At the Marks & Spencer Life Store, which they describe as the ““Biggest revolution in home retailing in twenty years”, ISS staff will now become an integrated part of the customer shopping experience.

The Marks & Spencer Life Store will offer lines of which 80 % cannot be bought at any other Marks & Spencer outlet.

Maria Laybourn, ISS Food Hygiene Food Retail Director, got her and her teams heads together and they came up with a new concept for the Life Store concept: “Funky Cleaning”.

The funky cleaners are a totally different type of employee. The belief was that the expectation of the customer is that anyone identifiable as a member of staff should meet certain expectations. This staffs are confident and outgoing and should actively seek to assist visitors in the store. They are a positive contributor to the store experience and their store and product knowledge should be similar to directly employed staff. To this end, all ISS staff should undergo the same induction and training programme of the Marks and Spencer sales assistant or equivalent.

The vision was that the only discernable difference between both members of staff would be who pays their wages and the fact they actively play a part in maintaining the store offering to each visiting customer.

They are customer service representatives whom happen to clean, not cleaners who happen to be customer facing. This was not to be semantics, but an integral part of the success of these roles. ISS staffs are to be embraced as part of the team from day one and treated as such.

ISS Food Hygiene was granted the contract by the purchasing team because it was believed they had understood goals of the new store concept and they had embraced the culture that they were trying to create.

“Funky Cleaners “ are waiting to be a positive contribution to the customer shopping experience at the Marks & Spencer Life Store.