When Brazilian business WeWork needed to solve some issues with cleaning the office workspace, owner Nataly Bonato asked for a daily report from them confirming which room they cleaned, how long they spent doing it and the reason a room wasn’t cleaned, if there was one. When that report took a week to turn in and the information wasn’t correct, she talked to the janitors.
It turns out over half of the custodians were illiterate. But instead of firing them to get new staff who could do the work, Bonato wanted to help her workers. “We have a school that uses our workspace,” she explains, “so we challenged them to help the staff with the problem, and they got organized to make it happen.”
So the cleaning team would take a longer lunch break on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so they could get literacy lessons. In just five months, top students are writing letters and every janitor can read simple texts. To celebrate, WeWork had a graduation party, complete with caps and gowns for grads.
Source: Good News Network