Head of Cleaning Services Jill, FBICSc, describes her eye-opening journey into cleaning careers. Here’s her story…
I have been Head of Cleaning Services at the University of Leeds for the last 3 years. I joined a service in need of a full review – it’s been a roller coaster of a journey with the pandemic changing the way we all live and work. However, this proved to be an opportunity to implement change in the way cleaning services operate. It is having a positive effect on the cleaning team leading to a more inclusive and enthusiastic culture.
My career has predominantly been in the education sector managing in-house cleaning services, prior to joining Leeds I worked at Huddersfield University and again joined a service that needed a full review and changes implemented. It was a very successful time as a BICSc Accredited Training member, during this time I was awarded the coveted Assessor of the Year and the university won the Excellence in Training and Assessment Award.
The first education sector position I had was at Barnsley College as Cleaning Manager in 1993. The college had just moved from the DLO to be in-house and I pretty much had free rein to set up the service which was extremely rewarding. It was evident that training was needed, and there started my association with BICSc. I implemented a BICSc Accredited Training programme, every member of the team was trained in the COPC 10 tasks.  The college won a Golden Service Award (GSA), National Training Award and the BICSc Annual Award for the training and development.
BICSc had regions back then and I was an active member of the committee becoming chair of the region over the years. We organised some very successful and memorable away days for the region and I have had a close association with BICSc ever since.
I then spent 4 years with Barnsley Council heading up the cleaning services schools, public buildings, libraries, and offices, again with a successful BICSc Accredited Training Membership in place and winning a GSA. The bureaucracy and lack of opportunity to develop the service led me to move to Interserve Schools, a PFI project, as Soft Services Facilities Manager responsible for the directly employed cleaning team and catering contractor. Again, from scratch, developing the service and implementing a successful BICSc training programme, and again winning a Golden Service Award.
It seemed to be a habit I had of creating successful cleaning services which always included a BICSc training programme, achieving successes, developing people and creating a sustainable service then moving on to the next project.
In between Interserve Schools and Huddersfield University I took a different turn and managed Cleaning and Waste Services for Meadowhall Shopping Centre for 4 years. I had a real insight into the customer experience during this time which has proved invaluable in the consequent posts I have held in universities in supporting the student experience.
Where did it all start?
At the age of 16 I enrolled on an OND in hotel, catering, and institutional operations at Granville College, Sheffield, to be a chef! I quickly realised that maybe a chef wasn’t my calling, however, housekeeping was – I loved every minute. We had many practical work experiences alongside staff in halls of residence, local 4* hotels and domestic teams in the local hospital, as well as practical experiences of sanding and sealing community hall floors, stripping and polishing floors. I knew this was where my future career was.
My first job was as Assistant Housekeeper at a local 4* THF hotel on leaving college. It was a great experience and varied, very demanding and unsocial hours which, at a young age, wasn’t always conducive to a social life, hence a decision to change jobs.
My next venture was not what I had planned at all and yet they are some of the fondest memories of my working life. At the age of 21 I joined the Sue Ryder Foundation as ‘Housekeeper’ of the home for displaced adults, and those in need of physical or mental health care. The home was a previous stately home, Hickleton Hall, it was grand, it was dilapidated, it had an air of faded grandeur and it was made amazing by the people who lived and worked there. I rather felt like Mrs. Danvers wandering around the grand staircases and corridors with a large bunch of keys clipped to my waist.
The patients were predominantly Polish, Catholic refugees, many from Auschwitz – some very damaged but with such spirit. The cleaning and catering team were all female from the local surrounding mining villages and were quite formidable to a 21-year-old. At my first meeting with them in a smoke-filled room I was told they were old enough to be my mum and I was young enough to be their daughter so why should they take any notice of me. I took a deep breath and said I had the utmost respect for my mum and therefore had for them and I hoped, in time, I would earn their respect. Ground rules sorted and an amazing 8 years followed until I took a break to raise my daughter.
There was little money and poor practices due to the lack of equipment, this was the early 1980s. Colour-coding and cross-contamination weren’t taken into consideration. With the help of the handyman, Eugan (also a refugee from Auschwitz), we implemented our own colour-coding by painting galvanised mop buckets with different coloured circles, painting around mop handles and getting hold of dishcloths with different coloured stitching – very basic and rudimentary but it worked and there was a laundry which helped too.
A year into my time there the miners’ strike hit the home badly, there were many members of staff that worked there who had a husband, brother, son, or father, who worked in the mines and on strike. The Sue Ryder Foundation is a charitable organisation and it was a fundamental part of what we did in supporting everyone through this difficult time.
The experience working for the Sue Ryder Foundation has stayed with me the whole of my career and has formed the person I am today. I learnt respect for everyone, diversity, compassion and, most of all, humility.
And now in the last chapter of my working life I reflect on the last 40 years and think how lucky I have been, achievements I have been part of, the people I have met along the way, so many I’m still in touch with, and my association with BICSc along the way culminating in one of my proudest moments being awarded a Fellowship and being elected as BICSc council member in 2019.
