Lucy Lloyd, our chief services officer of Kingdom Cleaning, discusses how the evolution of technology shouldn't take away the person-centred approach of the industry.
“Cleaning services are evolving. It's a statement I hear quite a bit at the moment. Technology is being deployed on estates across the industry and we are hearing about data-driven decision-making to deliver efficiencies. Customers are asking for innovation and our response seems to be senior technology and AI.
Now, I want to be honest with you, I love AI and I truly believe that innovations like this have huge potential within the cleaning industry and service delivery in general. But, I also believe that we are forgetting about the people who deliver our services.
I have been asked to attend several events of late to discuss data-driven solutions and it appears to me that as leaders and service professionals we talk frequently about the benefits of AI and technology, but we don't discuss the foundations of deploying this kind of technology.
If we expect our frontline colleagues to start using the systems that we as leaders are investing in, then we must also invest in the training and development of our frontline colleagues.
From speaking with peers in the industry at these events it became clear that the industry has not enhanced training to help our colleagues to adapt to this new way of working.”
