At Eco Drift Commercial Cleaning, we believe in providing a fair working experience for our team. We care for all our staff members; this is key to creating a positive and enjoyable working environment.
Therefore, we are delighted to announce that we have become an official Real Living Wage Service Provider. This means that all members that are under contract for Eco Drift will earn the Real Living Wage or more. So rather than being made to pay the legal minimum, we are committed to paying a fair wage.
In these times, it is still shocking that many businesses do not pay enough for the basic cost of living.
But let’s start with the basics.
What is the Real Living Wage?
The Real Living Wage is an independently calculated rate of pay that is based on the cost of living in the UK and is part of Living Wage week in every year’s calculation. At the heart of the Living Wage, movement is a simple idea - that a hard day’s work deserves a fair day’s pay.
In the UK, the real Living Wage, for now, is £9.90, with the exception of London at £11.05, due to the higher costs of living in the city. It is also important to mention that the Real Living Wage is higher than the UK government’s minimum, or the National Living Wage.
The issues of the Minimum Wage
Low pay is still prevalent for many in the UK. According to the latest figures, as many as 48m people are paid less than the real Living Wage. Looking at gender equity, female employees are notoriously underpaid in predominantly women’s careers. Of all jobs that paid less than the real Living Wage, 60% of them were held by women.
The Living Wage Foundation released a study in February 2021, after surveying 2,128 full-time employees in the UK who earned less than the real Living Wage in December 2020. The impact of the pandemic had particularly affected this group, where low pay on people’s lives, families and finances had a much wider effect.
Results showed that 44% of the participants found that the salary obtained for their work had detrimental effects on their quality of life. Another cause of concern was that 29% of the participants had not been able to pay their household bills and therefore fell behind that year.
This study is just one of the many that focus the attention on pay issues provided by employers in the UK, depriving people of their basic daily necessities.
Benefits of adopting the Real Living Wage
According to a survey from the Living Wage Foundation in 2017, it was found that the key benefits were increased company reputation and higher levels of staff retention and motivation.
Of the businesses surveyed, 86% responded that the Living Wage accreditation had improved the overall reputation of the business as an employer. From the employer’s perspective, 50% found that the Living Wage had improved recruitment and retention. In organisations with a staff of over 500 people, a staggering 76% saw improvement in staff retention after receiving the Living Wage. Another 78% of employers at large organisations found that staff motivation increased after receiving the accreditation.
We are proud to pay the Real Living Wage
Receiving the Real Living Wage accreditation is a big deal to us, as we want to make sure that every member of our team earns enough to live by the current standards. We are morally and socially responsible employers and act in accordance with our core mission of being fair in every way we can.
We hope that Eco Drift and other Real Living Wage employers can be a positive example of how to respect the workforce. Our team is more important than profits. In the end, satisfied workers create a positive and happy workplace, which consequently creates a more sustainable business model which ultimately results in more productivity that benefits everyone involved.
We believe in ethics
Eco Drift understands its employees. We will never hire anyone to work on less than the Real Living Wage. As a business and a family, we have always made sure that no one is underpaid, undervalued, or discriminated against. We support our staff in training, further career progression, and education. We are a Real Living Wage Recognised Service Provider because we believe in giving back to our staff based on our values. We believe that providing great working conditions and compensating our members of the team will be reflected in the outstanding service and experience provided to our customers.