A Day In The Life Of….A Regional Manager

Fluid Hygiene is a commercial cleaning company with more than 20 years’ experience which operates throughout the UK. Currently employing over 800 employees, the company cleans 750 sites daily. Fluid’s five Regional Managers work with clients to ensure the quality of service delivery and to provide on the ground contact ensuring business continuity. To give an idea of what it is like to work with Fluid, Mariusz Drab, Regional Manager for London and East Anglia, tells us about one day on the job.

Mariusz has been with Fluid since 2001 and started as a cleaning Supervisor. He was quickly promoted within the business due to his hard work and organisational skills. He also has five hardworking Contracts Manager’s working with him and around 300 fully employed Fluid cleaners who cover an area from the London to East Anglia that service 217 outlets. 

Fluid’s five Regional Managers work with clients to ensure the quality of service delivery and to provide on the ground contact ensuring business continuity. To give an idea of what it is like to work with Fluid, Mariusz Drab, Regional Manager for London and East Anglia, tells us about one day on the job.

Hackney Picturehouse opens at 10am but like many premises we clean for, we turn up outside of operating hours, so having security clearance in advance means that we can hold keys. By 8am, I meet the team at an empty cinema. Tomasz’s team has just two hours to clean 600 seats and cup holders, 20 toilets, three bars and four lifts. The cinema houses screens over five floors. The smallest of these being ‘The Lounge’ which in fact is the muckiest of the lot due to the reclining nature of the seats, meaning these often gets covered in food and drink spillages. Given the high capacity of the building, we service this venue, seven days a week. Picture House are realistic about their cleaning challenges and believe in regular specialist cleans including upholstery and carpets which makes our daily cleaning tasks achievable.

Although the cinema has specialist cleans scheduled every week, torrential overnight rain has added to today’s daily clean. Vacuuming carpets in the corridors is now out of the question, due to a risk of electrocution as rainwater has leaked through the ventilation shafts. Water stain deposits have to be removed from each anti-slip stair tread by hand, that’s over five floors before opening. The close working team work fast, they take pride in good service, and sodden floors are not going to get in their way. In the meantime, I contact the client and report the damage. I also contact our specialist works team to check if we can provide overnight water extraction works team and equipment, should the client request it.

Fluid has been cleaning for local brewery Five Points over the last year and so we were the natural choice to help them with a post-build clean to launch their own craft beer bar street food outlet Mason & Company

My last site visit is to Westfield Stratford City home of a giant shopping mall with a total retail floor area of 1,905,542 square feet, it is the largest urban shopping centre in Europe by size and the third largest in the UK by retail space. There maybe a few clients under one roof but every client is different. I look at the recent audits of the clients we look after at this site. All appears to be well from feedback and the helpdesk. Part of my remit though is to double check this in person.

Levi Roots’ Caribbean SmokeHouse is Levi Roots’ newest venture. His operations team is keen to bring a unique Caribbean dining experience to East London residents and the outfitting of the restaurant is colourful. Running up to the opening, we provided extra cleans during and after the build, to ensure the kitchen, bathrooms and front of house were looking their best.  Happily, the Operations Director is in today and we quickly run through how the works schedule is going. I find out the venue turns into a live music venue some week nights, so some of inside covers disappear to make room for a stage and the weekends are for public cooking lessons with Levi and they are now getting a footfall of 4,000 a week. We rejig some of the cleaning works to address the cleaning of the back of the banquette seating and intensity of the floor shine.

A lot of the new branded restaurants have open plan ventilation and kitchens, this adds to the sense of theatre for the customers, but needs a consistent cleaning regime to keep up appearances as kitchens so close to the restaurant generally have more feet in and out of the kitchen.

It’s now midday and it’s being reported that 500 calls have been made to the fire brigade due to overnight flash flooding and a vast amount of buildings across London are flooded. As lunchtime descends our clients GiraffeLas IguanasPing Pong,  and GBK are beginning to get busy. Some staff on the top floors have arrived for work with puddles to clear up, as the flat roof of the building is also leaking, Westfield maintenance team will be busy today!

I offer assistance to the in-house teams who are scrabbling about with buckets and mops and then set about making some calls to our specialist works to see what we can do to help clear up.

“We are very happy with the standard of cleaning that Fluid provides.”

Ping Pong, Stratford

While travelling to work in the morning, I suppose it’s not that unusual for service providers to see their clients going about their business. I know I do. In fact, I see hundreds of them. Except they’re not clients, but simply the invisible workforce that bring London’s restaurants, entertainment venues and offices to life.  They are setting up for the day ahead and the first thing they do is address the appearance and hygiene of their premises from the day or night before, a task which I work with some of them to improve every day.

Today, I am visiting 12 clients in my area. As part of our Fluid pledge, I visit clients regularly to check if they are happy with our service and spot check the quality of our work to identify any potential issues. This is in fact just a double check, in addition to daily reporting and weekly audits which managers receive electronically.

“We can trust Fluid to do a job well and they are always on call. I always ask Fluid for a quote first, but also check it against another supplier, I like to know what I’m getting for my money, but they haven’t let us down yet.”

Caribbean Smokehouse

Today brings a new issue. It’s been raining heavily all night and London is waking up. But services, venues and retail outlets are struggling to keep the public dry and safe. Cleaning Supervisor, Tomasz and his team are already at work at Gaucho Restaurant in Canary Wharf. I arrange to meet them at their next job in Hackney which gives me an hour to send a few e-mails and make a few calls.

“Our Regional Managers are pivotal to our team commitment on providing a high quality service that is built on a professional and experienced support and a swift response built on the strong working relationships we have with our Customers.”

Alister Gregson, Managing Director, Fluid Hygiene

During my rounds it’s nice to be met with a warm reception. Managers make time to give some feedback, despite being busy and in-house staff are keen to discuss their latest business challenges. I ask each outlet if I can check the premises for quality of clean. For some, this is still a novelty as it is common in the industry for customers to have never met their cleaners, I find a few areas that we could improve on, even though the clients didn’t mention them and I make a note to chase this up with our supervisors. But it’s satisfying to see the cobblestone welcome walkway glistening, which the client was convinced would stay dirt engrained.

By early afternoon I am keen to get back to the office and liaise with the contracts managers and helpdesk team. Knowing our specialist works team is going to be stretched for the next 48 hours I have only six hours to pick up any issues that have been escalated, plus negotiate any quotes for additional or new work, and chase up requests made by clients, plus those that they didn’t point out. The day is not over yet, but it’s never boring working for Fluid.”

Next stop is to Here East, a new Office Cleaning client and a new commercial and retail centre on Canalside, Stratford, which has officially launched this summer (June) new tenants Apple and Oracle are due to move in, and waterfront retail destinations have opened in anticipation of new innovators and visitors alike.

A few doors along is Shane’s on Canalside, a new restaurant that has employed us to service their daily cleaning needs. The owners have heavily invested in the bespoke look and feel of the new venue and are keen to keep it that way. Both managers take great pride in showing me front of house, post-opening. Part of my job is to check the toilets and kitchen as well as front of house, to see how our team is performing. We discuss post-opening footfall and cleaning schedules and agree the kitchens may need some extra cleaning, now they are getting busy.

Our field to plate concept is unique to the area and we are pleased to have a cleaning contractor that is very accommodating and services our bespoke needs to a high standard.’

Shane’s on Canalside

“Our 20 beer taps support local breweries and are our showcase of the new premises. Our design led fit out demands continual professional cleaning, Fluid satisfied that need.”

Mason and Company

Find out more about our Services

See our Picturehouse Case study or GBK Case study or find out more information about our bar & restaurant cleaning, cinema cleaning, or retail cleaning services.

Meet the Management Team

Find out more about our Management Team and the Locations covered around the country.

For an initial consultation and a FREE quote, contact us today on 0800 9752828. 

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