In the Know

April 2015

S P E C I A L

P O I N T S O F

I N T E R E S T :

Bright

Ideas

A note from

Bernard

Message

from Mary

Competi-

tions

Staff News

Work News

Extra Mile

Award

FunZone

What's

Cooking

Notice

board

The Social

Committee

Charity

V O L U M E 1 I S S U E 1 3

Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time. Thomas A Edison

Dear Read-

ers,

I am pleased to publish our 1st edition of Grosvenor in the Know for 2015—now into its 4th year, which you will see

has had something of a face lift :) I do hope you all like it!

As always, Thank You all for your contributions and very positive feed-back relating to the magazine over the past 3 years. Please do continue to send in your good news, achieve-ments, articles, opinions and ideas because without you, ITK doesn't work.

We have some new features this quarter but if you have any ideas or thoughts please do let me know.

If you have anything you would like featured please email me and I would be happy to include it in our next edi-tion.

Thank you all again for your contin-ued feedback and support!

Happy reading!

Think out-side

the Box is a new feature where every quarter we will feature 3 geni-us bright Ideas, suggestions and inventions using

every day house hold items.

If you have a bright idea or sug-gestion please do send it in for the next edition.

[Above] Shoe Storage: Turn your hangers into shoe holders & save heaps of space

[Right] Phone Ham-mock: Recycle your old jeans pockets to create a holding place for your phone

[Left] Brighten up a dull lampshade and person-alise with a Sharpie markers. Write the words of your favourite song or poem on the shade

Marianne x

Hello everyone! We hope you had a good Easter and enjoyed the celebration. Spring brings a sense of newness and a fresh start. The first quarter of 2015 has already gone by and that is also the end of another financial year. We continue to be profitable notwithstanding occasional disappointments in some areas but we remain determined to succeed in our growth plans across the business. There are challenges along the way but also opportunities. We lost the IKEA contract (except for Croydon and the US stores) due entirely to commercial and cost reasons and no reflection on the service we gave at individual store level. Our new security business Charter, which is just over a year now as part of the Grosvenor Service group, is slowly stabi-lising but there remains work to be done to be profitable in the longer term. The M&S contract is out to tender and we await news on this some-

time in April. The renewal of the DSP contract is most welcome in Ireland. P&G has been one of our success stories with a major mobilisation across the UK in recent months. And Henkel is a promising contract for the FM division with a number of new services being added. Grosvenor Services is changing and evolving. We continue to look for innovative ways to enhance service offerings to our clients . Recently we introduced a service stream called Technology Sys-tems. This is a new division for our company and is led by Ian Campbell who works from our London office. Ian brings expertise in the area of developing solutions for clients who need to integrate their technical systems. Communication is very important as we grow. Changes are happening quickly as we develop. This is why we have arranged recent conferences in the UK and Ire-land to allow the senior team to meet many of you who spend your time out in the field with our clients. While we would like to be able to reach everyone across the business and meet you all face to face, we recognise what a challenge this is as our numbers grow. This is why In the Know magazine gives me the opportunity to write you this brief message to update you and also to convey my thanks to you for your hard work, your commitment to operational excellence in the business every day.

A note from Bernard

Bernard Mc Cauley Group Managing Director

Dear Colleague, Spring is here and what a great season it is! There is new growth everywhere and an explosion of different colours in na-ture. The difference we experience in nature is what gives it its beauty and makes it rich and good for our environment. Imagine how dull it would be if there was just one type of flower or one kind of plant in your garden! Here at Grosvenor Services, our workforce consists of a diverse population of people. One of the functions we fulfil in HR is to look at our people policies and ensure they meet the changing

requirements of our people. Recently we have a new updated policy which we have just published on the HUB on the subject of diversity, equality and inclusion which highlights the importance of recognising the strengths we have as a culturally and socially diverse workforce.

Across Ireland, the UK and USA, our teams reflect the make-up of our communities and the various locations in which we provide services to our clients. We know that the laws of our countries will penalise us if we discriminate against anyone on the grounds of gender, marital or civil partnership status, family status, sexual orientation, age, disability, race, reli-gion or membership of minority communities. But there is a big gap between not discrimi-nating against people and actually actively embracing difference. Respecting people in their difference is paramount. Sometimes this means we have to question our own prejudic-es and stereotypes. As a business founded on the talent of our people, we know that by actively embracing the cultural, social and other differences in our teams, we become stronger as a result. Please contact your line manager or a member of your HR team if you have a query about

this policy or any aspect of your working life at Grosvenor Services.

Mary Horgan, HR Director

“Diversity is valuing everyone as an individual- valuing people as employees, customers and clients.”

CIPD definition

A note from Mary

Happy 60th Birthday to Ivor Worth (HR UK) on 27th

March

Congratu-

lations to

Margaret

Wright who

has just

celebrated

30 years

working for

various

cleaning

companies

at Deben-

hams Not-

tingham.

[See Margaret & Linda Fowler above]

Linda presented Margaret with a small

token in recognition of all her hard work!

Well done Margaret & Thank you for all

your hard work!

Congratulations!!!

Our News

Congratulations & Thank you!

Congratulations to Joanna

Satti (IKEA Manchester) who

gave birth to twins on 23rd Dec

2014. A baby boy

called Muhammad

Mussa and a

baby girl

Zoya Sohail

Congratulations!!!

Congratulations!!!

to Laura Ludwig (HR Ire-

land) and her husband An-

drew Hogan who got mar-

ried on Saturday 14th

March 2015!

Congratulations to Amy

Brayshaw (IKEA Man-

chester) who

had a little girl

on 5th January

2015 named

Lexi .

I'm the new mas-cot of ‘In

The Know’ and I Need

a Name

Staff News Well done Claudia (Ikea Croy-don) Well done to Claudia Pires in Ikea Croydon. A mystery shopper who recently visited the store was so impressed he took the time to email us to acknowledge her hard work. "I recently visited (14/2/15 ) the Croydon (London) branch of IKEA. I came across a cleaning staff in the restaurant who was working very hard and following all the pro-cedures of Cleaning includ-ing health and safety regulations. I went to Congratulate her and told her that she was a good worker. I asked her name and asked her if she was staff of IKEA. I was surprised when she told me she worked for Grosvenor Cleaning services .It was very impressive to see an Agency staff giving her 100% and putting her mind and soul in the job she was doing. Her name was CLAUDIA PIRES. Her employers should be very proud of her and this is my personal recommendation for her good work. The Company should also make efforts to acknowledge her ef-forts and make arrangements for her to move up the Career Ladder. I wish Claudia all the best in her future.

Well done to Tamas Purkas in Bicester Village who passed his

Forklift license with flying colours!

Obituaries Iveta Veckunga On the 9th of January last, one of our colleagues on site in NUI Maynooth, Iveta Veckunga, passed away suddenly having collapsed while at work the previous Monday. Iveta, originally from Latvia, was just 53 and lived alone in Ireland. However thankfully her family were able to travel over and be with her in the days between the collapse and her passing, The chaplaincy at the University organised a Moment of Remembrance and short refection and we ob-served a minutes silence here in Sandyford in memory of Iveta. Iveta was an extremely popular lady, and her colleagues and friends in NUI Maynooth will miss her terri-bly. May she Rest in Peace.

Ste Broughton On 2nd April 2015 Stephen Broughton known to his colleagues and friends as ‘Ste’ passed away suddenly following a short heart related illness. Ste joined the Grosvenor Team in IKEA Warrington working on cleaning, pot wash and also in recycling. Ste will be missed terribly by his colleagues and friends and the whole team at IKEA. May he Rest in Peace.

Group Scheme Have you checked out the Grosvenor Services Employee Group Scheme

The Grosvenor GroupScheme website provides hun-dreds of discounts to you and your colleagues, which means you have access to a wide range of savings on day-to-day items, as well as high-savings prod-ucts in the financial, insurance and tax areas. Your Group Scheme website is provided for you as an em-ployee benefit. The scheme gives you the opportunity to save money with hundreds of well-known brands and companies.

Visit https://grosvenorserv-ices.groupscheme.com/ (you will need your employee num-ber to access the site). The website is available from your desktop, laptop, tablet or smartphone. So get online and start enjoying those savings!

Staff News On Friday 27th March the Grosvenor Social committee hosted The Grosvenor ‘Spring Fling’ Table Quiz. I would like to extend a special Thank You to all who joined us and participated on the night, and to our partners and colleagues who donated gifts towards the raffle. And of course, well done to our winning team ‘#Itsforcharity’. Team members were Laura Ludwig, Andrew Hogan, Brian Oliver and Darragh Oliver. In order to make the Table Quiz personal to each team we al-lowed each team participating the option to donate to their chari-ty of choice and #itsforcharity chose to donate to The Make a Wish Foundation who grant the wishes of children aged between 3 and 17 years living with life-threatening medical conditions to enrich the human experience with hope, strength and joy. Through the generosity of the group on the night we managed to raise €500 (which was doubled by the company) and so a total of €1000 was donated to the Make A Wish Foundation. So again, Well Done to all teams, to our winners and Thank you Again to everyone who par-ticipated and donated and I hope you enjoyed the night.

Work News ANNNNDD Action!! - Video Training

Thank you and well done to Alex Soikans, Lee Giles Tiago Fazendeiro and Zena Jones and the team at M&S Douglas (Isle of Man) who recently worked together to produce, film and develop 3 excellent training videos specifically tailored to specialised cleaning for the Bakery, Café and Tills across the M&S estate. These video tutorials are excellently put together by the team and are available for download from the Hub or on the Grosvenor YouTube page. To view the M&S Bakery Cleaning Tutorial click here. To view the M&S Café Cleaning Tutorial click here. To view the M&S Till Cleaning Tutorial click here.

Alex has created a number of online video tutorials to date which have proven to be extremely successful and we will continue to produce and catalogue more and more as time goes on. If you have any suggestions or ideas for vid-eo training that you would like to put forward, Alex would be delighted to hear from you. You can contact Alex at asoikans@grosvenorservices.com Other Video tutorials include SharePoint tutorials i.e. How to edit your person-

al profile which can be seen here.

IOSH Managing Safely Course January 2015

All gained valuable experience on the course. We hope to use that knowledge and experience in making our sites healthier and safer to work in.

Our thanks also go to Chris Maguire for his instruction, experience and guidance throughout.

Congratulations to the following who attended the above named course at the Birmingham office throughout January:

Alan Wibby Andy Allen

Linda Fowler Gill England

Cherie Steadman

Vanessa Bird Salim Amar

Monica Gracas Lorraine Warren Michelle Bamber

We are launching our new range of environmentally friendly ultra concentrates in the UK this month.

The roll out has gone exceptionally well and on schedule. The same scheduled for rollout in Ireland during April & May 2015. Graham Stacey (head of Procurement) would like to acknowledge the following individuals from the UK project team, for their individual contribution and dedication to this project—they have each played an integral part in the successful delivery of the new range of products. So a special thank you to Andrew Wadsworth, Carolyn Frankland, Damon Anthony, and Gra-ham Warren.

Moving to more sustainable cleaning

We did it again , another photo competition. And this time it was a chance for all of our budding photographers to get their photos of Spring in! The winner will was chosen by a panel of impartial judges and the winning pho-to will receive their photo on a canvas.

Competition Time

Springer at Spring time Congratulations to Clare-Ann

Swan!

AND THE WINNER IS…..

You absolutely MUST make this if you’re a Creme Egg fan! Though needless to say this would also taste great with caramel eggs, Daim bar eggs or

anything else you want to use! If you’re unfamiliar with any of the ingredients used, here’s a little explanation for you: Caster sugar – also called superfine sugar in the US – you could also use light brown sugar Plain chocolate – between milk and dark chocolate but may be billed as ‘dark’ chocolate in your local supermarket – plain has between 50 and 60% cocoa solids, such as Bournville. I always use the cheapest

What's Cooking

For the shortbread base 150g / 5.3 ounces / 1 stick plus 3 tbsp unsalted butter, softened 50g / 1.7 ounces / 1/4 cup golden caster sugar 160g / 5.6 ounces / 1 1/3 cups plain flour For the caramel layer 1 397g can condensed milk (normal sized can) 150g / 5.3 ounces / 1 stick plus 3 tbsp unsalted butter 150g / 5.3 ounces / 3/4 cup golden caster sugar

1. Preheat your oven to 180C/gas mark 4/350F and prepare a square or rectangular tin that's roughly 9 inch

square (if you use a smaller tin, your Shortbread will just be thicker).

2. To make your shortbread base, combine the very soft butter with the sugar, and then mix in the flour until you

have a delicious sticky mess. Pop into your tin, and work into the corners with the back of a wet spoon (it's sticky!). Prick with a fork all over, and bake for 25-30 minutes (depending on oven shelf - mine was on the middle shelf) or until golden brown (see photo in post). Remove and leave to cool.

3. To make your caramel, combine the condensed milk, butter and sugar together in a saucepan over a medium

heat. As the sugar dissolves, the mixture will turn from yellow-y to golden, and thicken (see pictures below). Heat gently for approx ten minutes, until it's come to a gentle boil. Remove from the heat and set aside for ten minutes before pouring it onto your shortbread layer.

4. Simply break your two bars of chocolate into chunks and pop into a microwave proof bowl. Heat on 30 sec-

ond intervals until soft, not forgetting to remove and stir after every 30 seconds. Be careful - the bowl may get very hot! When it's almost melted, remove from the microwave as the residual heat will continue to melt the choc-olate. Pour over your caramel layer, using the back of a spoon to spread into the corners.

5. I separated the creme eggs as much in half as possible, then just placed 'artistically' on top of the still melty

chocolate layer.

Chill in the fridge for 2 hours, or overnight. Use a very sharp knife (dip in boiling water if you're having trouble cut-ting) to cut into squares.

For the chocolate 100g / 3.5 ounces / 1/2 cup milk chocolate 200g / 7 ounces / 1 cup plain chocolate For the Creme Egg topping 3 Cadbury Creme Eggs (or however many you want - go crazy!)

Knowing Me, Knowing you

1. How long have you worked in the company?

3 Years

2. What did you want to be when you were little?

A Nurse 3. If you could describe yourself in 2 words what words would you use?

Mother Grandma 4. If you could be a fictional character who would you be?

Wonder Woman 5. Who would you get to play you in a movie about your life?

Meryl Streep

6. If you could be anywhere in the world right now?

Poole in Dorset with Grandchildren

Congratulations and Well Done !! to all of our Extra Mile Award Winners. Thank you for your hard efforts and keep up the good work.

December Kieran McCarthy (Payroll Supervisor, Dublin) Ann Smith (Area Manager, UK) Cherie Steadman & Amanda Herriot (Bicester Village) January: Lisa Kane (M&S Helpdesk, Dublin) Jamall Mohammed (Monsoon, Fosse Park) Andy Allen (Area Manager, UK) Tara Salinger, Brigid Black, and Birute Simaitiene (NUI Maynooth) February: Shree McKeever (M&S Helpdesk, Dublin) Vanessa Bird (Bicester Village) Sharon Brady, Kathleen Connolly, & Colette

Gaffney (Cheeverstown). Claudia Pires (IKEA Croydon)

With Jill England, Area Manager UK

Extra mile Award

Well done to all who were nominated &

Thanks for your hard work!

Fun Zone

To be in with a chance of winning €50 / £50 voucher simply complete the above Arrow-Word crossword and all correct entries will be entered into a draw to win a voucher worth 50 euro / pounds. Please send all completed entries FAO Marianne Lambert, 64C Heather Road, Sandyford Ind Est, Dublin 18 or email mlambert@grosvenorservices.com

********Applicable to Ireland / UK entrants only—Apologies ********

Win

€

50

o

r £

50

We would like to take this oppor-tunity to welcome all of our new

colleagues to Grosvenor.

Head Office Ireland (Dublin):-

64C Heather Road, Sandyford Ind Estate, Dublin 18, Ire

Phone: +353 1 295 4866

Fax: +353 1 2954301

Email: ireland@grosvenorservices.com

Athlone / Midlands Office:-

Magazine Road, Athlone, Co.Westmeath, Ire

Phone: +353 906 490 748

Cork Office:-

Ground Floor, Unit 28, East Gate Drive, Little Island, Cork, Ire

Phone: +353 21 435 5112

Dublin Stores / Training Centre Ireland:-

Unit C2, 14 Magna Business Park, City West, Dublin 24, Ire

Phone: +353 1 421 5082

Belfast Office-

Ground Floor, Unit 4, Building 9, Citylink Business Park,

Belfast, BT12 4HQ

Phone: +353 906 490 748

Head Office UK (Skegness)

The Lodge, 10 Algitha Road, Skegness, Lincolnshire,

PE25 2AG, UK

Phone: +353 1 421 5082

UK Stores-

Unit 3, Hardwick Court, Alford, Lincolnshire, LN13 9JE

Phone: +44 1507 466 388

Birmingham Office-

Quattro House, The Courtyard, Roman Way, Birmingham,

B46 1HQ

Phone: +44 121 366 0560

Lisa Burnip FM / Housekeeping Manager @ P&G Cobalt in Newcastle

Welcome Aboard! Find Us

Ian Campbell Director of Technical

Services

June Wilkes FM Coordinator /

Housekeeping Manager @ NIC Newcastle

Teyene Omwango FM Receptionist @ Ama-zon, Cambridge

Please send in a picture of your new team members to

mlambert@grosvenorservices.com