Darren's Diary: Volume One, 17th March 2023

What I've been up to…

Last week I held the second GM & CS All Colleague Call with my SLT and I hope you found it a useful insight into what the management team has been up to. If you have any feedback on these at any time please do let me know or if you have any burning questions you are welcome to email them to me or Kate Smith beforehand.

I personally loved the shoutouts that were made on the call. It’s great to hear about all the good work that everyone is doing within the division.

On the theme of communication, I also kicked off my check-in calls with Operations. I enjoyed catching up with our Operations colleagues including Simon Breustedt, Greg Brown, Ben Goodgroves, and Brian Cowe, as well as finding out more about the challenges they are facing ahead of the summer season and how I can support them moving forwards.

You may remember that last week I took a slot on the Ground Control Townhall to talk about the company NPS. I hope you enjoyed listening to it.  I finished last week off with a deep dive into the loss-making contracts we have within the division and how we can make improvements on these in the next financial year, with more work to be done next week with a dedicated team on this. It’s imperative that we all have an eagle eye on our revenue and our costs this year in order to make our division a success and be the jewel in Ground Control’s crown once again. I firmly believe that by doing this we’ll also be able to deliver on our vision and mission as well!  

Unfortunately, there has been a recent spate of thefts from vans and I’ve been working closely with Fleet and Operations to work out how we ensure we take all the precautions we can to avoid these thefts and the subsequent disruption/costs they cause. Sadly we learned last week that we weren’t successful in the GM and WM bid for Yorkshire Water and this was secured by one of our competitors, however, this was the right outcome for Ground Control as we will not entertain a race to the bottom. It’s important that we all remember that we only want to win work at the right, sustainable price.

This week I attended a contract review with our housing client, L&Q, at their offices in Stratford. Marco Romano, has been instrumental in guiding us through the risk within this contract, highlighting how important it is to understand the risk we are signing up for on new contracts and how we manage and mitigate that risk going forwards.

In readiness for the start of the season, the team and I are working hard on the field team schedules to ensure efficiencies are captured and our carbon footprint is reduced.

On a personal note, I had to have another trip to the Osteopath to sort out a recent sports injury. I think this is a case of my head writing cheques that my body can no longer cash! I’ll never learn….see you at boot camp (Tuesday/Thursday mornings) if anyone is keen to join me.

If you want to catch up on the meeting minutes from the GM & CS All Colleague call, please click here.

What I’ve learnt…

Each fortnight, I want to share what I’ve learned with you all.

Having spent last weekend redecorating with my wife, Naomi, I realised that I am actually a dab hand with a paintbrush and a roller!

I’ve started this week with a really positive mindset having achieved a lot of home renovations over the weekend.

On a more serious work note however, I’m still discovering the nuances regarding how our GM budget figures are calculated and Ollie Francis/Richard Clow has been instrumental in helping me to understand where all our costs are coming from.

After a tough December where we didn’t make much in the way of profit as a division, I am pleased to let you know that our numbers are looking up, but if we are to hit our EBITDA number at the financial year end, we need a keen focus on managing our costs effectively, converting Extra Works sales and developing WIP quicker. For those who aren’t familiar with EBITDA this is our earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization and is a widely used measure of core corporate profitability. We are looking at this more and more now across the group, so you’ll hear this being referred to over the coming months.

As part of the budget review I’ll be looking at how we keep control of our costs and more information will follow on this in future updates.

Hopefully, you found Ollie’s update on the all-colleague call really useful in understanding our financial position and what we need to make up our numbers by the financial year's end. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to reach out to Ollie at any time. 

What's coming up…

My main focus for next week is the GM P&L, ensuring that the budget is set appropriately, that our data and our costs are mapped out and that we have controls in place to deliver against budget throughout the new financial year.

On Thursday I have Exco where I’ll be giving an update on where we are as a division.

One of the key meetings for me next week is to meet with Chris Howell to review the IT/GM tech roadmap. Having IT and systems that support us to deliver on our vision and mission is key as we look to streamline and make efficiencies this year. Andy Stephens, who is now part of my SLT, will be instrumental in helping me achieve this.

Finally, on Friday I’m meeting with my SLT in person in London, this is a really good chance for us to reconnect, update each other on our projects and workstreams, and to understand where we need to place our focus over the next month. I’ll update you on how this goes in my next blog and the progress we are making in our vision and mission as a division.

Looking further ahead I’ll be attending an IOSH Safety for Executives and Directors course in early May. As we start the season it’s important to remember that ‘no job is so urgent or important that it cannot be done safely’ and EVERYBODY is empowered to stop work if they see a risk that is not being effectively managed. Chris Hinchcliffe and my Operations leads are here to support anyone with questions or concerns on this.

Fantastic news stories…

I’ve heard some fantastic news stories this week including these Testimonials from clients::

Client: Welsh Water. Sent in by Graham Bird/Greg Brown. Field Team: South Wales Tree Services Ltd

Client: Vanguard School. Sent in by: Zoe Haines. DE Team: Simon Fairclough’s team, including Ray Hare and Callum Foster

Great client feedback…

I’ve really enjoyed reading some of the soundbites from our clients via the NPS survey and I’ve picked out a few of my favorites:

Client: Matilda Jinadu at Tesco PLC (one very close to my heart as I am the Account Director for Tesco)

Client: Kerry Martyn at Western Biomass Operating Company Ltd

Client: Mike Gooch at ISS Facility Services Ltd

Client: Adam Leslie at Arqiva Ltd

Of course, not all feedback we’ve received has been positive but I’m confident that our new Customer Experience Manager, Lisa Stanhope, will work with David Laws and the relevant people to address each and every one of these. I’ll update you again on this in future updates.

Do you have some good news to share? I’d really love to hear it.

Things I'm loving at the moment include…

• Our client NPS score for Grounds Maintenance is now +62 and firmly in the ‘Excellent’ category – a never before seen score at a company level at Ground Control. There is still more work to do however as our division is near the bottom of the table compared to other divisions internally, I’m sure like me, you don’t want this to be the case by the end of 2023
• The Client Services team that reports into David Laws are now all in Dynamics and working hard to capture all our client data, Stew Harley’s team will be moving into the system by April. Having everyone in a cutting-edge CRM will enable us to get ahead of client issues, spot trends, and load balance across the Client Services teams. We should notice a real difference this summer using the system
• The opportunity to meet individuals from the Operations team through daily ‘Check in with Darren’ calls. Kate Smith will be popping these in your diaries over the coming weeks – look out for yours and of course, if you need to speak to me outside of these, at any time, please just pick up the phone
• Our focus groups which are ongoing in the division, are set up to ask you for feedback on our vision and mission, how we communicate, and what more we can do to tackle the challenges you face in your roles. The last session is on Wednesday 22nd March. If you’ve been invited to these and haven’t as yet attended, please do join us on the 22nd of March – email Claire Grant for the Teams link
• Skillco, a new system for Field Team onboarding, has just been signed off and is a great example of the huge investment we are making to recruit the right Field Teams for all of our divisions, quickly and easily.                                          

Reaching out….

You can reach out to me or any of my Senior Leadership team at any time, our doors are always open:

• Darren Daley – Director of Grounds Maintenance and Client Services
• David Rees Jones – Grounds Maintenance Operations Director
• David Laws – Director of Client Services
• Stewart Harley – Sector Lead for Energy, Utilities and Inland Water
• Mark Jenner – Supply Chain & Franchise Director
• Katherine Smith – Process Optimisation Manager
• Chris Hinchcliffe – HSQE Business Partner
• Claire Grant – HR Business Partner
• Marco Romano – Commercial Business Partner
• Oliver Francis – Finance Business Partner
• Andy Stephens - Product Business Partner

Our up-to-date structure charts for the division can be found here.

Signing off for now….

I’ll sign off each update with a quote that really resonates with me. Here’s one for now as we look to make a number of changes and process efficiencies ahead of the summer season:

It is often the small steps, not the giant leaps that bring about the most lasting challenges

 HRH QUEEN ELIZABETH II

Darren