[Permanent education in an outsourced cleaning service at a university hospital]

Abstract

Permanent education has been a source of constant reflections due to a rapid technological evolution, which brings about changes in work organization, and requires updated knowledge from workers. In the context of this new technological paradigm in production relations and work organization, we analyzed the permanent education activities involving outsourced workers in the cleaning sector of a university hospital and evaluated their knowledge about work environment contamination risks and the importance of their work for health maintenance. Six semi-structured interviews were carried out with the outsourced workers in the cleaning sector and two with the persons in charge of permanent education for these workers, besides four activity observation periods and the field diary. All workers considered permanent education essential because they had no previous experience in relation to hospital cleaning.