CLEAN chief people officer Sarah Cooper has won a top award at the Women in Business Awards in recognition of her work to improve the role of women in the workplace. Sarah, a key member of the board at leading laundry supplier CLEAN, was named Board Level & Senior Executive of the Year at the Women in Business Awards at Oakley Hall, Basingstoke. Since joining CLEAN as HR director nine years ago, Sarah has championed a diverse workforce, boosting the number of women working in production to 50% and increasing female line managers and team leaders to 40%. Her analysis of the results of CLEAN’s Gender Pay Gap Report resulted in further changes in recruitment and has led to the company – the first in the sector to publish a report – to hire its first apprentice female engineer. Sarah’s other achievements include driving CLEAN’s health and safety initiatives, improving employee recognition with new award initiatives and chairing a trailblazer apprenticeship to create an education and career pathway to support more females entering the industry. CLEAN CEO Jason Miller said: “Sarah is a valuable asset to CLEAN’s senior leadership team who all work tirelessly to ensure CLEAN remains the UK’s leading laundry company providing professional linen and workwear rental services. She is highly-deserving of this award and we are incredibly proud of her achievements.” The Board Level & Senior Executive of the Year award is open to women at board or senior executive level who have not only achieved personally in their organisation but have made a significant difference to the role of women in business within and/or outside their organisation over the past 12 months. The winner had to demonstrate their attitude and commitment to developing, mentoring and promoting other women in their roles in business and prove how they had championed change in their business to support gender diversity and gender equality. Sarah joined CLEAN in 2009 from Premier Foods where she was head of HR. After working as HR director at CLEAN for four years she moved to chief operating officer, before becoming chief people officer in 2015. To find out more about CLEAN, please visit www.cleanservices.co.uk or follow their updates on Twitter @cleanlinenltd. ENDS
About CLEAN CLEAN is a UK market leader and one of the principal operators in the commercial B2B laundry sector with seven well-invested laundry production facilities. Collectively, they maximise CLEAN’s ability to deliver continuity of service and minimise risk in the supply management processes.
Acquired by Alsco in May 2018, CLEAN prides itself in offering a high-quality product range and customer-focused service to its portfolio of more than 5,500 businesses, ranging from independently-run organisations to leading global brands. The award-winning laundry provider’s growing product and service range continues to lead the way in commercial linen, laundry and workwear innovation.
The addition of a world-class laundry to the CLEAN portfolio in 2017 supports the business in producing and delivering more than 130,000 workwear items and 5 million linen items to its customers each week.
CLEAN operates in both the linen and workwear rental markets, working with a wide range of businesses across the UK from the hotel, restaurant, catering, food manufacturing, engineering and pharmaceutical industries.