Feature ... continued from Page 25 Personal Motivation What do you like to do in your spare time?
Well, kids take up all your time, but from my point of view, I’m very sociable. I do like playing golf when I get the opportunity. I love my rugby, make sure that’s Rugby Union, not Bulldog, not Rugby League as I like to say to the Leeds office, but the proper British sport. I also love my boxing.
I also enjoy training but I always laugh at my wife when she goes, “oh, you know, have fun!” when I’m going off to the gym and I’m like, “oh, I’m only happy when I leave! I’m not happy when I’m in there.” But I do like to go to the gym. I’ve got a big family as well, as you know with a hareem of kids, with the older ones taking up just as much time as younger ones.
Driving the culture is first and foremost, getting the safety right, making sure everyone knows we’re a safety business. Making sure it’s absolutely in our DNA and then really just be really collaborative with the team. So hearing what’s going on and getting everyone to understand, letting them feel they’ve got the ownership as well.
What’s surprised me is the actual passion from people towards the new person, you’d think, oh, they’d be a bit reserved, but I’ve literally people knocking on my door.
I sent an email out the other week and it was about TikTok and I’m trying to utilise for recruitment. I want to use TikTok because it’s what most of the youngsters are on, and next minute I was getting emails from some of the team; 18, 19 year olds saying ‘Greg, we’re here no problem’. I was actually quite blown away from it because it’s like obviously people our age, they’re not going to help, but the youngsters are like getting involved and that’s one of the things we’ve got to do. We need to invest in the youngsters, and that collaboration is key!
The biggest thing for me I’ve seen is the engagement right across the business now. The front line because I think sometimes people forget they are the business, they are the asset. So looking after them and engaging with them. If anyone of them writes me an e-mail, they get the same response as would a director. An important value of mine is that you have to speak to the cleaner with the same respect, this isn’t about hierarchy. Everybody’s got a job to do and I think the place is really respectful and that has been superb.
In June, you became PTSG CEO. How have the you found the transition?
It’s been really good actually to be honest, because there’s been a whopping great shift in culture because I’m probably very different to the past leadership. I’m probably more similar to Paul Teasdale than what’s been in between.
So the big thing is for me was to turn the culture around because the talent’s there. A lot of companies invest in C suite but don’t invest in everybody else. And I’m the complete opposite. The way I set my businesses up, I do the inverted triangle. I’m at the bottom, and then it’s the support functions, all the way to the most important thing to me, the guys on the frontline, who, by the way delivering the customer services and also delivering the profit. So everything backs up to them. So I think that was the big shift.
I also wanted to get out to everywhere, you know, because people don’t get out enough into other people’s businesses. Every time I go to a business, I try to get 20 minutes with everyone in the office. They just stand around the desk and I go, now shoot me a question.
There’s been lots of change but there hasn’t been that many people coming into the business because I’ve on purposely wanted to prove a point that you could turn around a business. And by the way, this isn’t a turnaround because this is a really highly profitable business. But to me it’s like a Ferrari on the drive, which just needs the keys put in it and to drive it faster.
It’s an unbelievable business and it’s got unbelievable people in it, from all walks of life, it’s superb. So there’s real atmosphere there’s a real culture, but there’s real values.
26 fmuk
I think to be honest, I’m the culture shock. We’re driving to being more customer focused. We’re driving more productivity by doing things smarter, quicker, leaner, which is new to the guys. But I’m not doing it alone I’m taking them with me on the journey and I’ve seen that’s enough. Otherwise, all these initiatives just fail. Things we’re implementing such as employee of the month. I mean, it’s really simple. I want all colleagues to know, if you’ve worked with PTSG for 10 years, you’re going to get something, you’re going to get recognised. None of that’s happened before.
I think out of all the promotions I’ve made, I think I’ve promoted more females than I have men in the last 8 weeks, 10 weeks. But again, that’s not done on purpose. That’s because I promote the right person for the job.
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