10 QUESTIONS
10 Questions with... James Freeman
Each month we ask a cleaning industry professional the Tomorrow’s Cleaning 10 Questions. This month, we chatted to James Freeman, Sales & Marketing Director at Principle Cleaning Services.
Q1
What was your first job?
My father is a skilled joiner so I spent all of my holidays labouring with his team. We worked on some fantastic buildings
and even got to be involved in the refurbishment of Windsor Castle after the fire. My first ‘real’ job was as a security guard straight after finishing university. I was reluctantly heading towards becoming an accountant and needed a job to stay in London. Within a week of finishing my finals I was guarding Virgin Atlantic aircraft at Heathrow airport.
Q2
How did you get into the cleaning industry?
One day when working at Heathrow I met someone who asked me if I knew of anyone who had an aviation security background and would like to start a new service where the cleaners completed security checks on British Airways aircraft while they were cleaning. Of course, I jumped at the chance.
Q3 Q4
70
Which three words describe your personality?
Integrity, humorous, driven
If you could visit one place in the world, where would you
go and why? Sir Ernest Shackleton has always been one of my greatest heroes and I would love to visit the Antarctic just to see for myself the extreme conditions through which he led his team. I
recently saw the James Caird, the tiny, 20 foot lifeboat Shackleton used to rescue his team trapped on the Antarctic, and I could not believe that he could have achieved a journey of over 700 miles in an open boat.
Q5
How would you improve the cleaning industry?
At Principle Cleaning we try to keep things simple and encourage our people to deliver a superbly clean building that makes people in the workspace happy. We need to simplify things and focus on what makes a difference to our people, our staff, customers and visitors.
Q6
If an intern were to start tomorrow, what’s the one
piece of advice you would give them? I know its clichéd but I would advise them to not be afraid of making mistakes. I would far rather have someone willing to give things a try, to be ambitious, than to hide away in the crowd. I was once offered an opportunity to move into a department where the manager promoted that it was a great place to ‘keep your head below the parapet’. To this day he has no idea how uninspiring this was.
Q7
What do you do to unwind? I have a passion for food and
cooking and have recently learnt how to cure and smoke meat at home. I have spent the past couple of weeks making bacon and pancetta and am looking forward to trying to make salami.
Q8
If you were stranded on a desert island and you could
only have one thing, what would it
be and why? Some way of making fire. I don’t think I could ever get one to start with just sticks. Oh, and Nigella Lawson.
Q9
What, do you think, is the future of the cleaning industry?
I believe we shall see the re- emergence of more specialist cleaning suppliers rather than TFM contracts. Bundling services together often sees a dilution of management expertise. Cleaning is an essential service, companies should proud to specialise in cleaning.
Jan-Hein Hemke, Managing Director at Facilicom UK, asks...
Q10
What personal details do you know about
the individuals who clean your workplace? Do you know their name
and, if you don’t, why don’t you? I know the people who clean our building well. They clean in the evening when we often have tender deadlines. They like it when people are still in the office, we have a chat and a bit of a catch up. We are a very personal company and believe it’s important to keep everyone informed about what is happening in the business. Thank you Suzanna and Liliana!
www.principlecleaning.com
Check out next month’s issue to see what James Freeman asked our next industry professional...
www.tomorrowscleaning.com
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