Global union: ISS is a role model
"Clearly, ISS is the world's leader in the cleaning service industry in terms of employee relations and social aspects. Generally speaking, ISS has pretty good standards."
These words are said by the head of Union Network International's Property Services, Bob Ramsay. Property Services is one of the main areas in UNI, which covers 15 million members in 150 countries worldwide and is the world's largest grouping of unions. UNI Property Services works in the cleaning industry for better training of employees and raising the quality standards.
"ISS was the first company in this industry to establish a European Works Council, and through this channel we have a very open dialogue with ISS. In general the door is always open for dialogue at ISS – at the local ISS offices throughout the world and at headquarters in Copenhagen", Bob Ramsay says. "We may not always be in complete agreement on all issues, but there is great value for both parties in open dialogue."
Bob Ramsay struggles with a lot of issues in the cleaning service industry.
"These services are a people industry. The biggest areas of costs are wages and social costs, materials are not, so it's an easy entrance if you want to do business. We see many service companies with people working undeclared and illegally. This is a threat towards working conditions throughout the industry and represents a major loss of tax income. These companies neither train their employees nor pay social costs. ISS, however, shows the industry the way in being a good employer, and the training in ISS, for instance, of the employees is very good", Bob Ramsay says.
Martin Christensen, ISS Vice President Human Resources, underlines the importance of employee training.
"ISS is often competing with companies on a local level, and one of our main advantages is the training we can offer to our employees. We have in many of the countries that we are operating in been the pioneers in developing good training systems for both frontline employees and managers. We are keen to make this one of our trademarks", he says.
Actually many advantages are related to a trained staff.
"There are obvious cost benefits of having a more loyal and better trained staff, in that there are fewer accidents, less sickness etc. More importantly, we are able to improve our service to the customer and attract the best staff in the industry", Martin Christensen says.