Rising to the challenge - rationell reinigen Gebäudedienste

»Facility services providers walk the talk.«Peter Hartmann | Editor in Chief | peter.hartmann@holzmann-medien.deAs the refugee crisis unfolds, the task of integrating migrants is taking on an ever larger scope. Both the body politic and society at large are faced with a major challenge. The facility services trade has long recognized its responsibility and is proving a role model in the way it is addressing the situation. Few other industries are as proactive in integrating people with a migrant background, or offer as many opportunities for education, training and employment. Of all the trades, facility services providers are leading the way when it comes to integration. Although robust data is still being collected, it already can be confidently stated that in some regions of Germany, albeit mainly in urban centers, the share of foreign workers in the facility cleaning segment alone reaches 50 percent and more. Cleaning contractors with over 100 nationalities represented on their payrolls are not rare. The ‘Willkommenskultur’ – ‘welcome culture’ – of the German facility services trade brings clear benefits. The industry would be a lot poorer without the rich diversity of cultural backgrounds. In fact, if it weren’t for the skills and work ethos of our colleagues from abroad, business would in many places actually grind to a halt. Virtually every specialized company in our trade experiences an increasing dearth of qualified workers – a situation that is likely to worsen in the coming years. This aspect alone makes foreign talent indispensable to our industry, if only to continue to enable it to meet evolving customer needs. “Like no other business sector, ours is kept up and running thanks to so many nationalities and cultures coming together,” commented Johannes Bungart, Managing Director of the German Federal Building Cleaning Contractors Guild at the outset of the image campaign “Arrived. Accepted.” launched in June of last year. “With the campaign, both the Guild and rationell reinigen have taken a clear stand in support of respect and tolerance, emphatically rejecting xenophobia and social exclusion. Our industry is making a valuable and meaningful contribution to integration, and that’s something to be proud of,” Thomas Dietrich, Head of the Federal Guild, emphasized. That these words are also attached to deeds becomes obvious through the insights shared in the FORUM section of this Global Cleaning issue. If our society as a whole acted more the way facility services providers do, the situation surrounding the refugee crisis would no doubt be much less tense. Yours truly, Peter Hartmann