A Telford businesswoman at the helm of two cleaning companies has spoken out against a practice which sees nearly a million workers in the UK not guaranteed regular hours.
Marie McCreadie, managing director of MR Cleaning Supplies and Cleveland Cleaning, does not offer zero hours contracts to any of her staff and has pledged to keep this policy in place.
Currently MR Cleaning Supplies employ 84 staff and are now in the process of creating three permanent positions within the company.
It was recently revealed a total of 900,000 people were on zero hours contracts across the UK, an increase of 20 per cent in just a year.
These contracts mean an employer is not obliged to provide a minimum amount of working hours each week – something which sees workers losing out on around £1,000 annually compared to employees on set contracts according to a Resolution Foundation study.
It is something which has been criticised by TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady, who said zero hours workers were suffering the ‘double whammy of low pay and fewer rights at work’ and called for employment law to be ‘dragged into the 21st century’.
But Mrs McCreadie, who set up Cleveland Cleaning almost two decades ago and launched MR Cleaning Supplies based at Court Works Industrial Estate on Bridgnorth Road at the end of 2016, is bucking the growing trend and none of her 84-strong workforce have a zero hours contract.
Mrs McCreadie said: “For us it’s about stability: for our employees, our clients and the company as a whole.
“People working for us need stable hours for things like mortgages and their family life, I also think employees feel more valued if they have a contract specifying the minimum hours they’ll be offered.
We are realistic about the hours we offer to our staff and we know we can move them to other areas of the business if necessary as the workload fluctuates.
“For our customers, they like the familiarity – if for example their regular cleaner is on holiday they know the relief worker coming in will have worked for us for a while and they can expect the same high standards from them.
“I know of quite a few cleaning companies who have got people on zero hours so I think we’re fairly unique within the industry. Because of that we get a low turnover of staff, which again is beneficial for everybody.”
For more information about MR Cleaning Supplies you can contact the staff on 01952 951763 or visit wwww.mrcleaningsupplies.co.uk
