14 August 2021
Source: RAS/Service ManagementSustainable employability: “It's about much more than health alone”
Source: RAS/Service Management
Cleaning is physically demanding work. Sustainable employability has therefore been an important topic in the cleaning industry for years. Sustainable employability means “the extent to which employees want to and can continue to work productively, motivated and healthy, either within or outside the organisation. In a nutshell: Working together for a healthy and enjoyable future,” according to the social partners FNV, CNV and Schoonmakend Nederland, which together form the RAS.
Unable to cope with physical and mental demands
The report describes a good number of bottlenecks in the field of sustainable employability in the cleaning sector. At employee level, it broadly addresses health, ability and motivation. For instance, it states that as many as 27 per cent of workers in the industry have “moderate to poor health”.
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According to the report, “20 per cent of workers cannot cope with the physical demands”. And 13 per cent of workers cannot cope with the mental demands of the job, due to the high workload and occurrence of undesirable behaviour. The inflow into the WIA in cleaning is more than twice the national average, which also poses a risk, according to the report.
Dissatisfied with work
Cleaning workers“ motivation is also a bottleneck for sustainable employability. Almost a third (32 per cent) of employees are ”very dissatisfied" with their work. And 22 per cent are not enthusiastic about their jobs. In addition, 29 per cent of employees have moderate or poor commitment to the organisation.
Almost a third of employees are very dissatisfied with their work.
Low literacy, low willingness to learn new things (39 per cent), financial concerns, limited rule space are also mentioned.
No time and money
At the organisational level, the report also describes a number of bottlenecks. Such as lack of time and money among employers to work on sustainable employability. Or the shortage of broadly deployable professionals. And: “The low approach culture means that the discussion about sustainable employability between employer and employee does not yet take place sufficiently.”
On bottlenecks at sector level: “Due to the great diversity in the nature of companies, a generic approach is insufficient. The sector does not yet have sufficient infrastructure to be able to place the directing role more with employees.”
English (UK)