The first session, entitled 20/20 vision, included presentations on laundry operation by Selwyn Burchhardt of Ducker, on the garments of the future by Tom Black of Carrington Career and Workwear, and on textiles by Sue Davies of Richard Haworth.
Charles Betteridge of Christeyns brought an international flavour to the discussion looking at the effects on the industry of influences such as demographics, environmental change and legislation, and the widening of the EU and the impact this would have on the available labour force.
Robin Rhodes talked about trends in the economy and employment and sought to end on more lighthearted note, satirising a Nanny State Government by imagining a law that made discrimination on grounds of inability illegal.
Keynote speaker Stuart Corrigan, MD of management consultants Vanguard Scotland gave a lively account his work. We are born, resistant to change, he said, but overcoming that resistance is essential to solving problems. He specialised in two areas, companies on the verge of bankruptcy who had to change to avoid losing their livelihood, and those who realised massive change would help them progress. He backed his theories on change with illuminating and sometimes humorous examples.
The Saturday session examined two contrasting laundry operations. Richard Godwin, hotel operations manager of P&O Cruises,is in charge of services on a huge scale, and laundry is just a part. Facts and figures showed just what is involved.
Steve Spreier, operations manager for the Disney Corporation, Orlando, told how the laundry had widened its brief to become a textile services business. It was an operation in which supervision was limited and employees (known as cast members) were encouraged to take charge of their own role. They were encouraged to see their own tasks in the context of whole Walt Disney World Resort. Textile Services employees were taken to the parades and to see the hotels to show what their work meant to guests and to front line cast. Language was no obstacle to employment, as interpreters were provided. “ I want their brains as well as their hands” he says of his cast members, and they are encouraged to set their own performance targets. The approach works, he says, and staff turnover is low at just 5%.
A full report will appear in the December edition of Laundry and Cleaning News
