Case study
Food Manufacturer
What we found
One of the largest food manufacturers in the UK made its name and fortune through practically inventing the supermarket ready meal. The company employs 22,000 people, has annual sales of £1.4 billion and pre-tax profits of £104m.
In January 2005, the company were moving to their new corporate ‘flagship’ building on an up-and-coming business park near the city centre. Their immediate requirement was to engage with a partner to help them mobilise facilities services. The team had just four weeks to move and equip the 28,000 sq ft building before the official opening. In addition they wanted to work with an FM provider who would provide them with a range of services that would not only support their core activities but would provide a good cultural fit with their company.
What we did
The team met the challenge and played a major role in launching the new building. As well as placing support staff, arranging installation of equipment and consumables, they also advised on seating plans, use of break-out areas and helped establish ground rules to encourage staff to embrace new ways of working. A key reason for the move from the company’s former headquarters was to foster cultural changes and to promote a ‘new beginning’ for the corporate team.
An on-site team was set up to provide a broad range of services supporting the company's core business. This team continues to provide front of house, switchboard, helpdesk, catering and vending, building maintenance, access control, admin support, corporate hospitality, 24/7 security and cleaning. Additionally, they manage a number of support functions and concierge services such as health and safety, staff inductions, mailroom, printing and binding, consumables procurement, contractor management, room bookings, car hire/hotels and the Building Management System.
Making it work
The site is large and complex to manage and the initial mobilisation and move requirements were not only difficult but had to be completed within extremely tight deadlines. The team met those requirements within the timeline and received very positive feedback on their focused approach of hard work, flexibility and a can-do, will-do attitude throughout the mobilisation.
Their approach to staff selection and training meant they could build a flexible, multi-skilled team which is highly customer-focused. By streamlining roles and responsibilities and information flow, and being innovative with their use of IT, they were able to deliver a consistently high quality of service and provide significant job satisfaction for their staff.
