4.1 Introduction
Platform work is often associated with the food couriers we see in the streets wearing pink, blue or orange clothes and bags, who deliver take away to customers, often by bike or scooter and at a rapid pace. However, this form of work has also made its entry into other areas of the labour market that are invisible compared to food delivery. One of these areas is domestic cleaning, that is, cleaning in private households. In Denmark several platform companies selling cleaning services through digital platforms have emerged in recent years. They differ from existing cleaning companies in that they do not see themselves as cleaning companies as such but merely as an online platform that connects cleaners with customers based on an automated matching algorithm. In this chapter I explore working environment challenges that may arise with such digitalized work arrangements. I am particularly interested in how platform companies in domestic cleaning use algorithms to manage workers, and how this form of control influences the workers’ occupational safety and health.
This chapter first describes important characteristics in the Danish cleaning industry as a background for understanding app-based domestic cleaning. I then present the case I have studied, namely a Danish domestic cleaning platform called Happy Helper, my methods and the theoretical and analytical frameworks used. I conclude that cleaners working through digital platforms are exposed to occupational safety and health risks. Some of these risks are similar to the risks in the traditional cleaning industry, but some of them are connected specifically to the business model of the platform company.
4.2 The context: the Danish cleaning industry
Cleaning is carried out in many different places and areas of society including private homes and private firms, as well as public workplaces. In general, the cleaning industry is characterized by many small, often local, cleaning companies (self-employed people and businesses with few employees) as well as large companies (Rasmussen et al., 2016: 28). As was emphasized in the chapter on domestic cleaning in Norway, it is relatively easy to establish a business in the cleaning industry in Denmark. Cleaners often have low or little formal education. While it is possible to work as an unskilled cleaner, formal education exists for work as a service assistant, house assistant, cleaning technician etc. According to a 2022 analysis from the employer organization Dansk Erhverv, less than two percent of those working in cleaning and window cleaning in Denmark in 2021 had formal cleaning education (Dansk Erhverv, 2022: 9). Around one third had primary school as their highest educational level and another 30 percent had vocational education. Cleaning staff with a formal cleaning education are more common in hospitals, nursing homes and day care institutions compared to other areas of the service sector (Dansk Erhverv, 2022: 9). Women and persons with a non-Danish background are overrepresented in the sector, in particular women with a non-Danish background (Dansk Erhverv, 2022: 6–9). Because the barriers to entry are low, this type of work functions as an entrance to the labour market for foreigners in Denmark (Refslund, 2014). Furthermore, part-time employment is widespread (Dansk Erhverv, 2022: 19) and the industry often lacks labour power (Dansk Erhverv, 2022).
When exploring the Danish cleaning industry, it is important to distinguish between cleaning in the public sector and in the private sector, where the conditions differ. In the public sector (state, regional and municipal workplaces), cleaning staff have traditionally been employed directly at the workplace and covered by collective agreements. These collective agreements regulate wages and working conditions for the cleaners. However, in recent years public authorities and municipalities have increasingly outsourced cleaning at public workplaces such as nursing homes and schools to private providers. When cleaning is outsourced, wages and working conditions may change or worsen because the cleaning staff are not covered by the collective agreements that were applicable when they were directly employed in the public sector. For instance, a recent Danish study compared a group of employees who switched from public to private employment due to government outsourcing with a similar group that did not experience outsourcing and found that outsourcing had a negative effect on employee income over time (Petersen et al., 2021).
Cleaning in the private sector involves cleaning at private companies and domestic cleaning. In private companies, cleaners can also be employed directly at the workplace, or the company can buy cleaning from a cleaning company. In the private sector in Denmark, collective agreement coverage is not 100 percent like in the public sector, but around 75 percent (Appel, 2020), and the private cleaning sector is known for a lower-than-average collective agreement coverage. Collective agreement coverage is difficult to measure precisely, but according to a 2013 study by Andersen and Felbo-Kolding, 59 percent of firms within the private cleaning sector were covered by collective agreements, and cleaning, together with agriculture and the hotel and restaurant industries, is the industry with the lowest number of collective agreements (Andersen and Felbo-Kolding, 2013: 121–123). Wages can be low for cleaners working without a collective agreement (Madsen, 2015; Refslund, 2015). The industry is also characterized by low union density (Ibsen et al., 2015) and widespread undeclared work (Korsby 2011), but the extent of it is difficult to estimate precisely. Undeclared work in the cleaning industry is more likely to take place within domestic cleaning and when subcontractors are used for cleaning tasks (Korsby, 2011: 17). Furthermore, there have been examples of illegal work in the industry (Korsby, 2011: 17). Therefore, cleaning, especially in the unregulated part of the private sector, seems to be characterized by insecure working conditions.
Over the last ten years, several domestic cleaning platforms have emerged in Denmark. Some are centred around cleaning in private homes (like Hilfr and Happy Helper) while others offer a wide range of on-location tasks such as craft work, moving assistance, dog walking, babysitting and cleaning (for instance MePLoy and Care.com). Most of these platform companies are Danish-owned and, in the beginning, they primarily used a freelancer/independent contractor model in which they do not consider themselves an employer but merely a mediator between a customer who wants to buy a cleaning service and a provider who offers to do the cleaning task. This business model differs from traditional cleaning companies in the industry because these new companies do not see themselves as cleaning companies as such but merely as online platforms that connect cleaners with customers based on an automated match.
The platform company Hilfr has received the most public attention in Denmark. This company was the first cleaning platform to enter into a collective agreement with a union in 2018, which resulted in a lot of media coverage. Now, Hilfr has a combination model wherein the “Hilfr” (which is the term used for the cleaning provider) starts as a freelancer, sets their own prices and is paid per cleaning task. When the Hilfr has worked 100 hours through the platform, they are offered employment directly at the company and are covered by a collective agreement, which mandates an hourly wage, a minimum income of at least 152 Danish kroner (around 20 Euros), savings for pension and holiday payments and the right to sick pay. The concept is called “Super Hilfr”. The Hilfr is automatically transferred to the employment model unless she or he actively choses to continue with the freelance model (Hilfr n.d.). According to a Danish study of Hilfr, the Super Hilfr concept quickly turned out to be attractive. In 2019, more than a third of all cleaning tasks at the platform were carried out by Super Hilfrs, and in 2022 two thirds. However, only 70 people were employed as Super Hilfrs in 2022 (Ilsøe and Larsen, 2022: 74–75), which indicates that the number of people working through the platform is limited. From this study, we also know that the platform owners believe that this model has been an asset for them, among other things because it has helped promote their brand as a socially responsible platform company. However, they find the business model difficult to maintain because they are competing with other platform companies that use the freelancer model and because the sector is characterized by a lot of undeclared work (Ilsøe and Larsen, 2022: 75).
4.3 The case: Happy Helper
In this article, I analyse Happy Helper, which is the largest platform company in the Danish domestic cleaning market. In addition to domestic cleaning services, Happy Helper also offers move-out cleaning and cleaning of smaller commercial offices. According to the Happy Helper website, 4,500 helpers are associated with the platform (as of March 2024), and they operate in all major cities in Denmark.
Happy Helper was founded in 2015 by a group of Danish entrepreneurs who, inspired by Uber’s business model and other American platform companies, noticed that domestic cleaning in Denmark was often unregulated and informal and saw a market in domestic cleaning. In the interviews, management told me that they believed that, with their business model, they could formalize some of the informal work in the industry. They established a freelance model, wherein the company presented itself as a digital platform connecting customers who need cleaning services with independent providers offering cleaning services based on an automated match. They named the service providers “helpers”. The management at Happy Helper argues that the advantage for the helpers when they use the platform instead of operating independently is that they do not have to find customers on their own but can connect with customers through the platform. Furthermore, both the helper and the household goods are covered by insurance. Moreover, the helpers have the possibility to contact a live support team in case anything happens while working at a customer’s house.
According to the management, Happy Helper had a reasonable turnover in the first couple of years and experienced a demand from both customers and cleaners who were interested in the concept. However, the company struggled during the Covid-19 pandemic because, as the management said in our interview, “people became afraid of letting people into their homes” and fewer cleaning providers were interested in working in private homes. At one point the company closed the access for new helpers to ensure that there was enough work for existing helpers. After the pandemic, the company became more economically stable despite having only half its previous turnover. However, in April 2024, Happy Helper announced that it had gone bankrupt (Pedersen, 2024). Shortly after, another platform company, HandyHand, bought the company and has stated that it intends to carry on the concept (Weis, 2024). Handy Hand is a Danish-owned platform company that offers a wide range of domestic work tasks (lawn care, furniture collection, dog walking, painting etc.).