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    HORIBA MIRA’s stunning research and development facility was once again the location for the annual we clean MIRA Cleaning Team’s Christmas Party!

    As has become tradition, our on-site Cleaning Manager, Karen Lord and her Assistant, Jean Green throw this annual party to provide an opportunity for our Cleaning Team at HORIBA MIRA to reflect on the past year and join in the festivities with a Secret Santa involving the entire team plus a delicious takeaway pizza expertly organised by Karen and Jean.

    Karen commented:

    “I’m so pleased with how this year has gone; our Operatives have worked really hard to achieve nothing less than a weekly audit of 95%. Our team has grown once more, and we now total some 38 on-site staff. Jean Green has been brilliant as my Assistant, really helping to provide a consistent service week in week out. We’re fortunate to not only have a great cleaning team, but to also have great clients here and we’ve formed solid relationships with Mark Rogers, Jayne Evans and Kelly Clarke. We look forward to continuing our growth here and building on what has been another great year.”

    Directors Paul Concannon and David Harker were in attendance along with Human Resources Manager, Gaynor Powell, Health and Safety Manager (and recent Pride Award Champion) David Holmes-McClure as well as a very special and surprise guest, Nicki Gallier!

    As we have previously documented, Nicki has been through an immensely tough year where she has bravely fought and beat cancer, and subsequently raised nearly £3000.00 through her Brave the Shave. Our Cleaning Team at MIRA also completed their own Brave the Shave and helped contribute to the fantastic sum raised for charity. Nicki thanked the team personally for all their incredible efforts, and this act is something that she will forever grateful for.

    Also present on the night was Mark Rogers, HORIBA MIRA Facilities and Maintenance Manager and our client contact for all MIRA buildings on-site. Mark was actually on annual leave, but took the time out to celebrate and join in the festivities with our cleaning team.

     Kelly Clarke, Clerical Administrator who works closely with Karen was also in attendance along with Jayne Evans, Property Management Supervisor, who oversees all client owned buildings and will be celebrating her 50th birthday on Christmas Day!

    Fern Whitehead, a Cleaning Operative at HORIBA MIRA was also celebrating her birthday and in true festive spirit the team all joined in to sing Happy Birthday to both Fern and Jayne.

    To have our clients involved and willing to attend the evening is a testament to not only the quality of service we provide to HORIBA MIRA, but the type of people Karen and Jean are to form such healthy and solid client relationships.

    David Harker, Director is particularly proud of what we have achieved here commenting:

    “I’m extremely proud of the team that has been built here at MIRA since our tenure on-site started back in April 2015. Karen and Jean as the we clean management presence on-site have instilled a well-disciplined, highly motivated and friendly body of Operatives who genuinely enjoy their work at this impressive facility, and have a real sense of pride and passion to do the job right. We were delighted that our clients Mark Rogers, Jayne Evans and Kelly Clarke were able to join us for this festive cheer, their involvement with we clean provides a real business partnership and we’re excited to continue this into the long-term. May I take this opportunity to wish all staff, clients and friends a Merry Christmas and prosperous and happy New Year!”

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    Introduction

    As another year comes to a close, the we clean management team once again spent a day at the popular Midlands Art Centre (the MAC) to analyse the year that has been, and look ahead to the opportunities and challenges over the coming year at the annual ‘we clean Management Day’.

    The we clean Management Team eagerly await Directors Paul Concannon and David Harker’s presentation.

    We have experienced significant growth over the past 12 months whereby we have not only retained key accounts, but acquired new substantial contracts and it was a pleasure to see at first-hand how the management team has grown over the past year.

    In keeping with tradition Directors Paul Concannon and David Harker kicked off the day with a presentation geared towards informing all those in attendance on the key financial and operational figures from the past 12 months along with strategic insight into the future vision for the organisation.

    Paul and David deliver a presentation on the past year and offer strategic insight into our plans for the coming years.

    Our Management Day offers a rare opportunity to step away from day to day work activities and reflect and analyse on how we function as a business. We have been fortunate to successfully win new business with clients such as Cushman & Wakefield, CEG and Paradise Birmingham and therefore 2019 has been a very very busy year for everybody associated with we clean.

    All Things HR

    As always, the focus on the day was on how we as a team can consistently deliver service excellence to our client base, and ensure that our cleaning staff are operating as efficiently as possible.

    With this in mind our guest speaker was Emma Smith from ES HR Consultancy, who in collaboration with our own HR Manager, Gaynor Powell, delivered an insightful presentation into the effective management of our large front-line cleaning team of which there are now some 570 staff. Gaynor commented:

    “Emma’s career in Human Resources spans over two decades and she possesses particular expertise within the cleaning industry, meaning she is well qualified to inspire and educate our management team as she covered relevant employment law practises, policies and procedures. Thank you to Emma, all those present found it particularly relevant and very useful and everybody came away from the presentation with a lot of great information that they will add to their existing knowledge on the subject.”

    Emma Smith from ES HR Consultancy delivers a interesting and very relevant talk on all things HR.

    All in all, our 2019 Management Day was a successful one with Director Paul Concannon saying:

    “Thank you to Damien Vincent, Head of Customer Service, with the MAC once again being a perfect host on the day, the meeting room, equipment and of course the buffet breakfast and lunches were of the usual exceptionally high standard.

    The day provided a great opportunity for the management team to get together and reflect on another challenging but extremely rewarding year of progression within we clean. It was particularly satisfying that during the presentation a number of our managers made some valuable contributions for improvements we can make to our operational management procedures and service delivery in readiness for what will surely be another exciting year for our organisation.”

    Sean Wright, Contract Support Management explains what we clean PRIDE means to him.

    PRIDE Award

    Last but not least, the Management Day provided the ideal opportunity to recognise the contribution of one of our Head Office staff, Emma Miller, who received the first Dee Richards Pride Award for 2019!

    Emma not only supports Christine Checkley with our extensive payroll operation but has also carried out with the utmost diligence the role of Credit Controller for the organisation ensuring that the we clean cashflow remains in a very positive position.

    Well done Emma, your contribution this year has been much appreciated!!!

    Emma Miller, Payroll & Accounts Assistant receives the first ‘Dee Richards’ Pride Award in 2019 for her outstanding contribution to the business over the past 12 months.

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    This feature offers a detailed insight into some of Birmingham’s most sought after office space, Eleven Brindleyplace, and the 18 Cleaning Operatives who ensure it remains pristine.

    Sean Wright, Contract Support Manager (far left) and the Eleven Brindleyplace Cleaning Team.

    Standing proud on the western edge of Birmingham’s most popular business district is Eleven Brindleyplace, 10,219 square metres of award-winning office space.

    Upon entering this ultra-modern building, you are greeted by an expansive, two-storey Reception, which is situated below the 13 storeys of tenanted areas above. Split into two different elements, Eleven Brindleyplace is incredibly eye-catching, and it’s no surprise that it picked up a whole host of accolades back in 2010, a year after its launch.

    Looking up at the glistening exterior of Eleven Brindleyplace.

    Sean Wright, we clean Contract Support Manager is responsible for the day to day delivery of Cleaning Services across both common areas and a number of tenanted office space with a team of 18 Cleaning Operatives working between the hours of 5am-8am in the morning, as well as a Housekeeper during key daytime hours.

    The fact that the tower block is split into two elements, divided by the core lift areas, presents a challenge to our Operatives, as they are always on the move, whether it’s cleaning the communal washrooms that are on each floor, or vacuuming the hundreds of stairs. Every single Operative on the site is specifically dedicated to a section of the building, whether it’s the common areas, or the tenanted areas on one of the 13 floors, they are purely focused on maintaining their section to the highest possible standard.

    Sean, who has been part of our organisation for over 10 years, joining in January of 2009, and is immensely proud of his team here, commented:

    “I’m really honoured to work on behalf of we clean in Eleven Brindleyplace, it’s by no means an easy job, as the building is large and almost at full capacity, but the team turn up each day with a big smile, perfectly uniformed and with a real desire to get the job done. They are physically and mentally strong and are a pleasure to manage, and I’m really proud of every single one of them.”

    A wide array of prestigious firms call Eleven Brindleyplace home, and a number of them have also utilised our daily presence on site to provide daily cleaning to their office space, including: Hettle Andrews & Associates, Robert Walters, Colliers International and MSO Workspace Limited who are also utilising our services across their wider midlands portfolio that includes office space in the Waterfront Brierley Hill, Solihull, Shirley and Birmingham Business Park.

    Working through BNP Paribas, the Eleven Brindleyplace building complements perfectly the other services we clean provide across the wider Brindleyplace complex for Avison Young which includes the provision of daily cleaning services to their managed Buildings on site, Brindleyplace Number 3, 4 & 9. This together with the external Estate Cleaning Services that we provide 365 days of the year through a team of 13 full time Service Operative helps to maintain Brindleyplace as the most prestigious commercial and leisure district in the city.

    We are extremely proud to be the cleaning contractor of choice having developed such a prominent presence within this iconic Birmingham Landmark area over a number of years!

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    Where once stood the internationally renowned vinegar works of Hill, Evans Co Ltd. now stands a more modern landmark, the Cushman & Wakefield managed St Martins Quarter, a £75 million shopping complex unveiled in 2012 that sees some 35,000 people pass through it each week, with further development to the site planned in the near future.

    This historic part of Worcester has a very interesting past as Hill, Evans Co Ltd established themselves here back in the 1830’s and soon became the world’s largest producers of vinegar. They continued to expand the site over the following decades to the turn of the century, building numerous external buildings which can still be seen today, as well as underground ‘Vaults’ used for storage, which span over 14,500 sq ft and make for breath-taking viewing.

    A man who knows this site like the back of his hand is Rob Carling the full time Cleaning Supervisor for the estate. Originally from Birmingham, Rob moved to Worcester over 20 years ago to work as a Chef before applying for his cleaning role at St Martins Quarter 5 years ago after hearing of the vacancy from a friend. Rob’s bubbly personality and work ethic shone through and once hired by his previous employers immersed himself in every aspect of his cleaning duties, as well as the unique history of the site!

    Following on from our successful tender with Cushman & Wakefield where St Martins Quarter was part of a 16 contract portfolio win in April 2019, we were absolutely delighted to welcome Rob into our team. Contract Manager, Jane Shields first met Rob during the critical TUPE consultation process period and was immediately taken by firstly his immense enthusiasm for St Martins Quarter and its decorated past, and secondly his knowledge of the cleaning duties that are carried out on-site each day.

    As an organisation we are totally employee orientated, ‘our people are our business’ and we understand that it is our frontline cleaning staff that play the most important role in our long term success and we fully appreciate the need to incorporate new staff joining our organisation whether that be via TUPE or not, into our unique company ethos. Rob was able to see this operate at first hand, commenting:

    “I did some research before meeting Jane and other key members of the we clean management team, as I wanted to know what kind of organisation I was potentially joining. By checking out their website plus social media activity and speaking to friends and family back in Birmingham I learnt that they had a very good reputation and weren’t the same as many other cleaning companies. They put the Operative first which I really liked.”

    As Location Manager for this mixed retail shopping outlet Rob together with his team of 4 week day / weekend operatives play a pivotal role in the daily maintenance and upkeep of this popular, public venue. For Contract Manager Jane Shields it was critical that Rob and the team were provided with the right tools for the job from the very outset which included the supply of an Industrial Pedestrianised ‘Green Machine’ Sweeper specifically designed for the upkeep of outdoor shopping malls. In addition Rob was provided with a fully portable Industrial Jet washer for the wash down of paved areas particularly important when dealing with the aftermath of a busy Worcester nightlife weekend, whilst the Glasdon Spaceliner TM assists with the ongoing collection of waste and other debris.

    All the team were provided with brand new corporate uniform together with specific Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to ensure the maximum protection for the staff in line with our comprehensive site Risk Assessment of the complex and the cleaning methodologies involved in maintaining cleaning standards across all areas. 

    Rob was incredibly impressed and delighted with the extent of materials and equipment provided by we clean at the start of the contract and genuinely appreciated that such support would allow him and the team to consistently meet the diverse cleaning specification at St Martins Quarter commenting:

    “My shift here starts at 6 in the morning where I’ll generally be out with the Pedestrianised Sweeper or jet washing the pavements or shop fronts down whilst it is nice and quiet! However, later in the day I’ll be out litter picking, and it gives me a real sense of pride to know that I’m contributing positively to a part of the town that I love so much. I really enjoy my job, not only from a cleaning perspective but also the constant interaction with the public and the other various stakeholders across the complex, I genuinely want to represent the company in the best possible manner.”

    So if you’re ever passing through St Martins Quarter, be sure to keep an eye out for, Our Man about Town!