One of London's highest-rated cleaning companies, Cleaning Express, has won the Workforce Development Award at the Royal Greenwich Business Awards 2022. The awards ceremony took place on Friday, 7 October, to celebrate business excellence in Royal Greenwich. This London borough is home to some 11,600 businesses providing over 100,000 jobs to local residents. In total, over 12 categories, 230 companies showcased their skills and work.
On Friday, 7 October, the finalists of all categories were treated to a champagne reception and delicious lunch overlooking the Thames at the InterContinental London, courtesy of Riney. The awards ceremony was hosted by Tim Campbell MBE, star of The Apprentice and ambassador for young people's employment and social enterprise champion.
The Royal Greenwich Business Awards of 2022 was hosted by the O2, and had various sponsors. The headline sponsors of the event were U+I and the South East London Chamber of Commerce. The Workforce Development Award was sponsored by London South East Colleges.
The Workforce Development Award
The Royal Greenwich Business Awards created the Workforce Development Award to showcase businesses' skills in growing, encouraging and empowering their workforce. Businesses had to demonstrate their commitment to their staff by providing information about opportunities they have provided to local people and development processes put in place for their staff to be happy and thrive during their time at the company.
To show skills in this category, a business may provide information regarding training programmes to further its staff's skills, flexible working hours to ensure their staff can manage work and social responsibilities, and additional programmes that provide local people with great opportunities. Businesses could also demonstrate areas of the businesses they have improved to create a safer, friendlier environment for their staff.
Cleaning Express provided information regarding its online training course for its cleaners. The training course consists of 26 videos that help local people seeking cleaning positions become cleaning professionals. It is a comprehensive cleaning course that ensures anyone with any cleaning experience will take away the important skills they need to earn money from cleaning. The course creates opportunities for local people without qualifications or skills in cleaning to gain experience and knowledge within the field and develop into professional cleaners.
The company also showed its commitment to its staff by providing information about its bonuses. Cleaning Express awards its staff with bonuses for outstanding work in commercial and domestic properties, as well as recognition awards for the most talented cleaners. This showed the judges that Cleaning Express is actively motivating its staff and empowering them to take ownership of their work and their achievements. Celebrating its staff's success with them and allowing its staff to celebrate hard work shows a commitment to growth and success.
Cleaning Express continued its application for the Workforce Development Award, stating that it improved its health and safety qualifications and are currently "working towards ISO certifications". Noting that its staff are regularly provided training courses on various health and safety topics and receives certificates confirming their qualifications.
Providing staff with health and safety training and offering qualifications within this sector shows that Cleaning Express demonstrate a developmental strategy for the growth of its cleaners. Health and safety training is vital in the development of staff, particularly in the cleaning industry. This training ensures the cleaners are safe and have the knowledge to tackle potential dangers in the workplace. It also provides motivation to staff members to work towards new goals and ambitions within the company and outside it.
Cleaning Express also noted in its application for the Workforce Development Award that "the vision of Cleaning Express was to create a better company which would care about all staff and tackle low morale and motivation". One of the key ways Cleaning Express has achieved this is by working with the Living Wage Foundation to provide its cleaners with the London Living Wage or higher. This has ensured that staff are highly motivated at work. By paying the London Living Wage to its staff, Cleaning Express has ensured that its staff do not need to work multiple jobs to make ends up. Lessening the stress its staff are under outside of work, and ensuring that its staff are motivated and more inclined to stay with the business for longer, offering more opportunities to train and grow within the business.
Cleaning Express certainly had stiff competition in the Workforce Development category at the Royal Greenwich Business Awards. Most notably, CSB Logistics, a logistics business focused on innovation and evolution within the sector. CSB Logistics has heavily invested in its staff training for over 30 years, and is firmly focused on developing a culture of continuous improvement from its warehouses around the city, to its head office and beyond.
About Cleaning Express
Cleaning-Express.com is a commercial and domestic cleaning service based in Canary Wharf with cleaners operating across London. The cleaning company had the vision to improve working and living environments across the city by providing the best cleaning services possible. It has always centred around the needs of its customers and understanding how it can help improve its customers' lives by offering exceptional cleaning services.
Cleaning Express offers everything from regular domestic cleaning services, end of tenancy cleaning services and deep cleans of commercial spaces, as well as janitorial supplies. Throughout the years, Cleaning Express has added more and more cleaning services for its customers to choose from, and employee growth has always been at the forefront of its business ethos.
Cleaning Express knew that if it was going to provide the best cleaning services in the city, it needed to encourage the best cleaners in the city to join them. Or train people just starting in the cleaning industry to be the best cleaners they can be. In order to achieve this, workforce development was key. So Cleaning Express created its 26-video online training course, allowing new cleaners to train at their leisure at home. The course provides an excellent resource that helps to ensure all cleaners are conducting their work correctly and professionally. The course is available on an internal application that is available to all staff members throughout their time at Cleaning Express.
Another key component of Cleaning Express' workforce development was partnering with the Living Wage Foundation to provide its cleaners with the London Living Wage. The higher pay attracted more qualified cleaners from across the city and meant that cleaners didn't have to work multiple jobs to live. This meant the cleaners were more passionate at work; they were more focused and more motivated and keen to pursue further training courses within the company and beyond.
The fun and friendly atmosphere at Cleaning Express's head office in Canary Wharf has helped improve staff morale, and knowing that their hard work will be rewarded has encouraged many of the staff to take on new courses and qualifications within the business, allowing them to move to different areas of the business and grow.
Why did Cleaning Express win the Workforce Development Award?
Cleaning Express proved to the judges of the Royal Greenwich Business Awards that it had a continued-growth approach toward its workforce. By investing in its staff and creating in-depth online courses for its cleaners, new starters at Cleaning Express are able to approach the challenges of cleaning commercial and domestic properties with the skills and knowledge they need.
Cleaning Express also showed a continued commitment to its more experienced cleaners and staff members. By offering bonuses, further qualifications and rewards, long-term employees remain motivated to continue their progression within the company. And by listening to its employees, Cleaning Express ensures that new courses and qualifications that the cleaners and staff members want to do are always available to them.
The company also showed fantastic workforce development skills with its programme to help Ukrainian refugees adapt to life in London. Cleaning Express welcomes Ukrainian refugees to the city and provides full cleaning training and jobs to help them sustain themselves during their time in London. Already, this programme has seen dozens of sign-ups and has helped refugees within the Greenwich community learn English, find friends and feel at home in London.
Cleaning Express partnering with the Living Wage Foundation also shows how committed the business is to staff growth and development. By paying its employee a fair wage for the hard work they do, the staff are more motivated to work, happier and more inclined to stay in the job for longer. And with more training opportunities available for long-term staff, Cleaning Express ensures that its cleaners become exceptional at their jobs.
Cleaning Express' ethos has always been to provide the very best cleaning services in London. And by providing its staff with growth and development opportunities throughout their time with the company, offering good wages and a fun and friendly environment that brings together all of the communities of London, it is no surprise that this business won this award. Its workforce development is a key aspect of offering the best cleaning services in the city.
A final word from Cleaning Express
In a statement on their website, the company noted that its work with the Living Wage Foundation, improving its health and safety standards and creating online courses for its staff ensures that the company is growing in the right direction. And while it is absolutely delighted with winning the award, it will continue to grow and develop its staff to ensure it continues to provide the best service possible to its cleaning customers.
Cleaning Express thanked its staff, customers and the local communities that they work in for allowing them to grow its business and develop its staff over the years, stating: "we're extremely proud of our staff for winning this award… and we'd like to thank our customers for providing the opportunity to help local people".
Cleaning Express is using the Workforce Development award as an opportunity to continue to grow and develop its staff. Noting that it will "continue to invest in (its staff) as they have invested in us". And that it is "as determined as ever to provide the best service possible to (its) customers".
The Workforce Development award is awarded to the business that shows continued growth and opportunities for its staff, and Cleaning Express proved that its determination to be the best cleaning service in London was just as strong as its ethos for nurturing a passionate and ever-growing workforce of highly skilled cleaners and head office staff. The Royal Greenwich Business Award celebrate excellence within business and highlight companies providing exciting opportunities in the community. Cleaning Express has offered new and old residents of Greenwich a learning experience within the cleaning sector, a chance to grow within a multilingual, passionate, fun and hard-working team, and the opportunity to earn qualifications that are recognised around the world.
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