Progression

Retaining people within the business, developing them, and creating opportunities for their growth is critical to the success of our business. We’ve long held the view that supporting our people, and outlining opportunities for progression, are the most important pieces of work that we can do for our team.

The prospect of taking our long-serving team members on a journey of development sets us on a faster path to successful delivery as a business, because we’re taking people who know what the job entails, and they already have the technical knowledge. If you can take someone who has all that knowledge and experience, and you move them to a new site as a supervisor, you set the contract up to succeed much faster than taking a risk on an unknown recruit to lead the on-site team.

Without exception, all our supervisors and managers are recruited from within. It’s never really worked for us to hire at this level from outside the business, and while we’re continuing to grow back from Covid, we’ll be looking to promote kitchen porters and night cleaners to the position of supervisors. In turn, we’ll then be looking to find good supervisors with management potential and aspirations to continue to grow Act-Clean so that we can get back to the size we were pre-pandemic.

It’s a belief that I completely relate to because I started at Act-Clean 10 years ago as a sales administrator. I progressed through a number of client-facing roles within the company, and last year I was over the moon to be made operations director. Simultaneously, I joined the leadership team to drive the success of the business.

An important part of our people strategy is our financially incentivised ‘refer a friend’ initiative. Our 550-strong team know that we look for positive people, people with a great attitude, good attention to detail, who are personable, and they know that we don’t always expect experience from new recruits. We’re known for having an open door for people when they come to the UK to start a new life.

Many of our new team members, referred by friends, have made the highly emotional decision to leave their own country and we welcome the opportunity to be their first step in a fresh new world. We are delighted to support them, and, in turn, they open up opportunities for recruitment because, once settled in their new role, many of them are often happy to recommend friends or family to the business. However, we don’t just recruit from overseas – we welcome people who have the right to work who are perhaps looking for a job where they can advance. Importantly, our ‘refer a friend’ scheme is very successful – indeed, in a typical month of 40-45 new recruits, more than half come through this method.

We constantly look for potential in our people. Kitchen porters and night cleaners are typically identified for promotion by supervisors and managers, while operations managers are likely to have been strong supervisors, perhaps noticed by a member of the team at head office, or when Gillian Thomson, our COO, is on site and witnesses their performance.

For those looking to progress as a supervisor or operations manager, we’re looking for someone who takes the initiative, does the right thing – they’re someone who sees things that others don’t, someone who spots problems and liaises well with managers and clients. And in both these roles, we’re looking for people who are organised, who are honest, who have empathy, who are good with people, and who have sound communication skills. In a nutshell, we’re looking for people who stand out.

One such example is Maros, our senior day operations manager, who started off as a kitchen porter and worked his way up through the ranks to supervisor, group supervisor, operations manager, and then senior operations manager. Originally from Slovakia, Maros had been living in the UK for a year, working for a window business, before someone referred him to us.

Having progressed within the company at a steady pace, Maros says that, for him, each promotion has been a “wonderful step towards his personal goal”.

“I’ve been led by people that have had patience with me and given the best support, experience and knowledge that I have gained from massively over years. Being able to empathise with people on the ground and appreciate how difficult their job can be is key to my role. Knowing that people are different, I’m conscious that there are many ways to approach team members and various ways of retaining a professional relationship with them. I believe that trust from my senior management team – and the fact that my superiors are more than just bosses but rather great people – helps me enormously to fulfil my role, knowing that there’s always a factor of humanity, understanding and leading the right way.” 

Frank is another success story. Hailing from Nigeria, he started with us as a night cleaner. He progressed to supervisor, then became a manager and is now a senior operations manager. His wife, Ann, works for us as well and started as a night cleaner too. Ann now holds the prestigious role of site manager at the Langham London on behalf of Act-Clean.

Benedetta and Olayinka (known as Ola) have both been promoted to Operations Managers this year – both from night cleaners.

Benedetta, a Nigerian national and a former financial trader, worked her way up to the position of supervisor at one of our biggest client sites – Soho House White City – before expressing an interest in progressing further within the company. A position became available, and she recently stepped into the more senior position of Night Operations Manager, managing a group of client sites across London. She loves the flexibility and autonomy of her job, a “traditional 9am-5pm” job doesn’t appeal.

“Act-Clean encourages personal growth and development,” says Benedetta. “I appreciate the development opportunities. Sometimes I experience random, unexpected moments of disbelief when I look back at my development and simply cannot believe that I’ve got this far!” 

“I believe being proactive, and having the ability to work with minimal supervision, as well as excellent time-management skills, have helped me this far.”

Meanwhile, Ola worked as a software tester for the council before joining the team. Not one to sit still he too enjoys the independence afforded in his role. Ola says: “I’m very happy with the company and really appreciate the support I have received from colleagues and the management team. I am particularly grateful to Frank who has great training methods, and his guidance is so encouraging. My style is proactive and friendly and I believe that’s what makes me stand out.” We’re proud of the relationship we have with our clients and how much our clients respect the work that our team members do, they love working with those team members, they appreciate their work, and respect the fact that it’s often hard and demanding. Sharing the same ethos as our clients towards employees creates the perfect environment for our teams.

And we’re proud of our high levels of retention, which we credit to the fact that we look after our people, we stand up for our people, we live the values  that we talk about, and we won’t put up with any bad behaviour – be that from employees, colleagues, or clients. We appreciate our team and the work that they do – if we didn’t, we simply wouldn’t have a business and we definitely wouldn’t have the opportunity to grow. The business is dependent on the calibre and commitment of our employees, and there is absolutely an opportunity for all to succeed here.

Georgina Board was talking to Amanda Afiya.

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