Kingdom Cleaning’s Lucy Lloyd explains how her business is making the adoption of AI work for everyone.
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.
At Kingdom, we are turning this on its head! We are starting with the people and building our solutions around them. We call this Intelligent Cleaning Solutions.
Our people are at the heart of everything we do. Without them we cannot continue to deliver exceptional services to the highest standards. In my opinion, AI and technology are tools that we use to support the service delivery they provide.
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.
‘Dynamic’ cleaning solutions place an expectation on our colleagues to make decisions based on what the data/sensors are telling them. Even when we integrate AI to drive the decision, we are asking them to read the information and decide ‘do I continue with what I am doing or leave this and do what the system is telling me to?’ But this might not be as easy for some of our colleagues – and we need to account for people working with us who may be non-native speakers, neurodiverse or just starting out in the industry. We need to consider, are these tools making their lives easier?
We say that this technology will bring our teams together and give them greater powers of communication, however, I would contest that. Without greater investment in our colleagues, training and development of their tech and language skills, I fear we will drive people away from our industry – we must invest in both equally to see unmatched progress in the industry.
My call to action, you may ask? That we acknowledge the fact that for us as professionals and leaders in this industry, the integration of AI and sensor tech is a must, but we must not forget our people and their need for development and investment in the evolution of the industry.
https://www.kingdom.co.uk/cleaning