It’s a GEM of an idea ….

On our largest estate in Southend-on-Sea we had provided a mix and match approach for some years and so we decided to ask our residents what they thought and the answer was clear.  Our residents wanted a directly employed team, but we knew that the team had to modernise to be as cost effective and efficient as possible. 

So that was the deal with, and the challenge from, residents - a directly employed, modernised all encompassing repairs, caretaking cleaning and grounds maintenance service.  Oh, and by the way we think our service charges are too high!

Not to be deterred we reorganised the staff team and brought the externalised elements of the service back in house.  We spent some time getting the people right as this is not a repairs or cleaning business, it’s a people business and we wanted the staff team to understand that.           

We invested some money upfront, we leased electric vehicles and mechanised some elements of the work, no more brooms we now use mechanical sweepers.  Because we now had in house cleaning staff we increased the cleaning frequency and the use of electronic scheduling and stock systems for the repairs team and this has increased productivity. 

So, did we meet the challenge?

Through the use of leased vehicles, increased mechanisation, improved working patterns and the insourcing of the cleaning staff we have been able to provide an improved service whilst reducing the service charges by £20,000 per annum.  Plus we’ve reduced our carbon footprint by the use of electric vehicles.

But that’s not all, our repairs team are achieving better than ever satisfaction levels of 91% overall satisfaction and our caretaking, cleaning and grounds maintenance services are receiving more compliments than ever.  We’ve still got someway to go, but the service is doing more for less and delivering on our residents’ expectations.

And, we thought we should have a name for the service.  We set up a ballot and by common consensus settled on GEMS (Grounds, Estates and Maintenance Service).  We hope our GEMS team continues to sparkle and build on this fantastic start.