The value of cleaning

Rising prices are never popular. However, our aim has always been to pay fair wages. Add to that the Government’s plans for a big rise to the minimum wage (rebranded as a National Living Wage), this means wage costs will go up.

It’s easier for us as fair and ethical employers as we have a head start. But, we still need to make sure our staff are paid a fair wage.

It is sensible to make small incremental increases so that we can keep up with the reality of wage increases.

Obviously, it costs much more than the baseline hourly rate to employ people correctly. Holiday pay, cover staff, training, supervision, new pension rules – it all adds up. But any increases are to improve the pay for our staff or cover legislative contributions.

We have to balance that with the fact that the market rate paid for cleaning is still quite low. Customers don’t want to spend much money on it. It’s a vital service, but it is not valued.

So we have a balancing act of what the real cost of cleaning is against the price customers are willing to pay.