Blog

This report of the BSA Economic Tracker reflects responses to those versions of the survey published between January 2023 and December 2023. These were circulated to all BSA members to complete as the question set was reviewed and refreshed each month. Thank you to all those who completed the various editions of the Tracker survey in 2023. Click here to read the report.

The BSA has produced a document that explains who we are, what we do, how we do it, and why we do it.

Click here to read.

Gemma, Head of Operations, and Martha, Policy and Events Officer, at the BSA are really proud to have worked with BSA member NatWest on our series of BSA Women in Business Services events.

BSA members employ such a diverse breadth of talent, experience, and expertise, and we value how much of a priority inclusivity and gender equality is across our sector.

In September 2022, the BSA organised an event with Dame Melanie Dawes DCB, Chief Executive of Ofcom. She shared her experiences over her time in Ofcom and as a senior civil servant, and reflected on how the lessons she learned in the public sector could apply to business services.

This International Women’s Day, I’ve pledged to challenge the biases that affect all of us in the workplace — from my colleagues pursuing careers at ISS, to my daughter, who will be embarking on her own career path after she graduates from university this year. While much progress has been made since I started working, there’s still a long road ahead to achieving a truly gender-equal world. 

Diversity and inclusion are usually treated as enhancements, not as core to business success. But organisations need a real strategy to embed diversity and inclusion – not just a series of tactical measures that may or may not add up to a plan.

That’s why at Amey we have Freedom to Perform, a culture where initiatives are aimed at changing the whole workplace rather than being based on the hope that a few more women will be encouraged to fit into existing working practices.

As a woman, and a mother, in a leadership role, I’ve always found myself passionate about women in the workplace and the challenges and biases we face, particularly when it comes to the foodservice industry, in which men usually dominate the senior roles.

In 2021, we set targets to increase the number of women in our leadership team, middle and senior management, and the number of female chefs. We are pleased to be ahead of our target in each of these areas; one of the key activities helping us achieve these aims is our Womentoring programme, specifically aimed at helping female colleagues to fulfil their potential.

Guest Blog by Professor Gary Sturgess

The Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit has an honourable history, and the decision by the current Prime Minister to re-establish it is to be welcomed. As a business leader commented to me recently – good government is five percent policy, 10 percent implementation and 85 percent delivery.

In tracing the origins of the PMDU, we must go back to the ‘Next Steps’ report, published by the Efficiency Unit (as it was then called) in 1988. The formal title of this report – ‘Improving Management in Government’ – captured the organisation’s mission, and that one report, written by a small team over a period of several months, had a profound impact on the structure of government over the decades that followed. (And, by the way, ‘Next Steps’ claimed that 95 percent of the Civil Service was concerned with delivery.)

Ahead of World FM Day on Wednesday 12th May, members of the Business Services Association’s Cleaning Committee have prepared a series of their personal profiles aimed at promoting the cleaning sector and to celebrate working within Soft FM.

The profiles below are testament both to the rewards of working within the industry as well the variety of potential routes to working within Soft FM.

The BSA Cleaning Committee provides a forum to share industry best practice, including on skills and training, draws up messaging about the sector and represents the interests of cleaning service providers to stakeholders. Thank you to those committee members who have supplied their profiles below.

Here are links to three videos by those involved in the Treasury review of the Green Book, as published alongside the Spending Review in November 2020.

Video: Tom Aldred, HMT Green Book Review team lead

Video: Mark Williams, training workstream lead for the Green Book Review

Video: Heads of Professions from across government endorsing the Green Book

Adapted from a keynote speech delivered by Sean Haley, Regional Chairman, Sodexo UK & Ireland, at the BSA’s seminar on Business Values: Learning from Lock Down, 24 July 2020

This year, the world has been thrown into turmoil, but it has also shone a light onto what really matters to people.  As governments, businesses and households start to emerge from the crisis phase of the pandemic, we start to build an economic recovery.

Continue reading “Keynote speech – Seminar on Business Values: Learning from Lockdown”

BSA Member CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang LLP has produced the following briefing note – setting out the key implications of the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020.

Read the full post here: https://www.cms-lawnow.com/ealerts/2020/07/corporate-insolvency-and-governance-act-2020

Since the Covid-19 lockdown was introduced, we have witnessed an incredible industry-wide response, writes Sean Haley, Sodexo Regional Chair.

FM and food providers have repeatedly demonstrated the value of our sector by collectively responding quickly and efficiently.  Sodexo and its competitors have played a vital role to set up and operate Covid-19 testing centres and Nightingale hospitals around the country.  It has been a Herculean effort that no one foresaw would be needed, but one which was achieved through partnerships that formed within just days.

We have been able to do this because we are an agile, flexible, diverse, caring industry with experts in catering, cleaning through to fire safety, energy, event management and much more. We have shown that we are more than just service providers. We are strategic partners who can adapt, innovate and work in partnership to get things done.

Our people have met the challenge of providing core services safely into hospitals, barracks, schools, factories, test centres and prisons, to name a few.  They are often working in extremely difficult conditions, on the front line, adapting to meet new demands and challenges – and they are laying the foundations for our national recovery from this crisis.

Continue reading “Key workers need more than applause”

4 examples from BSA Member Corndel of Apprenticeship Levy best practice:

Adecco have started 30 of their furloughed staff on apprenticeship training programmes to prepare them for their return to work post-Covid-19. These apprenticeship programmes have been specifically adapted and personalised to support furloughed Adecco staff at this difficult time. [Read More].

80 apprentices from 36 organisations attended the online webinar last week: Building Connectivity and Trust in a Virtual World. This webinar had been built specifically to help apprentices to adapt to the new circumstances that learners find themselves in. Apprentices were able to submit questions which were answered live by an expert panel. The next webinar in the series has already had 120 apprentices sign up. [Read More]

All UK employers and apprentices are now able to access a dedicated bank of resources on home working, remote management, workplace well-being and resilience. They are available publicly here.

Employers and apprentices are now able to undertake the new Dev Ops Apprenticeships remotely. Dev Ops will be a critical skill set in the post-Corona economy. Corndel has adapted our Dev Ops apprenticeship so that it can be entirely delivered remotely during this health crisis. [Read More]