We’re always willing to take on a new challenge!

At the start of this current lockdown, Q3 were looking at ways we could be of more value on one of our contracts, as regular activities were curtailed, and it had become particularly quiet.

The client asked whether it would be possible to take on a project! One large showroom area needed to be split into two, to create two separate storerooms.

We proceeded to demolish and remove the current built in furniture and walls and then built a new wall to specified standards, with sound proofing and insulation to create the two separate spaces.

The work has gone without a hitch, with only final decoration works to complete a job well done! Our client has expressed their satisfaction at the quality, speed and professionalism with which we approached the entire project.

It’s been great to see a happy client and rewarding for our on-site team to get their teeth into something a little bit different. Super work Atnand and Ardit!!!

A volunteering project to create a community orchard delivers real social value

A team from Lotus Landscapes, the landscaping division of Q3 Services, turned out on a blustery spring morning recently, to plant a new orchard in Windsor.

The team all provided their services voluntarily, as it was part of a project to enhance the outdoor community area at Sawyer’s Close, operated by the Abri, one of the south of England’s largest housing providers.

The project, designed and driven by Green Earth Plan, a Community Interest Company (CIC), was instigated to transform an area of grass into a vibrant orchard as part of a broader “Green Up Our Streets” campaign they are promoting across the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead.

Green Earth Plan CIC sourced the trees for this project and Lotus Landscapes provided all the tools, heavy equipment, mulch and labour. During the morning, the team planted a total of 19 fruit trees, spanning 17 different varieties, including apple, pear, cherry, plum and quince.

Commenting on the installation, Danielle Lane, Community Development Officer for Abri, said, “We know that the pandemic has had a significant impact on people’s mental and physical health and wellbeing, and getting outside for fresh air and exercise can really help.”

“We’re investing £15m into our communities between 2020-2025 to help improve health and wellbeing, increase employment, and empower our communities. We hope that the community orchard will be something that the whole community can enjoy, enhancing their health and wellbeing, somewhere to bring the community together, and an opportunity to try some new and interesting fruits.”

Look at the maturity of a potential client before proposing a solution

In our industry, not many suppliers take account of the maturity of a potential client and where they sit in their outsourcing journey. When they first engage, FM companies hardly ever invest enough time listening to, and understanding their customer’s challenges and needs. This is a fundamental mistake, as any sales trainer will tell you.

Instead, they promote their usual, regular, FM offer, gift-wrapped with the client’s name on it and call it a bespoke solution. But in reality, it’s a solution better designed to suit the supplier than the client.

The “maturity” of a client, or where they are in their customer journey, makes a big difference to their outlook and their needs from a property/FM perspective. I liken the situation to the differing viewpoints of a graduate looking for a job straight from university, compared to an established manager with many years’ experience under his belt. The graduate won’t know the ropes, the art of the possible and in many cases, won’t have any expectations of what a new role might entail. The experienced manager on the other hand, will have a very much clearer picture with everything he wants mapped out to the last detail.

Q3 had just such an experience a couple of years back, with a potential client who was new to the whole outsourcing scene. This client was an innovative financial services company that had burst onto the scene and was making waves through the successful integration of modern technology across its business model. A combination of acquisition and rapid organic growth had turned it rapidly into a multi-million-pound success story, with a number of regional offices in cities across the UK.

Yet, in terms of its approach to managing its property and FM requirements, it was the equivalent of the graduate attending his first week at work. All the effort had gone into growing and establishing the business while the infrastructure to support it, came second. At the outset, all they knew was that they had a problem. What they needed was a robust solution that could flex to meet their expanding needs, while supporting their strategy of creating great places for all their colleagues to work.

Q3 chose not to thrust a standard approach for FM service delivery on them but listened and took a flexible stance to meet the evolving needs of the group. What we created was a hybrid FM service containing elements of consultancy, conventional FM delivery and supply-chain management. You may have heard this approach described as an integrator model. Effectively, Q3 now monitors and manages the entire supply chain utilising a unique software package that oversees, manages and measures all operations.

To work successfully in this kind of FM contract, you have to be flexible and informative, acting as a trusted advisor on all aspects related to property and FM activity. The person managing the account must be a subject matter expert, capable of dealing with every angle of operational delivery, because the client may not have the expertise, and sometimes even the interest, to get involved in all the detail.
The beauty of this approach is that, in a case like this one, you can deploy the most appropriate solution for each area of the business, in the best interests of the client. Very often with a national Integrated FM type contract, you may find that cleaning delivery is a disaster in one of the regions. There’s pain, anguish, and blood on the carpet while everyone struggles to correct the problem. The alternative is to recognise that sourcing a good local cleaning company through the supply chain may actually represent a more viable alternative, from both the quality of delivery perspective and the economics. It’s a common-sense approach that also supports social value, investing back into the local community through using SMEs.

Sadly, the big players in our industry are just too institutionalised to consider this and revert continually to the one-size-fits all approach. They don’t have their clients’ best interests at heart because at the end of the day, they know they have big beast to feed.
Q3 is now very much part of the client’s team and yes, we believe we have reached the status of a truly trusted partner, working to a set of core standards that are shared by both parties. There is a commitment to working together driven by the real value both parties are now drawing from the relationship.

As the graduate becomes a manager, it means we can easily adapt and evolve as needs change, but in a manner that minimises risk, ensures value for money and ensures that the client’s needs continue to be met.

Q3 is an approved supplier on the Fusion 21 National Workplace and Facilities Framework Agreement

Q3 Services is delighted to announce that it has successfully secured a place on the Fusion 21, National Workplace and Facilities Framework agreement.

Valued at £1.1bn, the Framework was open to both SMEs and multinational providers and, after a rigorous qualification process, Q3 is now an approved supplier in the category for cleaning and washroom services.

The Framework is designed to satisfy the complex and varied needs of housing providers, local authorities, NHS trusts, blue-light organisations, education providers and central government. It has the scope and flexibility for clients to call from a comprehensive range of single-line or bundled service packages, to create a solution tailored to the specific needs of their facility.

Commenting on the award, Martyn Freeman CEO of Q3 Services said, “One major attraction for Q3 is that the Framework allows clients the option to select agile, local suppliers like ourselves. Based in their local community, we have a rich pool of qualified and experienced staff who can deliver quality services, with a high element of social value.”

Peter Francis, Director of Operations at Fusion21 said: “We are delighted to welcome all of the new suppliers onto the framework, including Q3 Services Group. The tender process was highly competitive, and the process has identified the best contractors for our members to use.”

An exciting new contract in a key sector

Q3 Services is delighted to announce a new partnership with one of the Midlands’ largest blue-light contracts, following a competitive tender process.

The company will be providing cleaning, environmental, and soft services to over 30 sites across the force’s area in a 3 year-plus 2 contract, valued in excess of £650,000 per annum.

Over 60 staff will TUPE across as part of the mobilisation and we look forward to welcoming these new colleagues into the Q3 family.

Commenting on this significant success, CEO Martyn Freeman said, “These are exciting times for Q3 Services. The new contract demonstrates our ability to convince potential clients of the value of our Quality Service-People-Clients proposition and strengthens our presence in the Midlands area”.

Providing reassurance to our clients that our IT is secure

In recent weeks, Q3 has been working with partners Active Workspace and CS Risk Management to complete the final stage of the Cyber Essentials accreditation – Cyber Essentials Plus.

Following the good news of the initial accreditation back in October, the final phase involved significant third-party auditing of all the company’s relevant processes and procedures.

The Government instigated the Cyber Essentials scheme in 2014 to provide SMEs with a framework that organisations could use to protect themselves against common online security threats.

This accreditation covers the Q3 Services, Lotus Landscapes and Q3 Services (CI) Ltd businesses.

This is a great achievement for the Q3 business, providing peace of mind in our day-to-day activities and online interaction with our clients.

A new business rolled out during a lockdown and over a Christmas period!

Q3 Services Group has announced that it has expanded its range of self-delivered services to include security.

The company has created its security division as a limited company within the Group. In a short space over the Christmas period and during lockdown, Q3 has mobilised a major contract with a retail shopping centre in Barnsley. The company has already established a wealth of security guard and manned-guarding expertise and is now capable of delivering a complete security service, on a national basis to both Blue Chip and Public Sector customers.

The company is embedding the same “boutique” is beautiful philosophy and successful management techniques to this area of service delivery, as it has in other areas of its operations. Underpinning this approach will be the organisation’s core Q3 Values of Quality Service, Quality People, Quality Clients.

Initially, Manned Guarding will be at the forefront of the company’s new Security Services operation, but the company plans to complement this with innovative technology developed with its technology partners, to create bespoke solutions, designed to protect businesses in every sector. The use of technology to optimise and drive operational excellence, is a model that has already proven successful within Q3’s cleaning business.

Commenting on the new move, CEO Martyn Freeman said, “During the pandemic, both cleaning and security service lines have taken on an even greater importance in ensuring the smooth, continuation of “business as usual” for many clients. Our simple aim with our extension into security, is to deliver service excellence, at competitive rates, 24/7 and 365. We know that’s the winning formula for happy customers.”

Martyn Freeman muses on the trends in outsourcing

A few of us are old enough to remember the early Thatcher years and the awakening of privatisation and outsourcing. In 1981, Southend Council outsourced its refuse collection service to Exclusive Cleaning Ltd, who despite making “outrageous profits” managed to save the council over £0.5 million in the first twelve months. Apparently, over 100 authorities applied to Southend for their contract blueprint!

Two years later, came the privatisation of hospital services, when hospitals were required by HC(83)18 to put cleaning, laundry and catering services out to competitive tender. A queue of “contract cleaners” formed to chase down these lucrative contracts, including some long-forgotten names like Exclusive, Crothall’s, Home Counties Cleaning, and a few others who are still with us.

Now, almost forty years later, the public sector appears to be going full circle (as so often happens in our industry). In a speech last year boldly titled, “The Future of Healthcare”, Matt Hancock promised to “bust” bureaucracy, empower leadership and build trust. A leaked white paper indicates that there is a concerted effort to undo David Cameron’s strategy for more competition in the Healthcare sector and, perhaps driven by the success of the vaccine roll-out and the failure of many of the outsourced Covid19 programmes, we are experiencing an “about-face”.

The NHS is recovering its appetite for provision of in-house services. NHS Property Services is leading the charge with a declared strategy to “deliver our core services to our customers through in-house teams where possible”. But this is easier said than done, after all this time. In many NHS Trusts, there is no history, experience, or expertise for managing, mobilising, and deploying cleaning services, at scale, and in such critical environments.

Where can they turn for help? The outsourcers have no interest in supporting the process of insourcing, being philosophically and diametrically opposed to the whole concept. What the NHS needs right now is an organisation, or group of individuals, who understand, and are sympathetic to the reforms, and can help bring the strategy to fruition. They certainly don’t want one or other version of the truth, or a particular type of delivery model thrust on them.

In an earlier life in the FM industry, a few colleagues and I conceptualised a new approach that might just work for the NHS in its current predicament. Designed to promote best practice and deliver best value, the solution focused on integrating innovation, quality of service, use of technology and compliance, without the need for full outsourcing. It was an exciting proposition that never finally made it to market, but that’s another story.

The NHS does not need to be wedded to one model, or swing from one extreme to the other. They just need to think differently and do things differently, but they can’t do it alone. FM (private) sector expertise does exist with the knowledge to both lead and support the transformation, without conflict of interest. It is possible to outsource the management without outsourcing the staff. And that doesn’t necessarily mean consultancy. Heaven forbid that we go down that route and let the likes of KPMG, EY and others charge exorbitant fees for something they know little about. The FM sector is here and willing with the resource to help, and the NHS should be neither nervous nor afraid to ask for it.

Alex Gavrilovic shares his views on robots in the cleaning industry

There’s a website called will robots take my job.com. On this website you can enter virtually any job and the website will assess, as a percentage, the likelihood of that role being taken over by a robot. So, just for fun we typed in “cleaner” and once it had qualified that this meant janitors and cleaners, (excluding maids and domestic housekeeping cleaners), the algorithm spat out the answer 67%.

That’s a quite scarily high number, but is it realistic? Q3 is at the forefront of using “tech” in delivery of commercial cleaning and FM services, so we asked Alex Gavrilovic Q3’s Solutions Director for his opinion. Alex has worked in the cleaning industry for some 25 years and is currently involved with deploying robots on a few of Q3’s contracts, so he knows a thing or two about this.

Alex explained, “Right now, robots are being used in two main areas, carpet vacuuming and wash-scrub-dry operations on hard-floors. In both cases, they really come into their own on large areas of flooring. So, deciding when and where to use robots, is very much reliant on our knowledge of the space and our experience and expertise of the ROI and productivity the machines will deliver in that space. We need to factor in the expanse and complexity of the area in which the robot will operate and the client’s specification, including frequency of cleaning.

“These ROI calculations have changed quite recently because like so much new technology, the cost of the robots has dropped significantly since they first arrived on the scene and leasing deals are available to avoid large-up front capital outlay. Productivity has also improved many-fold because of technical improvements in the equipment, such as speed and battery life.
“The hard surface cleaning robot machines are ideal for expansive areas such as airports, hospital corridors, distribution centres and shopping centres. They even come with cameras and sensors now and some models can talk to customers in a variety of languages. This really provides a “Wow!” factor in places like malls and airports, adding to the customer experience and reinforcing the perception of being in a place where people care.

“Of course, there’s also one more very important you simply cannot forget when deploying robots and that’s the human element. Robots are not yet truly autonomous, and the reality is that the robot is complementing the work of a human being in virtually every situation. There still needs to be a person there to undertake basic checks on the robot at the start of the shift, such as brushes, water levels etc and to take it to the start point. Humans also have to map the area in which the robot is operating and remap it if there are layout changes – which is inevitable in most operational situations. This means that right now, we are investing a lot into new training programmes to upskill many of our cleaners to become robot operators and technicians on major contracts.

“In reality, on a typical contract, the robot will still only be carrying out about a third of the cleaning activity with more complex areas such as washrooms and offices still being undertaken by humans. It’s true that you can get higher quality and greater consistency with robots and there certainly aren’t the number of HR issues, but that’s not the main consideration.”

As Alex has explained, there are upsides and downsides to using robots in commercial cleaning and the decision to use them is not straightforward. The cleaning company needs to make an informed judgment on when and when not to call on robot technology, which means that they aren’t going to completely take over the cleaning world anytime soon. Indeed, it will probably be a long time before they even attain the 67% figure predicted by willrobotstakemyjob.com.

Ironically, the same innovative, technology we currently see in robots makes them brilliant in some situations and yet almost useless in others. I expect that just like the Daleks, they will eventually crack the problem of going up stairs and then we’ll all be looking over our shoulder?

Way back before Covid and even before the technology revolution, office-based staff would amuse themselves by circulating humorous stories and risqué cartoons on pieces of paper. It’s true! Poorly illustrated, riddled with grammatical errors and usually third-generation photocopies, these were the memes of their day.

Once such meme, with a little updating, provides the inspiration for this blog – Are you lonely, tired of working, do you hate making decisions??? Hold an online meeting!

From nowhere to everywhere, the ubiquitous Zoom and Teams meetings have in twelve months become the milestones by which we measure our daily activity. Yet how is it affecting our work performance, creativity, and ability to satisfy our customers?

My recollection is that in the office there used to be a buzz – colleagues interacting, formal debate, casual conversation as well as impromptu chats around the coffee machine. Post-Covid, what has happened to those discussions about market trends, the gossip and chit-chat concerning who has won that big contract, and who is moving on?

How can you learn if you aren’t physically interacting and collaborating with your colleagues? It seems, there is no time or forum for learning and innovation in our new, socially distanced, computer-based world. Interaction just doesn’t occur in anything like the same way through remote working and online meetings. The limits of the technology mean that communication is stilted and unnatural on Zoom. When more than one person speaks at a time, there’s always that difficult, cut-out silence when you lose parts of the conversation, followed by the inevitable “Sorry!” and “Pardon?”. It’s difficult to interject and as a result dialogue is delivered in series not parallel. Inevitably, the whole process becomes protracted, and meetings just drag on and on.

This problem is made worse by managers who feel they need to be more inclusive because staff are remote, and they compensate by giving everyone the opportunity to say something. The motive is right, because everyone is involved but it just serves to further extend the length of the meeting. Giving people their moment in the spotlight can also be a nightmare for the introverts who dislike being forced to participate and resort to surreptitiously turning off their mic and camera. I would love to know the percentage of folk who resort to doing other things while the Zoom meeting goes off in a direction that doesn’t interest them.

I have heard of one organisation that held a three-hour online meeting involving just seven people. Human attention span is at best forty minutes and the poor souls are probably sitting cross-legged and losing the will to live after two hours.
The whole format of an online meeting is also extremely one-dimensional, often revolving around one or more PowerPoint presentations followed by comment from the other attendees, who all feel they need to say something. In a way, it reminds me of business conferences, with an endless procession of presentations followed by questions from the floor. It was only when we broke up these meetings and formed workshop groups did the fun begin and the real ideas start flowing.

I honestly believe that this isolation will lead to fewer ideas and less innovation. The management textbooks tell us that in a collaborative business situation, people default to type – thinkers, shapers, implementers, etc. Harnessing these individual strengths in a dynamic team will always generate better ideas, creativity, plans and results than that same group working individually in a vacuum.
Sadly, there also appears to be a deep-rooted distrust amongst many senior managers of the whole process of working from home. Insecure managers are holding Zoom and Teams meetings as a control tool, just to make sure people are working. They assume people are not working if the computer is off and measure productivity by time people spend online. The Zoom meeting then becomes a visual, online version of the weekly report, listing all the progress and achievements against various projects. We have become slaves to the media – the technology has ceased adding value, it’s just become a checking system!

Meetings for meetings sake has got worse not better! The unconfident and anxious managers have multiplied the problem because they use the frequency of Zoom meetings as evidence to convince THEIR boss that things are still working.

So, you have this double whammy with home working. A lack of stimulation and spontaneity created by working alone, overlaid by the endless distraction from your real purpose, that is created by the endless online meetings.

The answer? We need to take advantage of the vaccination programme and find a way to reinstate the face-to-face experience. It needn’t be a complete return to office-based work though. In a previous role I managed a geographically dispersed team which, through agile working, easily managed days of home working with days in the office. Home working enabled the heads-down activity such as report and creative writing, analysis, pricing, customer interaction and so on, while the office-based days were packed with collaborative workshops, meetings and project-team activity. Yes, it needed a degree of trust, but it worked if you got the balance right and it delivered results. Could this be the new normal we’re all craving?