Author: Lucy Wood

Warrington based, fast growing facilities management company, The Westgrove Group has launched a new unique internal recruitment platform, streamlining their recruitment process by 30%.  Saving time, energy and money, Internal Recruiter has empowered the Westgrove Recruitment Team by providing a secure cloud-based platform that organises and collaborates recruitment across all locations. 

This bespoke recruitment platform helps speed up the recruitment process and helps Westgrove to reach all of the popular job boards quickly and easily.  They are able to recruit their own talent by posting vacancies to all job boards at the touch of a button.  Applicants CVs, reports on activity, candidate information and prospect data are all in one place.  With the support of the software, Westgrove are able to attract, manage, assess and onboard new colleagues quickly and easily.

HR Manager Hannah Denning said, “Our colleagues are at the heart of our business.  We recruit from different backgrounds, looking for customer service skills above all else.  Our bespoke recruitment platform helps speed up the process and helps us reach all the popular job boards quickly and easily.  Internal Recruiter has made a phenomenal impact – we’ve streamlined our process by 30%.  We have a real time view of vacancies locally and nationally and we’ve been able to organise and collaborate recruitment across all our locations”.

Will Fairhurst from Internal Recruiter said: “We are proud that Internal Recruiter has been able to help Westgrove streamline their recruitment processes across multiple sites. We’re looking forward to developing a long-lasting relationship with The Westgrove Group.”

The Westgrove Group was founded by Group Chairmen Simon Whittle and Steve Fives.  Based in Warrington, Cheshire, Westgrove employs over 1000 colleagues and specialises in providing security, cleaning, maintenance and customer service to shopping centres and mixed-use destinations, corporate offices, business parks, manufacturing and airports throughout the UK.  Following a successful 22-year history, the company expanded in 2020 to add technical services to enhance its well-established award-winning soft services provision. 

Our people are what make us special. From saving lives and preventing crime to helping people in need and much more. Our Reward and Recognition scheme is our way of saying thank you to our Colleagues for the amazing work that they do each and every day, often going above and beyond in their role.

Well done to all our winners and everyone who has been nominated for an award this quarter – you are all amazing!

Our Quarter 4 winners are:

Site Manager of the Quarter
• Mark Driscoll, Templars Square

Team of the Quarter
• St Johns Security Team
• Novelis
• Lion Yard Cleaning Team

Colleague of the Quarter
• Kevin Stagg, Piazza Centre
• Simone Guadagno, Lion Yard

Newcomer of the Quarter
• Kirsty Kirkland, St Johns
• Joseph Leicester, Stamford Quarter

Health & Safety Champion
• Matthew Barrett, Stamford Quarter

Outstanding Act
• Jake Quieros, Castle Quays
• Matthew Peake, Gloucester Quays
• David Field, Ryemarket Shopping Centre
• Steve Retallick and Darren Williams, Quedam Shopping Centre
• Andy Davis & Phill Over, Grosvenor Shopping Centre, Chester
• Chris Collins, Andy Ryder, Dave Hardy, Mathew Peake, Darryl Knight (Security Team), Gloucester Quays
• Security Team, Castle Quays

Service Excellence
• Ian King, Lion Yard
• Stewart Todd, Birchwood Park
• Jaspreet Singh, Queens Square
• Paul Osborne, Lion Yard
• Katie Fox & Carly Hart, Head Office
• Sharon Griffin, Telford
• Jennifer Evitts, Cornbow Shopping Centre
• Nicola Greatrex, Touchwood

Our Head Office team have been busy collecting and donating items as part of their Hunger and Homeless charity initiative to support their local community. 

The team have donated clothing, toiletries and food items to two local charities; Room at the Inn and Y Project based in Warrington who provide daytime services and emergency accommodation to homeless and vulnerable people and to Care UK who support families and individuals, who through no fault of their own find themselves in difficulty with no household or essential items. 

We’re incredibly proud of the team for their generosity and for supporting their local community. 

We are extremely proud that two of our colleagues, Majid Khan from Templars Square Shopping Centre in Oxford and Denise Phillips from Market Place Shopping Centre in Bolton who are finalists in The Outstanding Security Performance Awards (OSPAs) 2022 in the Outstanding Security Officer category 

The OSPA’s recognise companies, individuals, teams, products and initiatives that have made a significant impact and have demonstrated outstanding performance at the highest level within the security sector. 

These nominations follow on from this years’ success in the British Security Industry Association (BSIA) Awards, Women in Security Awards and the recent Sceptre Awards and we wish Denise and Majid the best of luck in the finals!  You can view the full list of finalists here. 

Templars Square Shopping Centre Security Team from Cowley in Oxford are celebrating being highly commended at the prestigious SCEPTRE awards. 

The awards are in their 22^nd year and this year’s glittering event was held at the Royal Lancaster London Hotel on Tuesday 23^rd November, attended by delegates from across the shopping centre industry.

The SCEPTRE Awards recognise the best practice and the best people in the shopping centre industry and we are extremely proud that our Security Team at Templars Square who were Highly Commended in the Security Team of the Year category, recognising best practice in shopping centre security.  This is a fantastic achievement and a testament to the hard work and commitment of the team.

Mark Driscoll, Dual Service Manager at Templars Square described the Security Team as “the epitome of professionalism, they truly care about customer service, their site and their local community”.  The Security Team were nominated for their robust crime prevention, incredible customer service and a team who have helped their local community and vulnerable customers throughout the pandemic. 

Today is #PurpleTuesday, a day dedicated to raising awareness of what it’s like to live with a disability and here at The Westgrove Group, we pledge our support. 

With 1 in 5 customers living with a disability, accessibility is more important than ever.  Purple Tuesday has been created to recognise the importance and needs of disabled customers and to promote inclusive shopping and improving the customer experience for disabled people, 365 days a year.  Taking place to coincide with the run up to the peak Christmas period, the event has been created by disability organisation Purple.

The day will see retailers in stores and online introducing new measures to make shopping a more inclusive experience, sending a powerful message that they care about all their customers and that their business matters to them.

Our colleagues at Touchwood Shopping Centre are spending the day raising awareness and are making a commitment to provide colleagues with British Sign Language training so they are better equipped to support their community.  The training will provide our colleagues with some key words and phrases in British Sign Language to enable basic conversation with customers who use this as their main form of communication. 

Touchwood’s Total Facilities Manager, Sharon Hughes said: “There is a real barrier that makes it harder for disabled people to enjoy the shopping experience, which is why at Touchwood we are celebrating Purple Tuesday.  We’ve spent time providing our colleagues with relevant training including BSL, so they are able to better support everyone who visits our centre”.

Today we’re celebrating Thank You Cleaner Day! 

The role of our cleaning colleagues has never been so important, keeping their sites safe and clean and often go above and beyond in their role.  Reward and recognition is so important to us here at Westgrove as we want our colleagues to feel special and valued for their contribution, so today we’re saying a massive thank you to each and every one of our cleaning colleagues. 

This Thank You Cleaner Day, we also asked our teams to nominate a Cleaning Colleague to receive a extra special thank you gift from Westgrove and we were inundated with nominations!

The five lucky Thank You Cleaner Day winners are: 

Thank You to Shaun Laffey at Royal Priors Shopping Centre for always going above and beyond for your onsite retailers.  Shaun was nominated by Dual Service Manager, Tony Keay who commended Shaun’s actions when he helped a retailer to get their shop ready to open when it was left covered in dust and debris after new shutters were fitted over night.  Well done Shaun!    

Thank You to Debbie at Maylord Shopping Centre.  Debbie has worked at Maylords for over 30 years and was nominated by her colleague Ryan for her impeccably high standards of cleaning and her amazing work ethic.

Thank You to Anthony Liggins at Tata Technologies.  Anthony’s colleague and Facilities Manager, Waqas Maroof, said “If there was a nomination for disinfectant champion, Anthony would be it!”.  On every shift, Anthony leaves the place shining and completely disinfected.    

Thank You to Damien Bailey at Templars Square Shopping Centre for your truly outstanding work and inspirational attitude.  Damien was nominated by Customer Service Supervisor, Majid who said that “nothing is ever too much trouble for Damien, he is a true team player and takes on any job assigned to him.  He has a real zest for life and an amazing attitude”.  You’re an asset to the team, Damien!

Thank You to Darren Harris at Gloucester Quays Outlet.  Darren recently received a massive compliment for his high standards of cleaning by a member of the public.  His customer service skills were outstanding and the lady commented that Darren was helpful, friendly and a very nice person.  Brilliant effort, Darren!

Our people are what make us special. From saving lives and preventing crime to helping people in need and much more. Our Reward and Recognition scheme is our way of saying thank you to our Colleagues for the amazing work that they do each and every day, often going above and beyond in their role.

Well done to all our winners and everyone who has been nominated for an award this quarter – you are all amazing!

Our Quarter 3 winners are:

Site Manager of the Quarter

• Gillian Davidson – Marketplace
• John Creggy – QVC Knowsley
• Dave Kerslate – Marriots Walk

Team of the Quarter

• Templars Square
• The Galleries
• Touchwood

Colleague of the Quarter

• Roger Smith, Maylord Shopping Centre

Health & Safety Champion

• Jackie Bull, Telford Centre
• Ricky Law, Stamford Quarter
• Paul Nevins, Haymarket

CSR of the Quarter

• Guest Service Ambassadors and Housekeeping, Runcorn Housekeeping

Newcomer of the Quarter

• Martin Mansell, Royal Priors

Outstanding Act

• Dave Phillips, Niall Clare, Debra Taylor, Cath Delaney, Market Place
• Mo Osman, Queens Square
• Asa Abraham, Queens Square
• Richard Aplin, Kings Chase
• Richard Price, Gloucester Quays
• Damon Kosmalski-Pearson, Riverside Hemel
• Stewart Todd, Paul Clarke, Phil Mitchell, Dave Smith, Birchwood Park
• Ben Jaggers, Telford

Service Excellence

• Lisa Earl, Luke Elliot, Dave Black, St Johns
• Asa Abraham, Queens Square
• Waqas Maroof & The Tata Team
• Danielle Annal, St Johns
• Alex Burnett, The Meadows
• Alistair Currie, Jennifer Denman, DSA
• Paul Booth, Ian, Gary Feely, Peter, Technical Services
• Adele Jarvis, Spindles Town Square
• Andrew Joy & Darren Williams, Quedam Shopping Centre

Congratulations to all our Q3 winners!

The Westgrove Group are continuing to support World Mental Health Day hosted on the 10^th October each year.  This year, the theme set by the World Federation of Mental Health is Mental Health in an unequal world.

Here at The Westgrove Group, we take the Mental Health of our colleagues and those around us very seriously. We are committing to 1in10 Westgrove Colleagues having Mental Health First Aid training and all Colleagues are offered Mental Health Awareness training via our e-leaning programme.  As added support we also provide free and confidential support via our partnership with the Retail Trust.

Our Brand Ambassador Alex Staniforth and his charity Mind Over Mountains believe spending time outdoors is the most powerful intervention to build resilience and positive wellbeing which is why we have committed to providing our colleagues with the opportunity to join Alex and the Mind Over Mountains team on their events.

This World Mental Health Day we are reminding our colleagues that we’re here for them, whatever life throws their way and in partnership with Retail Trust, we have provided all our colleagues with a Wellbeing Assessment and tailored support for their own personal circumstances.   

If you are struggling with your mental health, we urge you to take the first step and reach out, whatever way you feel comfortable. 

Other sources of information:

The Retail Trust, https://www.retailtrust.org.uk/

Samaritans, https://www.samaritans.org/

Hub of Hope, https://hubofhope.co.uk/