Employees providing their own uniform based on our requirements
Senior Management is considering doing away with the laundry service and having employees provide their own uniform based on our requirements . We are low risk bakery, BRC certified. Employees would launder their own uniforms per our guidelines ( not sure how I would verify that). I just got hit with this and it seems like it would not comply with the Standard but wondered if anyone else had encountered this and I could make it work within the BRC. Your help is most appreciated!
Hi,
I was interested in the same and read interpretation guideline of BRC 6 , 7.4.3 paragraph which states that home loundering can only be acceptable for low-risk operations such as produce packing or enclosed process areas where the clothing is worn primarily to protect the worker from the product (for instance, raw root vegetables). Also you should have the instructions how to be washed: temperature, detergent, drying instructions, specific items not to be washed together, only work clothes washing at that time etc. Then you also have to provide suitable bags (plastic) for transfering clean clothes to work. Somebody has to monitor the system all the time.
Also you should have written in your procedure what can not be lounderette: shoes, gloves etc.
Looks very complicated I think as how will you force everybody to keep the rools? how will you check it?
Hope it helps,
Regards,
Jurate
I doubt a BRC auditor would accept it. It states "enclosed product or low risk" areas and "exceptional" i.e. not normal practice.
So I would suggest you could have warehouse operations staff laundering their own clothes but as soon as there is open product it's a bit of a nightmare. How do you verify cleaning temperature and chemicals used? How do you prevent staff using strongly fragranced fabric conditioners? How do you ensure they do launder them?
Then it comes to the ethical side. Who pays for the laundry costs?
This sounds like a cost saving idea. Know uniforms get expensive, but what is the cost of managing, training verifying and what is the cost of a failure. I have seen employees coming to work with a lot of pet hair on their personal clothes, will they prevent this when washing their uniforms? Aside from the laundry costs, if they are required to wear a specific type of clothing such as blue Dockers with a white polo this passes a cost along to the employee. Most production employees are not that well paid...heck these days management isn't either. This can create morale issues that can contribute to a loss of quality as well.
Would you have space and someone who could launder in house, so it's controllable? That is the path the Company I work for has gone down and it works very well - 1 domestic washing machine & 1 tumble dryer. The cleaner is responsible for washing duties and several loads are done daily (57 employees).
Employers have to provide uniform if they want personnel wearing the same colour / type. Surely this is classed as PPE?
Imaging the scenario
"I'll just chuck my uniform in with the bath mats / dogs bed/ babies nappies"
Do we have a shudder emoticon ?? :eek_yello:
I would say leave the laundering to the experts. Unless you can do the laundering in house where it can be controlled I would not advise moving away.
Thanks everyone for your input!
Update: I knew this would not fly with our certification body and that was confirmed, once I contacted them. When I explained the situation to our owner, he dropped the idea.
Thanks again for all your comments!
Unfortunately the uniforms have to be cleaned by a reputable company that use food safe soaps