CEO Update

A message from our CEO, David Smith

I write this latest update, like many of you from the relative safety of home as once again we are being asked to work from home if we can do so.

Our business continues to perform heroics through the pandemic and sad to say, this latest lockdown does have the potential to feel like déjà vu. However, with rising case numbers and many more of our own staff infected, this time I am constantly reminded that our duty is as always, to keep our staff and customers safe. We are re-doubling our efforts to remind our staff to stay safe, and have introduced further well-being initiatives wrapped around our recent achievement of 1 million hours of accident free work for the business.

The basic messages around a Covid Secure environment are largely unchanged. However, if you require Covid Secure property and facilities advice, we remain ready to support and guide you through it. Our general advice webinars and best practice guides remain accessible within the Covid-19 section of our website.

What is different this time?

There is at long last the reality of a vaccine roll out. Some of our own colleagues across the health care environment have already received the vital protection they so richly need to continue carrying out their keyworker activities. Probably by April or May all over 50’s will have been vaccinated meaning that it is realistic to assume a steady ramp up in re-occupation and the realisation of the post-Covid world we began to explore back in our series before Christmas ‘Realigning to the #NextNormal’.  Here you can gain access to our #NextNormal webinars to assist your organisation in creating future advantage start to utilise the emerging trends to improve long run success.

We are seeing a number of clients focused upon the world post vaccine, you can for example see some of this thinking with Legal and General in this month’s FMJ magazine. We too at Bellrock are using this time to re-imagine our own office space in Leicester and we can’t wait to invite colleagues, customers and suppliers alike to use the new facilities once it is safe to do so. If you would like us to support you strategic assessment of your estate and how to improve it post Covid then we would be delighted to support you.

For now though,  the key message is stay safe and stay patient. Within three months the world will, just like spring, begin to show shoots of recovery and the smarter and stronger organisations are focussed upon that right now.

David Smith
Chief Executive Officer

A message from our CEO, David Smith

In my last update in May, I shared our early thinking on how organisations are thinking about a return to work strategy in a Covid secure manner.

Our detailed guidance can be found within the Covid-19 section of our website, and industry and site specific help can be gained from our team of experts.

Now, nearly one month on, we have launched a series of webinars designed to share our experiences and tips to help you in your own organisation’s planning and return to work.

Each webinar focuses upon a specific sector or a specific set of challenges. Their objective is to offer practical tips and guidance, gathered from our own experiences in support of our customers, to improve the Covid secure environment, reduce risk and increase the speed at which you can begin to re-occupy.

Our five free webinars are presented by a select panel of sector and service line experts, providing valuable insight into the most commonly asked questions raised by our customers.

Helping to create Covid secure schools
May 26th, 2020

Hosted by Valerie Miller, Bellrock’s Group Sales and Marketing Director and presented by Gareth Jones, Managing Director for Nifes Consulting Group (A Bellrock company), they will take you through the methodology of assessing the capacity of a classroom and circulation flows around a school and address some of the common questions being asked by head teachers.
You can view the live recorded webinar here.

Pubs & Restaurants:
Creating additional capacity
2nd June, 2020

Join panelists Dave Richards, CCO, and Mike Whyte, Business Unit Director MES, as they discuss novel ideas and low cost ways to increase site capacity whilst remaining Covid secure.

You can register for the live webinar here.

Technical Consultancy:
Practical guidance on equipment maintenance in returning to work
9th June, 2020

Join panelists Dave Richards, CCO, and Jeremy Honor, Business Unit Director MES, as they discuss several returning to work considerations in recommissioning a site’s equipment. From air and ventilation to water, heating, fire or electrical, they will be offering practical tips for you to use in preparation to return from lockdown.

You can register for the live webinar here.

Estate Resizing:
Resizing your estate considering space utilisation and lease assessments
16th June, 2020

Join panelists Tom Downing, Head of Asset Surveys, and Russell Heath, Head of Occupier Services, as they cover topics that will offer you step-by-step guidance to the real issues you should be considering to ensure that you reduce the ‘here and now’ running costs and build appropriate plans to ‘right size’ your estate for the post Covid-19 world.

You can register for the live webinar here.

Commercial:
Practical steps in building your own risk assessment
23rd June, 2020

With the UK Government now providing a roadmap for returning to work in a post lockdown phase, organisations find that the onus is squarely upon them to assess when and how a return is both desirable, feasible and safe. Our specialist Bellrock panellist will offer practical advice on how organisations can build their own risk assessments and what support services we can offer to help turn it into a complete re-occupation strategy.

You can register for the live webinar here.

We appreciate that every site is different. Our experts are able to work through variations of the basic steps before you consider reopening your site.

If you would like specific help around return to work planning, our team would be delighted to support you.

David Smith
Chief Executive Officer

A message from our CEO, David Smith

Since my last update the UK Government has now issued its Covid-19 recovery strategy, with guidance on how to keep staff and visitors safe in eight different working environments, and further guidance on safety in the education environments.

Here at Bellrock, we are helping many of our customers interpret what this means and how to make your environments as Covid Secure as possible for returning to work, where there is no potential to work from home.

We are making the same preparations in our own workplaces as volumes of work start to increase again, our work from home capability will reach capacity and we will need to re-open some of our office sites again.

Our detailed guidance can be found within the Covid-19 section of our website, and industry and site-specific help can be gained from our team of experts too.

For now, here are the practical steps that we are taking which you may find useful as a roadmap:

1. Our planning starts by building a capacity plan for the site with new site maps to enable appropriate changes that take account of social distancing and fire risk.
2. Once capacity is known we will then carry out a new Covid risk assessment and look to mitigate any risks through appropriate signage, traffic flows and PPE.
3. We will then develop new working practices for each site, and in some cases a video to show our returning staff what to expect.
4. We expect our staff to certify within our systems that they have understood the changed working practices and will follow them for their own safety.
5. We have created a Covid officer for each site, who manages site capacity and organises day cleaning routines of high use areas.
6. Our workforce planner, outlines who is on site each day and maps staggered arrival times avoiding 8.15- 9.30 arrival times and 4.30 to 6 pm departure times. It also maps teams to stay within certain areas of the site where possible.
7. Each site will be up to date with required planned maintenance and a deep clean will be carried out before we reopen
8. Extra daily cleaning of our clear desks will take place each night.

Every site is different and so our experts will work through a variation of the basic steps in each location before we consider reopening.

If you would like specific help around return to work planning, then our team would be delighted to support you.

David Smith
Chief Executive Officer

A message from our CEO, David Smith

It is now a few weeks since my last general update and I thought that it would be useful for all our customers and suppliers to hear a little more specifically on how Bellrock are adapting to the Covid-19 outbreak.

As you would expect, our Covid-19 response remains very professional as we continue to be fully operational across all our service streams. We are delighted to provide support and guidance to all key worker sections of the economy in supporting the national effort to tame the pandemic.

Whether it is at any of the 17 NHS facilities we manage, the wider care home sector we service, the private healthcare customers whose efforts we support, or the vast array of wider key worker sectors, our teams on the ground continue to work night and day to do our part to come through this together.

Our background operational effort is now very largely done remotely with both UK and Indian helpdesk staff continuing to provide full phone and email support. Our Finance and Supply chain teams are working as fast as possible to ensure that our supply chain partners continue to get appropriate work and payment as efficiently as possible.

Away from the key worker sections of the economy, our attentions have been focussed upon initially helping our clients safely and steadily reduce services to the minimum viable levels to keep facilities safe and compliant. Even in the middle of this crisis, our customers, on average, are maintaining over 90% PPM compliance. This means that once lockdown is reduced, they will be in a stronger position to quickly and safely start up their buildings.

We are now turning our focus to help our customers and supply chain partners turn their attentions towards a phased return from lockdown. This week, we have launched our new Covid-19 website where you will find advice and guidance from our experts around various considerations that will need factoring in towards a successful return to work. We are offering ‘bite size’ guidance on the key critical factors around PPM, cleaning, security, landscaping and waste management, service charge and insurance and fire risk management. We have also added in a high-level calendar of events to give you a sense of how we envisage a return to operations for organisations at scale. We would be delighted to help you through your own planning and thinking.

In the meantime, please stay safe and if we can help you in any way please do not hesitate to contact one of our expert teams who will be happy to assist.

David Smith
Chief Executive Officer