Language in cleaning
The language course is an important incentive
EW Facility Services
Greeting guests in a friendly manner and being able to show them the way are important skills for cleaning staff at EW Facility Services. Proficiency in the Dutch language is a prerequisite for this.
TopTaal provides training at the facility services provider to further develop the Dutch language proficiency of its employees. What are the experiences of Birgit Jilesen, Hospitality Academy and Quality Manager at EW Facility Services, with these TopTaal training courses?
EW Facility Services employees have close contact every day with the guests and users of the locations where they clean. Think of hotel guests, office workers, or residents of healthcare institutions. For this reason, the organization attaches great value to providing what EW Facility Services calls the 'ultimate guest experience'. Birgit puts it this way: 'Hospitality has been the core concept of our services for almost thirty years. The experience of the end user is our driving force, every single day.'
We invest a lot of time in organizing appropriate language training. TopTaal is our expert partner in this, offering a lot of personal contact and flexibility.
In order to communicate in the right way, it is necessary to have a good command of the Dutch language, Birgit believes. 'Since 2013, TopTaal has been providing Dutch language lessons for colleagues who do not yet have sufficient command of the language. For our sector, TopTaal has developed profession-specific readers in which all relevant themes of the professional training in the industry are covered: "Language in Cleaning" and a reader focused on writing customer-oriented emails. It is important that our employees can make themselves understood and properly understand the guests and employees of our clients. Think, for example, of making small talk or handling a complaint in a professional manner.'
Appealing themes
How does EW Facility Services collaborate with TopTaal? Birgit: 'We find the collaboration to be very pleasant. Our contact persons are flexible and are exceptionally good at thinking along with us. We are dealing here with a target group that likes to "do" and roll up their sleeves. That is quite different from sitting in a classroom to follow training. TopTaal works with appealing and recognizable themes, creating a link with the employee's daily practice. This appeals to the imagination and ensures that it is easier for the employee to master the Dutch language'.
Birgit is convinced that the training courses contribute to the execution of the services and thus the creation of hospitality. According to her, the enthusiasm of the students is telling. The course is an important incentive, but simply taking language lessons is not enough to truly improve Dutch language skills permanently. It is important that the employee continues to practice the language both at work and at home. TopTaal's courses encourage this by, among other things, giving assignments for the workplace and tips on how participants can continue to work on their language skills at home.