Latest News

My name is Juan Camara, I am Specialist Services Director at NJC, covering all Specialist Cleaning and Covid-Secure services across the business.

I have more than 20 years of experience in specialist cleaning services, including data centre cleaning, IT hygiene, specialist stone maintenance, carpet and upholstery deep cleaning and many other bespoke services.

The word specialist is all too often applied to non-specialist tasks and my priority is that highly developed core skills training is at the heart of delivering service excellence, supported by operational leadership and developing high performing teams.

What does your role involve?

My role revolves around understanding our customers’ needs, both technically and organisationally and ensuring we have a solution to meet these needs, or, as has been the case during Covid-19, working with colleagues, to develop safe, robust, pandemic secure cleaning solutions. Therefore, customer engagement is a large part of my role.

Invariably our activities involve working at non-core times or reacting quickly to a customer request and good communication and organisational skills are critical to our role. My main objective is to ensure that our customers receive an excellent service, in terms of the quality of service, communications, and ultimately reduced downtime.

Specialist Services are provided by a fabulous NJC team, that is constantly striving to be the best. We are extremely committed to our roles and are always willing to learn, coach and support each other. I provide direction and expertise to the team by promoting NJC strategies, best business practices and embracing new methodologies so we are at the forefront of the industry.

What has been your experience of working throughout the Covid-19 pandemic?

It has been challenging adapting the business to the Covid-19 cleanliness and decontamination demands. We needed to disperse our teams quickly to ensure they were safe, whilst meeting the evolving needs of our customers throughout the crisis. The wellbeing and especially the mental health of our team members is very important, and I ensure that I regularly catch up with each of them and provide support.

Our cleaning regimes have changed from the removal of dirt and debris to a two-stage disinfection process, to help stop the spread of Coronavirus in the workplace. Many of our customers require enhanced deep cleaning, particularly of high touch point surfaces, to help keep their building safe. We have responded very quickly to suspected and confirmed cases of Covid-19 in our customers’ buildings, providing specialist disinfection services, including Electrostatic Spraying.

We are now seeing the development of new working practices, processes and procedures that address the long-term sustainability of Pandemic Secure cleaning services.

What is your favourite thing about your job?

I love working in such an energetic, positive, and creative team. Together, we work to continuously improve our services for our customers, and it is extremely rewarding to see their engagement increase because of all our hard work.

Key to this, is understanding the issues that affect successful collaboration, solving these and providing colleagues with a clear direction.

What do you anticipate will be the greatest lasting change to commercial cleaning and support services as a result of the pandemic?

A change of perspective to the value of cleaning services. Regular, thorough cleaning will be regarded as much more important than pre-pandemic, as it plays a vital role in reducing the transmission of Covid-19 and other serious viruses. This includes increasing the frequency of cleaning and paying attention to all surfaces, but especially ones that are touched frequently.

As a minimum, frequently touched surfaces should be thoroughly cleaned twice a day, and one of these should be at the beginning or the end of the working day. Cleaning should be more frequent depending on the number of people using the space, particularly where they are entering and exiting the setting, and is particularly important in bathrooms and communal areas. Reducing clutter and removing unnecessary items helps to make cleaning easier and more efficient.

Evidence-based cleaning will remain important, providing confidence for employees and visitors that workplaces are safe and hygienic.

What is the most challenging aspect of what you do?

The ability to be flexible and adapt to the new demands that are presented is the greatest challenge, and we have worked hard to quickly reshape our business to fit the emerging customer needs.

My main objective is to streamline our service for our customers, ensuring they are contacted at a time that is convenient for them to arrange PPMs or ad-hoc jobs. This ultimately increases customer engagement.

In 2022, we’ll all be talking about?

Having returned to a safe and hygienic workplace that may have changed due to industry or organisational developments, we will be continuing to focus on innovation and flexibility. This will ensure our services are as effective and efficient as they can be, and key to this will be the alignment of Pandemic Secure services with other Workspace service lines.

Where will we find you when you are not at work?

Spending quality time with my family, walking my dog, reading books, gardening, and cooking.