Monday October 28th - 1st day we had
the opportunity to meet our gracious host Theo Futter, Operations manager for
ISS serving the McLaren Account. He
picked us up at the hotel. He greeted us
with uniforms so that we could immediately change in to. He took us to the Famed McLaren Technology
Centre. Here is where a culmination of
50 years of racing has developed into a company that has over 2500 employees
that there goal is simply to make the fastest, best designed, sports cars and
F1 race cars in the world. You can feel
the attention to detail once you walk into the facility where every last detail
in constructing the facility was taken into account, everything, except for how
to keep it clean J. The building is 10 years old but still looks
well ahead of its time. It is also built
in a manner that has a lake and the building forming the ying and yang symbol from
overhead. The building won Building of
The Year in the UK in 2005.
Theo takes us and basically runs through an on boarding of
new employees going over the rules and expectations of the customer. He shows us all the materials that he would
present to a new employee. The most
important detail was that we could not take any pictures of the facility at any
moment. This was extremely difficult
because of all the beauty in the layout, and all the beautiful cars. Obviously we should restraint. McLaren is very strict about letting anyone
into the facility that is not with McLaren or looking to buy a car from
McLaren. The competition in F1 racing
goes well beyond the track into design, research, and development. It would not
be far fetched to have a competitor spying on McLaren. Very high stakes in the race world it would
seem.
For the rest of the week we observed as well as supported
primarily the main lobby, “the boulevard” to keep all past and present F1 cars
clean of dust. Not so demanding but
still a very important task since perception is the #1 goal of McLaren.
Thursday
October 31st we had a good visit to SQP, which is in London, England
and is the Corporate Head Quarters for all of England ISS. We had the chance to meet Ed Bolton Managing
Director and several other upper level managers at SQP. After that we made our way to PWC which is a
building near Tower Bridge that is managed by ISS David Martin National Account
Manager. This was an extremely pristine
building where financial consultants work.
These buildings would be named KPMG in the United States.
First
week finished up as 8-5 working on keeping boulevard looking sharp. We had a lot of interaction with the entire
staff working 1st and 2nd shift which ran from 5am-2pm
and 11am-8pm. Most of the employees seem
to think ISS is a good place to work and also the facility is a good one to
work in. They seemed like great groups
of people that go to lunch together and seem to make work as pleasant as
possible. They really got a kick out of
Danny and myself (the two Americans). It
was really interesting since we were the outsiders and the ones with the accents.
Second
week started with working with the game plan that on Wednesday November 6th
we were going to have a huge meeting with 73 + CEO and country managers at
McLaren. The game plan was the same
adding cleaning of all glass in the facility.
The days went quickly and before we knew it Wednesday was here and the
event was the main goal. An outside
catering company came in to help out with the event. They moved cars and put in tables and serving
areas. By 4pm everything was on cue and
the member of ISS started to come in from all over the world. We had this great opportunity to meet and greet
the majority of them. We also helped out
as ushers since it is a facility that you can get lost in so we helped get
people around. It was such a great event
that closed out by 8pm and we even had an opportunity to take pictures with
Sean Bond and Jeff Gravenhorst next to an F1 car. After that a few buses picked them all up to
take them to their hotels. Since the
event went off without a hitch, Theo gave us Thursday and Friday off. On Thursday night Theo took us to dinner at
Charlie Choy’s which was a buffet that had everything from India to the Orient
and back again. It was good.
Theo Futter - One
thing, other than having to keep a pristine building pristine, for Theo is him
keeping the customer impressed. Theo continues to impress them and keeps the
place extremely clean. Cleanliness here
is on a different level. They have to
deal with cleaning manufacturing areas that include building cars, painting
cars, and designing cars. It is a
different ball game for Theo, but he has a certain love for cars and love for
challenges and he is doing a tremendous job.
Interestingly enough Theo has the same challenges as any other
Operations Manager, of turnover, training, customer interactions, payroll, the
constant battles between first and second shift, second and third shift
etc. It seems these challenges are
worldwide, but he seems to react immediately to ensure a safe, problem free
work place for his employees, all the while maintaining a happy customer. My
hat is off to Theo. I really hope we
helped him more than the time he had to allocate to us. Cheers Mate.
I cannot put into words what an awesome time I had on this
trip. It also makes me very proud to
work for such a highly recognized company around the world. Thanks to everyone that supported me in
getting this opportunity. Doug Dickie,
my Facility Manager, Gene Gattis, my Managing Director, Michael Hinz, my Senior
Managing Director, and last but not least Ben Goudy for pulling the final
trigger to ship me off to the UK.
Thanks! Included are some pictures of my trip, the McLaren photos
were taken from a book we got from Theo.
Cheers mates! See you in Austin, Texas at the Formula 1 Races!
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