Wash your own linen: Dirty linen crisis won’t be ironed out anytime soon

Wash your own linen

Dirty linen crisis won’t be ironed out anytime soon

By Mandy Clarke, Editor

With an industry laundry crisis reaching boiling point many accommodation providers have been forced to wash their hospitality linen in house. Many more are now considering the purchase or rental of commercial laundry equipment.

Recently AccomNews received complaints from an array of sources, about various laundry service providers not meeting the demands of accommodation businesses. The claims of below par service came on top of vastly increased laundry costs and transport failures. We’ve been told many accommodation businesses throughout Australia are faced with an (almost) impossible task to try and fi nd an alternative laundry service because the regular provider (at short notice) ceased servicing the property altogether, or cancelled transport. The situation has become so dire for some that laundry equipment has been urgently purchased to wash linen in-house. And it is the regional motels and short stay management rights resorts that seem to be suff ering the most.

Many say they are oft en drastically short of clean towels and bed sheets, with piles of dirty laundry backing up. Meanwhile laundry service providers appear to prioritise the larger hotel contracts. A regional motel owner who wishes to remain anonymous said their regular laundry supplier not only raised charges without notice but also left them without clean linen on one of their busiest weeks of the year. And what happened when they complained? The supplier cancelled the service contract. two industrial washing machines. Several other motels also came forward to AccomNews making similar claims. Likewise, management rights owners have been faced with signifi cant laundry problems. On the crisis, one unhappy manager told us: “We have been dealing with this since reopening from COVID. Our laundry provider has not been able to keep up, delivering short orders every other week and not picking up dirty laundry without any notice. Housekeeping had to clean towels and pillowcases. “Also, we are having to use king sheets on double beds as they could not supply enough double sheets, then charging us for the cleaning of king sheets which we would not have used if our order was complete.” A “chronic shortage of staff ” is the main reason for drastic price rises and disruption in laundry service. Yes, the blame is being laid at the foot of the current industry staffi ng crisis. And some think the crisis may only get worse before it gets bett er. A senior linen supply company manager told us she believes it is unlikely to be ironed out for quite some time.

Laundry equipment has been urgently purchased to wash linen in-house

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Australian Linen Supply & Bev Martin Textiles National Sales & Marketing Manager, Helen Hurst said the situation with laundry services is being felt right across the board nationally, and particularly in the NSW North and South Coast regions, where she said accommodation providers are being severely “disadvantaged.”

Ms Hurst agreed that some operators are considering buying and installing their own machines, but she said it could prove an expensive exercise and they also must consider space requirements. Added to which, she feared they would have to fi nd the time to do the laundry themselves (on top of already existing busy schedules) or employ extra staff . She pointed out that washing and ironing sheets is very time consuming but to ease the

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pressure they could consider purchasing equipment to wash pillowcases and bath linen. “Then they would only need a laundry service to supply bed sheets,” she said.

And she confi rmed there has been a recent increase in demand for pillowcases and bathroom linen, due to more accommodation providers buying their own machines, to at least try and overcome the issue. Alternatively, she suggested several small accommodations could get together to purchase laundry equipment and service their own laundry needs. It is a possible solution for those small regional towns. She said: “They would be creating work in the region while servicing their own laundry requirements.

We spoke to a laundry service provider

Sarah Rowley, General manager Sales & Marketing for Broadmeadows (VIC) headquarters SPL confi rmed that her company found itself under enormous pressure fi nding staff as demand from customers returns. She told us: “Many of our long-term production team members were non-permanent Australian residents and found it necessary to return overseas as COVID lockdowns took over. We remain in touch with many of these people, but they are still to return to Australia.

“While there has been a lot of discussion about the skills shortage in Australia, our challenge is unskilled workers.

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We know this is the same for many of our customers. “Our demand nationally is still only 65 percent of prepandemic. While we are largely on top of managing this now, the growth from near zero was incredibly difficult and financially very hard to navigate. “Pleasingly, we are now managing the demand increase in many areas, although in some regional locations we continue to find recruitment difficult.”

Regarding price increases she said: “The laundry industry is highly exposed to the Australian cost of goods and services. As wages, fuel, energy, rent, chemicals (and so on) all increased for everyone in Australia, so did these costs for the laundry industry. “Operating in a high-volume low margin supply industry, small changes in the cost base often mean the difference between profit and loss, and the changes we are all continuing to experience are not small. Moving price is a response to these input cost changes and necessary if we are to remain in business and continue investing.

“Every laundry supplier is facing challenges through rising costs, staffing and transport difficulties and while frustrations are often high, it must be recognised that not all industries have been able to recover as quickly as others and the lack of understanding and poor treatment of our staff by some people has been the most disappointing outcome.

“We also continue to see too much of our linen held for too long and in some cases even being washed by customers or others, which only damages our linen and the sustainability of our business.”

Other challenges for SPL have included delivery services impacted by a lack of trucks and drivers, Ms Rowley said this is improving but these challenges forced the company to look at alternative, innovative solutions.

The company has been using Radio-frequency Identification (RFID) technology to create mobile linen hubs, which Ms Rowley said, “serve customers in a far better way”.

For now, their fixed and mobile hubs are only in Victoria, but more are planned for rollout in South Australia, Western Australia, and Far North Queensland.

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