On a recent tour of Textile Care in Utrecht, the Netherlands, Textile Services Weekly saw a massive, multilevel, high-tech hospitality laundry in the heart of Europe.

Honors for workplace diversity and environmental conscientiousness will be presented among other TRSA Industry Awards at the 14th Annual Legislative Conference and Annual Industry Awards Dinner, slated for April 10-11 in Washington, DC.

With the holidays just around the corner, executives at linen, uniform and facility services companies across North America are planning parties to mark the Christmas/New Year’s season. But if you – like most companies – have a culturally diverse staff, how do you celebrate in ways that don’t inadvertently alienate minority staff members, thus sapping morale and fueling turnover?

Division Laundry and Cleaners, San Antonio, recently was honored as a “Minority Legacy Firm” by the Minority Business Development Agency’s (MBDA) San Antonio Business Centers. Division […]

Karl Moore, a scholar who researches the impact of workplace-generational issues, will give a keynote address at TRSA’s Fourth Annual Canadian Production Summit this Oct 4-5.

It’s widely reported that today’s laundry operators face challenges in recruiting mid- or higher-level managers. The resulting dearth of supervisory help can affect both operations and staff morale – not to mention customer satisfaction. The answer, says Emeka Okeani, president of Shared Hospital Corp., Nashville, TN, a surgical supply co-op, is to seek talent in your own organization. But to do that in today’s workplaces often requires a sense of “cultural intelligence” that can allow an employer to see rising leaders that others might overlook.

Employees often bring emotional issues to work … Examples range from having political views that lead to arguments on the plant floor to concerns about hate crimes/discrimination. Other times it’s personal … worries about a broken relationship or a family illness can generate stress – and undermine staff morale. Employers can help tackle these problems by providing staff with a “safe space” to work through their stress – and if necessary get them outside help. The issue of stress management was the focus of a Nov. 3 webinar facilitated by Kortney Overzet, chair of TRSA’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Committee. This hour-long discussion drew 20-plus attendees to look at steps that employers can take to help reduce workplace stress.

If you treat your employees with dignity and respect, then a “zero tolerance” stance on harassment or discriminatory behavior at work follows naturally, said Melanie Shong Helm, an HR expert who addressed the second session of the three-part “Safe Space Series” on Oct. 4 sponsored by TRSA’s Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) Committee.

Ecolab has received a perfect score of 100% on the 2022 Corporate Equality Index (CEI), designating it as one of the “Best Places to Work for LGBTQ+ Equality.” The CEI is a national benchmarking survey and report on corporate policies and practices related to LGBTQ+ workplace equality, administered by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation. This is the 10th consecutive year that Ecolab has received a perfect score on the CEI, according to a news release.

TRSA recently partnered with several international linen, uniform and facility services industry associations to present a webinar on diversity, equity and inclusion issues in the industry. The 90-minute presentation, titled “Gender and Diversity in the Textile Care Industry: Let’s Have a Conversation,” featured TRSA Chair Noël Hammer Richardson.