staff in the lurch as they are now required to sweep floors and carry out general cleaning in store.

Regardless of opposition from staff and cleaning firms currently under contract with WH Smith, the retailer’s chief executive Kate Swann pressed ahead with the policy. This decision was criticised by Andrew Large when he spoke on behalf of the BCC and CSSA. He described the measures as potentially unlawful before going on to criticise them as damaging to good hygiene at a time when this was increasingly important. Large also promised to investigate if professional contract cleaners were made redundant when they should have remained under the employment of WH Smith.

Mr Large criticised the high street giant’s actions claiming that “WH Smith is depriving itself of skills and expertise of cleaning professionals.” He went on to say that there is “no guarantee that the shop workers will have the necessary skills or training to be able to maintain the stores to a satisfactory standard.”

It is clear that if an organisation wishes to maintain proper infection control practices then the best option is to employ professional contract cleaners with all of the necessary expertise. It is only by doing this that a company can be sure that all the necessary measures are being taken to combat the transmission of the swine flu virus, ideally through the use of  swine flu sanitizer, wipes and hard surface cleaners. With thousands of customers browsing through the retailer’s magazines on a daily basis, it is both irresponsible and potentially dangerous for WH Smith to cut back on professional contract cleaners at this time.

In last weeks post we discussed the National Minimum Wage (NMW) and asked the question whether it actually provided a “living wage” for a cleaning operative, especially doing daily cleaning work, given the difficulty of stringing enough part time jobs together to be the equivalent of a normal full time position.

The situation for our lower paid staff is even more dire than I realised at that time. Consider the following facts as reported in The Daily Telegraph.

• A family with two children is just £30 per week better off working for the NMW than not working.
• A single person on the NMW would be £3 per week better off than someone on the higher level of incapacity benefit.
• A single person on the NMW of £193 per week who is aged under 25 would only be £10 per day better off than a non-working person.
• If you have a family and only one of you is the breadwinner on the NMW you would be slightly worse off than the same family if they were receiving the maximum Incapacity Benefit.
• Did you realise a family with one working member and two kids gets £79.50 per week Working Tax Credit. However after means testing they might keep only £6.77?

As part of a company that employs many hundreds of people performing necessary, difficult and often downright unpleasant cleaning duties this situation makes me weep.

I weep for the loss of human potential, weep with anger that this is where 10 years of New Labour has actually taken us to and weep for the frustration that anyone needing an entry level job must feel at trying to better themselves through their own efforts.

I have no answers or suggestions other than you should carefully question everyone who applies for work with your company. A brief look under the surface may show you the true price someone is willing to pay just to get a chance to get a foot on the first rung of the ladder and out of this Groundhog Day of a benefits system.

Would you be willing to do the same? Are you the person to give them that chance?

Columbus Dixon

Can you remember the fear and consternation that the National Minimum Wage created in most contractors’ minds when it was first introduced? It was almost as bad as TUPE as everyone had their own bête-noires ranging from worrying about customer’s willingness to pay above inflation increases or would they cut service levels to balance their books, to wondering whether other contractors would stick to the rules and actually pay the going rate? And then would higher paid workers argue or strike to retain a differential?

In the main all these worries and troubles proved unfounded. Indeed here at Newlife even though we operate nationally, the North east of England and parts of Scotland were the only areas, which didn’t already have base cleaning wages well above the new set level. In fact we have many geographic locations where market forces dictate that wages are 30 – 50% above the NMW. In these areas if you aren’t willing to pay the going rate you may attract a cleaner for a week or two but then they will be off to the better paying site down the road. Gossip about rates travels faster than Concorde!

Why is it though that we and probably many other contractors are almost scared to ask for a proper financial return for our services? How many times have we had to present a case to garner the smallest of increases probably from a client representative who if asked to live on the National Minimum Wage would think that their employer was insulting them? Could you bring your family up on just over £11,000 pa? And that’s if your lucky enough to be able to string enough part time jobs together to give you ‘full time’ employment.

The National Minimum Wage is just that – a minimum. It is not a living wage and a sole provider couldn’t bring a family up on it. So although the NMW has helped raise wage rates within the cleaning industry, somehow, if we are to earn respect for our staff who perform a difficult and unpleasant job and one that so many other people almost look down on, we have to fight for a Living Wage.

How do we do that? Quite simply we have to get away from the notion of charging for so many of our services by time and move to specifications so we are charging the client for outputs, what we have done not the time it took to do it. When we charge this way it then makes sense for the company to invest in more efficient equipment, materials and modern processes. For the actual cleaning operative it now also makes personal sense to be continually updating his or her own practical skills so that they know how to and are able to maximise the benefit (time saved!) that this new equipment and materials brings.

It doesn’t matter whether it’s a standard one cleaner DCS job, carpet cleaning or a void clearance. If we specify what the finished job is going to look like and how we are going to do it and the customer is happy enough to give us the order that then puts the onus firmly on us to do the work as quickly and efficiently as possible. As the customer is paying for results not time, they have absolutely no interest in how long the actual work takes to complete (within reason).

The effect on both wages and the company’s financial performance should be immediate and positive. If work is completed more quickly we can do more of it. This means that instead of saving a few pounds from the wages bill it is better for the company to share that extra income then use the time saved to do more chargeable work. For the cleaning Operatives, because they have completed the work in a shorter time they can argue the case for an increase in wages or a bonus based on the labour saved on the job and actually do extra work in the time saved which earns them even more money.

It all sounds so easy so why don’t we do it? Well we do actually but with only a handful of niche services. One of these is carpet cleaning and we had the perfect example, which proves my point this month. Two sales consultants both estimated similar but different jobs. One estimated at a great hourly chargeout rate of £24 / man hour while the other charged out on a unit basis of so much a square foot of carpeting. The profit from the unit-based method of costing was double the £24 man-hour rate!!

The challenge I believe is to introduce this methodology into Daily Cleaning Service, which is the lowest profit generator of all our services and steadily getting tighter and tighter. But if a sales consultants took a ‘brave pill’ and instead of selling the job in terms of cleaning hours actually fully specified what we were going to clean, how often and what it would look like when it was cleaned without any mention of cleaning times. I think they would get a shock at the positive results they achieved not just for the customer, not just in their own commission earnings but on the effect unfettering the cleaner will have on both their earnings potential and the standards achieved on the job.

Are you that DCS sales consultant? Talk to me and I will show you how.

Columbus Dixon.

Or how to make your life easier and your operative’s safer

The first time you’re asked to produce a Method Statement on the work you are doing you probably took a double take. What’s a Method Statement? What’s it for? Does it have to be complex? Am I giving commercial secrets away? How do I do one?

All a Method Statement does is enable you to help your staff and the main contractor understand and manage the extent of the risks involved in the work you are about to do so that you can ensure the resources necessary to do it safely are to hand and that everyone knows what to do in an emergency situation.

This enables both you and the main contractor to comply with Health and Safety and CDM regulations but more importantly it helps you both run a safer site by ensuring everyone is aware of areas of risk where accidents, if they are going to happen, will happen.

The Ten Point Rule was a simple ‘memory jogger’ that one of our clients, Bovis Lend Lease used with their staff on their BBC Headquarters site at Pacific Quays in Glasgow. I have found that whenever a Method Statement has to be produced this is an excellent tool to ensure I have captured all the relevant information so I can get it right first time. There are no second chances with Health and Safety!

Rule 1. Company, package, title, revision number & date
Rule 2. Description of the works to include

* Time
* Duration
* Sequence
* Location

Rule 3. Resources required

* Personnel
* Supervision
* Plant & equipment
* Materials

Rule 4. Assessment of significant risks for all tasks, including

* Access / egress
* Place of work
* Others at risk (i.e. the public)
* COSHH, noise, manual handling etc

Rule 5. Control measures to be used, including

* Permits
* Security
* Special training

Rule 6. Personal protective equipment requirements
Rule 7. Emergency arrangements, including

* Rescue
* Special First Aid

Rule 8. Temporary amended systems

* Fire / security systems / access

Rule 9. To whom the information has / will be submitted, including

* Checking, review and update provision
* Change requirements
* Confirmation of Operatives briefing

Rule 10. Monitoring and compliance

Please feel free to copy or pass this safety article on to anyone who could find it useful.

Phil Dixon, Managing Director
Newlife Cleaning Systems Ltd

Update: We have now uploaded a wide selection of sample cleaning method statements to our site to download for FREE. Documents are blank formatted so they can be easily tailored to your company and circumstances and are available as pdf or Word document download.

Hope these help.

Phil D

A new report from MTW Research on the UK Contract Cleaning Market has found that 45% of contract cleaning companies experienced growth during the last 12 months.

Despite tougher trading conditions in 2009, rising investment in public sector construction should offer some optimism for the market in the short term, particularly from RMI and new build construction projects within the Health and Education sectors.

The new market report, based on sales returns from 80% of the industry, found that the contract cleaning industry in 2009 is likely to be characterised by a decline in capital expenditure and spending on equipment coupled with a growing ’squeeze’ on assets as sales revenues contract over the next 12-18 months.

For suppliers to the contract cleaning market the report highlights the growing need for more focused marketing in order to target those contract cleaners who are continuing to perform well in the industry at present.

MTW Research also found that 30% of contract cleaning companies are considered ‘at risk’ in late 2008, with the report highlighting the growing problem of customer retention.

Customer loyalty is becoming less prevalent according to MTW, and clients of contract cleaners are increasingly seeking more competitive prices before renewing contracts.

This growing trend in the market is driving price competition in a sector where volume demand is now declining as smaller and medium sized firms in particular are internalising certain cleaning duties, rather than outsourcing.

With business confidence at a particularly low ebb in a number of key markets at present, indications are that suppliers to the contract cleaning sector will experience more difficult trading conditions as contractors are less willing to invest in capital equipment during a period of sustained low demand.

Despite the likelihood of a downturn, however, there is likely to be some continuation of capital investment by the industry, albeit at much lower levels than recently experienced, with total assets forecast to rise by just under 4% in 2009.

The report goes on to forecast a recovery in mid-late 2010, with the market set to experience a relatively fast paced return to ‘real term’ growth, followed by a rising level of expenditure on capital goods and equipment.

The industry in general remains in good financial health with borrowing levels representing around 35% of total revenue, reflecting a relatively low ratio and one which is likely to be sustained in the long term.

Longer term prospects are more positive for the contract cleaning sector, with more optimistic growth forecast by 2012 as the industry regains some ground lost in 2008 and 2009.

The report provides a comprehensive review of contract cleaning market and industry trends in late 2008 as well as ranking the cleaning companies and providing sales estimates enabling market share estimation.

In addition, MTW have also produced an effective method of profiling each company and illustrating their key financial performance indicators through their ‘at a glance’ charts.

The report also includes mailing, telephone and contact details for each company providing comprehensive industry analysis and a useful sales and marketing tool.

The report is available to purchase from GBP375 from MTW Research’s website where a free sample is available to download or by calling 08456 524324.