“With so many differing restrictions placed on cleaning professionals in different parts of the globe, if you were to be a cleaning operative in any part of the world, where would it be and why?”

Ceris Burns, managing director, Ceris Burns International

When it comes to working in cleaning, I think it is less about ‘location, location, location’, and more about ‘conditions, conditions, conditions’.

I have used many of these columns to highlight and applaud the way that the cleaning industry is continually improving the professionalism of the sector. However, it’s still too often the case that cleaning is dismissed as a low-paid, low-skilled, dead end job. Nothing could be further from the truth!

Yes, there are still some unscrupulous employers out there – but they are thankfully in the minority. Wherever you are in the world it is the working conditions supplied by your employer that count. Those that offer a living wage, on-going training, support with development and an approachable, open management team, should be favoured. I believe these sorts of contract cleaner are in the majority, right across the globe, along with a huge array of innovative and forward-looking equipment manufacturers – as witnessed at ISSA Interclean Amsterdam earlier this year.

We should be championing the fact that the cleaning sector is a positive and progressive industry in which to work – and if there are places in the world where this is not the case then we should all pledge to expose these issues, and help to improve them.

However, I’ll not deny that some locations could be preferable, depending on your interests. Operatives that are also football fans would no doubt get a kick out of cleaning Wembley Stadium; while art lovers would welcome a contract at a top gallery or museum. And if your cleaning job is in a climate that’s relatively rain-free, sunny and warm – then all the better!

Published in Tomorrow’s Cleaning Soapbox – August 2014