JUNE 2021
Late News Healthcare Linen Services Group acquires Angelica Chicago facility ST. CHARLES, Ill. — Healthcare Linen Services Group (HLSG), a provider of healthcare laundry services in the Midwest and central United States, reports it has acquired the Angelica facility in Chicago. “The acquisition of the Chicago facility aligns with our commitment to our core markets in the Midwest where we have served our healthcare customers for over 30 years,” says Joseph LaPorta, HLSG’s president and CEO. The company says the acquisition adds the 10th laundry facility and 20 million pounds of processing capacity to the HLSG network of plants across four states. The Chicago location is highly complementary to HLSG’s footprint in the Illinois market and will rebrand to Superior Health Linen, the company says. “We are excited to bring additional capacity, redundancy and linen management expertise to the city of Chicago and Northwest Indiana markets,” ALN adds LaPorta.
Laundry employee training in a COVID-19 world Four experts share advice, insights for effective training to keep a laundry processing goods well BY MATT POE, EDITOR CHICAGO — David Griggs, general manager of Superior Linen Service’s Healthcare Division in Muskogee, Oklahoma, says two common issues that most laundries face are employee turnover and employee accidents. “While no program can completely stop either issue, you can go a long way toward solving these issues with a good continual employee training program,” he says. “Unorganized facilities create employee frustration that usually leads to both turnover and accidents. They also generally produce a poor quality product that gets sent to their customers.” Add in the COVID-19 pandemic, and training laundry employees can be challenging at best. American Laundry News communicated about effective laundry employee training today with Griggs; Sylvia Williams, Human Resources Manager for Prudential Overall
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Supply headquartered in Irvine, California; Tommy Cocanougher, Director-Operations Engineering for Cintas Corp.; and Deana A. Griffin, president of The Griffin Group Inc. in Staunton, Virginia. How has COVID-19 changed training employees? WILLIAMS: COVID-19 really put all HR
professionals to the test. Not only did we need to make sure that we were in compliance with new and evolving state laws and local ordinances governing work requirements, but we needed to make our employees feel safe in a time where personal safety was a concern. See TRAINING on Page 6
How safe is your laundry operation? (Part 2) Continuing a plant safety inspection with the wash aisle, finishing, employee safety, office and warehouse BY DONALD BOCK, ARM
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SANTA MARIA, Calif. — You lie awake at night wondering whether your laundry operation is safe for your employees. So, you decide to see for yourself by inspecting your plant and fleet to verify that they are indeed safe. But where do you start? This article is going to walk you through the process of inspecting your own operation to determine where the opportunities for improvement exist and how you can make those improvements. Last month in Part 1 of a two-part series, I shared the importance of a checklist, following the flow of goods, and started “inspecting” a See SAFETY on Page 9
Volume 47, Number 6
INSIDE Your Views Survey Read how COVID-19 has affected laundry labor practices for respondents.
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Panel of Experts In this issue, the experts share their advice on dealing with a tight supply chain.
The Newspaper of Record for Laundry & Linen Management
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No Clean Show, No Problem Laundry equipment, product and service providers “exhibit” their wares.
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