{"id":1609,"date":"2021-09-20T20:32:00","date_gmt":"2021-09-20T19:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tidygreenclean-co-uk.stackstaging.com\/?p=1609"},"modified":"2024-01-19T10:03:27","modified_gmt":"2024-01-19T10:03:27","slug":"brexit-still-isnt-working-for-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tidygreenclean.co.uk\/brexit-still-isnt-working-for-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Brexit still isn\u2019t working for business"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
In July 2021, we wrote to the Home Secretary, the Rt. Hon. Priti Patel MP, to raise the issues of finding staff due to the fallout caused by Brexit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a business, and by our very nature, we are in contact with a wide range of service, hospitality, and office-based companies, from whom we\u2019re hearing a similar story: we can\u2019t find skilled or even available staff any more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Home Office\u2019s response was that we should pay our staff more. As a Living Wage employer<\/strong><\/a> we more than endeavour to meet staff needs and it is our policy to offer members of our team 30 hours\u2019 work a week, wherever possible. This is all incredibly rare in the commercial cleaning industry and so as you may imagine, we felt slighted. It was also beneath the Home Office because they should acknowledge that since the vote in 2016, they have made life harder not easier for overseas workers, whether from the EU or further afield. This has been a problem of their making, and to suggest that merely paying staff more would solve a gap in the labour market, is more than condescending; it\u2019s completely gas-lighting the business electorate who in no small part put her party in power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As Andrew Alleway, Co-Founder and Managing Director of Tidy Green Clean said, Brexit isn\u2019t working for business and the pandemic is merely exacerbating it. Too many sectors are finding recruiting skilled, motivated staff to work in their industries is far more challenging today than it was prior to 31 December 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Andrew Alleway stated,<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIn our industry we work with many different businesses in every sector and we are hearing a common story: I can\u2019t find skilled and willing staff anymore. For Tidy Green Clean, because we are an accredited member of the Living Wage Foundation, with many of our clients willing to pay Living Wage for our staff, we have fewer challenges than most. But talking with customers in the hospitality and leisure industries particularly, we are hearing that many European workers have gone home or to work in an EU country because they can earn more and do not have to worry about making sure they can get settled status. The Home Office\u2019s approach to EU citizens since 1 January 2021 has been undesirable and caused huge amounts of distress for individual families, and that is now causing business significant challenges. EU workers have been the backbone of many industries for decades. Quite simply, it\u2019s far too easy to blame this on the pandemic; the truth is, Brexit isn\u2019t working for business.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n While the Home Secretary declined our invitation to visit Aberdeen to see for herself the challenges we are facing, we found our local MPs more than willing to meet with us and hear what we had to say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We welcomed Kirsty Blackman, MP (Aberdeen North)<\/strong><\/a>, to our offices in August, and Stephen Flynn MP (Aberdeen South \u2013 where our offices are based)<\/strong><\/a> and Audrey Nicoll MSP (Aberdeen South & North Kincardineshire)<\/strong><\/a> in September. They were very productive visits where the parliamentarians learned first-hand about the challenges many local businesses are facing and recognised the community contributions our business makes through its dual commitment to people and the environment. From our perspective, it\u2019s always interesting to hear about what\u2019s going on for a range of businesses in the communities they serve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n