OCS came away with an impressive quarter of this year’s Golden Service Awards, including Overall Winner. Awards received by the company were: Overall Winner for Gunwharf Quays at Portsmouth Harbour; Johnson Diversey Environmental Awareness Award for Hinxton Hall Ltd in Cambridge; Best Cleaned Premises Retail Outlet Award at Gunwharf Quays, and BCC Site Supervisor of the Year Award won by Marek Makowski for his work at Eli Lilly and Company Limited’s Erl Wood Manor site.
“It quickly became clear who the 16 winners were,” said GSA judge chair Paul Pearce. “Innovation, staff management, training and client relationship were among the main criteria assessed. Each of the winners of the 15 categories and the Overall Winner’s site received top marks across the board for clearly providing the gold standard in all of these criteria.”
“To win four out of 16 Golden Services Awards is a remarkable achievement and is a testament to each and every single member of our staff at these sites,” said OCS chief executive Chris Cracknell. “We are delighted to have been singled out by the judges and recognised for our professionalism.”
In its work at Gunwharf Quays, OCS overcame major challenges at Gunwharf Quays such as providing tightly controlled cleaning regimes to avoid contaminating the harbour, while the waterfront position leads to excessive salt deposits. This site is also in a conservation area comprising a number of listed buildings, and cleaning times need to be restricted due to the proximity of houses.
At the Erl Wood Manor site, OCS carries out a comprehensive range of housekeeping services including the cleaning of offices, washrooms, carpets, upholstery and also laboratories on request. Other tasks include the stripping and sealing of floor surfaces, pressure washing, waste removal and fork lift driving. Marek Makowski, BCC Site Supervisor of the Year, is part of the OCS housekeeping team contracted by SPIE Matthew Hall for Eli Lilly and Company Limited. Support services manager David Woodhouse said: “We feel that Marek is much-deserving of this honour. Always willing to go the extra mile, undertaking snow clearance to ensure the offices stayed open during blizzards earlier this year and assisting with floods on site, he has a sense of humour, great communication skills and is an invaluable member of our team.”
A radical recycling scheme introduced at Cambridge’s Hinxton Hall impressed judges of The Johnson Diversey Environmental Awareness Award. The scheme resulted in a 20 per cent reduction in the amount of waste going to landfill, with a further 12 per cent reduction predicted for 2009.
More than 500 guests attended the Golden Service Awards ceremony held at the Lancaster Hotel in London. Established in 1991, the awards are open to all segments of the cleaning and support services industry. A total of 137 entries were received from across the UK and Ireland. Judging was carried out by an independent panel including representatives from Cleaning and Maintenance magazine, the Cleaning and Support Services Association, the British Cleaning Council and the British Institute of Cleaning Science.
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