Events
After a four-year pandemic-break, CMS Berlin — the leading trade fair for cleaning — took place Sept. 12-22. The Federal Guild Association of the Building Cleaning Trade (BIV) was one of the event’s supporting associations and enjoyed the comprehensive market overview of the commercial cleaning industry, including a breakdown of the current issues such as staffing, digitization and sustainability for the building cleaning trade in Germany.
The shortage of staff increasingly becoming a growth inhibitor was the biggest topic of interest at CMS Berlin. According to the BIV, more than 90% of companies are acutely looking for personnel. Despite increasing digitalization, contract cleaning remains a labor-intensive trade. Additionally, the sector relies on its integrative role in the labor market, but 40% of employees do not have a German passport.
Other topics discussed at the event that the BIV has a vested interest in included circular economy, CO2 savings and waste avoidance and how these topics play just as important of a role as the increasing integration of automation, robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) into everyday operations.
Success Stories
With the release of more than 60 videos, the BIV gave the starting signal for its new campaign in early summer 2023. The aim is to draw the attention of young people to the great variety of activities, technical innovations and the strong training and development opportunities of the industry in a modern way that included using moving images.
The BIV will publish the videos on its social networks in the coming months and link to its apprenticeship website for more information. All the videos will be available to state associations and guilds as well as member companies for use at trade fairs, events or on social media.
The production of moving images has been part of the strategic communication focus of the association for several years. The BIV was able to recruit two trainees for the "influencer" videos with which the association will bring its new TikTok channel to life for the first time.
Market Challenges
The mood of companies in the building cleaning trade has brightened slightly compared to the responses we received in our autumn 2022 survey. As shared in May, the results of our first 2023 business survey showed that 40.5% of the companies surveyed have positive business expectations as compared to the 31.3% from the autumn 2022 survey. Additionally, 37.3% expect business to remain stable, up from the 30.2% rating last year, and only 22.2% have a negative outlook for the current year, down from 38.5%.
Recruiting staff remains the biggest challenge. In this context, the survey underlined the integrative role of building cleaning for the labor market.
Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, 21% of the companies surveyed have succeeded in giving (temporary) employment to refugees from Ukraine. Sobering, however, is the fact that almost three times as many companies (61%) have not succeeded in doing so despite their efforts. The frequently cited reason for failure has been bureaucracy. More than a quarter of the companies (26.7%) justify their failed efforts with too much bureaucracy.