Bidvest Noonan
A market leading provider of facilities services and solutions
Janice Brannigan is the Managing Director of Facilities Solutions at Bidvest Noonan. Janice has had a transformative impact as a leader in our business. In the run-up to International Women’s Day, we asked her to share her view on the importance of female leadership.
Jonathan Moore is a Director of Operations in our Security Solutions business. He shares his fascinating career journey, lessons from his international experience, and his vision for security in the post-pandemic world.
What was your path into the security industry?
I started my career in the British Army, where I served for 7 years in a variety of environments. The Army helped me develop a resilient mindset, discipline, loyalty, and a passion for problem-solving. I learned many lessons in the Army, particularly about myself which I feel helped me mature quickly and shaped who I am today.
I joined the private Security sector over 15 years ago. I worked in the world of consultancy before moving into Security Management, in which I settled. My first role was as the Head of Security for a large steel manufacturing company. Since then, I’ve had the opportunity to work in senior leadership roles for a variety of large multinationals and take on security challenges in diverse regions such as The Americas, EMEA, and APAC. I was very fortunate to spend some time living in Singapore and India where I gained memories and experiences I will cherish for life.
What lessons did you learn from your international experience?
I have had exposure to a wide range of regional and country-specific challenges which gave me the opportunity to develop solutions to unique problems. I have also been privileged to work with extremely talented people of all cultures and backgrounds. This was invaluable, and I have made many great friends along the way. Professionally, it broadened my perspectives and deepened my expertise in the fundamentals of Security and Leadership. Most importantly, it reinforced my long-held belief that in the security industry, as in so many other areas, the ability to build strong relationships and communicate well is critical.
What attracted you to Bidvest Noonan?
Throughout most of my career, I have been an end-user of security services. I was frequently frustrated and disappointed by the quality of the product I received. I believed that a service provider that put people first, was client-centric, and delivered a quality product could be highly successful. I identified Bidvest Noonan as a business that puts its people and client needs at the centre of its decisions and delivers great service. After meeting with members of Bidvest Noonan leadership, I was convinced that this business shared my values and ambitions, and I wanted to be a part of it.
How has the pandemic impacted your role?
I am proud to say the pandemic has not detracted from our ability to support our teams and clients. We have been able to tailor our service according to demand and helped many of our clients navigate through what has been difficult commercially. In many ways, we have become stronger as a business and forged much deeper relationships with our people and clients.
I believe this pandemic has made us more resilient as an organisation. At Bidvest Noonan, we immediately got a good handle on the developing situation and were adaptive and agile in our decision making at every point. Of course, not every decision was correct, and we learned from our mistakes as well as our successes.
Our people who have been affected in so many ways by the pandemic. For me, personally, demonstrating visible and transparent leadership through the period has been fundamentally important. The first consideration of any decision I have made has been to our people.
How has the pandemic impacted the role of security?
It has been demonstrated that the role that our operational teams is more important now than ever before. Where many premises have been unoccupied or have had reduced members of staff on-site, our teams have remained present to ensure the buildings remain functional and people kept safe.
We have needed to be adaptive and agile to ensure the well-being of our teams and clients we look after. We have developed and implemented new security procedures required to maintain Covid Secure environments. Our work gives people confidence that they are safe when they return to the workplace.
We accelerated our innovation programmes to respond to the pandemic. We have employed new subject matter experts, invested in technologies, improved how communicated, and reimagined our solutions. With vaccines in distribution and growing optimism, we are ready to deliver even more value to the market. I am excited about our industry’s role in the post-pandemic world and especially about the bright future of our business.
The re-opening of our society has begun but in the absence of a vaccine, our approach to community, workplace, and people, needs to change. To help our clients, we have developed a pocketbook for a safer return to the workplace. This document provides guidance in the areas that we believe can have the greatest impact on your business.
For the past 12 years, Service Delivery Manager John Edokpayi has progressed through Bidvest Noonan. He now manages a team of over 60 people to support
a world-renowned museum in London. John tells us how developing a culture of determination, teamwork and collaboration has helped them deliver excellent service to our client.
Our client is one of London’s tallest and most recognisable buildings. Situated in the heart of the city and overlooking the River Thames, it is occupied by some of the world’s leading businesses and visited by thousands of people every day.
The building contains 34 floors of office space, 3 floors of bars, restaurants, and a number of viewing terraces and public spaces
The building has received more than 10,000 visitors per day on average over the lifetime of our contract
The building provides circa 700,000 square feet of office space and can comfortably accommodate more than 5,000 office workers
As an iconic building, the property is the focus of substantial social media and mainstream media attention
The property is set amongst a number of key transport hubs in a busy city-centre location, our team has adopted new procedures to reduce the risk of infection.
Our team of 60 operates to the highest physical and risk mitigation standards.
We have supported this building for over 5 years and our client recently re-awarded the contract to us.
The scope of our solution includes:
As many of the tower’s tenants must remain open to carry out their essential work, our security team is deploying additional measures, which have been carefully designed to reduce the risk of infection for the buildings’ occupants, visitors, and the general public. Our work has enabled our client to continue functioning and providing an excellent service to tenants.
A full team is on standby to take over should one team need to self-isolate, giving the site full resilience
New procedures are in place to minimise interpersonal contact and reduce the potential for cross-contamination. Equipment such as radios and control room surfaces are disinfected daily.
The need for additional PPE was identified early and orders were placed in February. Stocks of masks and gloves have been made available to all team members.
Our EHS, BCP, and Pandemic Response teams are issuing regular bulletins to our people and clients. Our team issue real-time updates and guidance via our WhatsApp site security group.
We take a ‘One Team’ approach, filling the gaps for other service providers. We continue to move quickly and adapt our solution as the situation unfolds.
Our contract manager participates in a daily conference call with the CoLP Silver command. Our BCP and EHS teams are providing support to our client tenant during these difficult times.
Our client is one of Munster’s largest shopping centres. An average of 115,000 shoppers visit the centre each week to shop in its stores, which range from fashion and homeware to food and technology. For more than 10 years we have supported this client and enabled them to deliver an exceptional shopping experience to their customers. The support we provide includes security and cleaning services.
Our security team works closely with centre management to ensure the site is a safe and welcoming environment. Our officers perform regular patrols, on foot, and in our site dedicated vehicles, to ensure the site, its occupants, and visitors are safe and comfortable. Our cleaning solution requires us to ensure malls, food courts, and bathrooms remain spotless day and night. Our night cleaning teams provide a thorough clean throughout the centre to enable the day cleaning teams to focus on upkeep, moving quickly to clean away litter or debris as soon as it is created.
All Bidvest Noonan team members at the site are trained in customer service, and each one is fully committed to serving as ambassadors for our client. Our approach has earned our client a strong reputation as a safe attractive shopping venue, and has enabled us to build a strong trust-based relationship with our client.
