We know you love learning more about the team here at TWO Services – so we thought, who better to tell give us an insight into life at our long-established commercial cleaning and maintenance company than Barry Osborn, our Managing Director!
My wife and I share the school run. So, once I’ve dropped my two young girls off, I’ll come into the office just after 9am and have morning briefings with our sales and operations departments. I’ll touch base with Oliver, our Sales Director, to see if he needs any additional support.
Mornings are usually spent answering emails and dealing with any challenges that may have arisen at our sites overnight. I’ll speak to our field managers to get updates on how jobs are progressing. Sometimes I’ll assist with managing repairs, sourcing parts, and communicating costs to our clients.
I also make sure I carve out time to speak with our divisional directors – people like Margarita, who spend a lot of time out on the road meeting clients and dealing with requests. I always want to make sure they have everything they need to run successful appointments.
Not usually! I enjoy spending time with our TWO family, so for me, lunch is usually spent in the office having a chat with staff and learning all about their lives outside of the workplace.
After I’ve grabbed a bite to eat, I’ll tend to shift my focus towards either working on tenders, handling health and safety issues, or attending Teams calls with staff, clients, or external suppliers. (Occasionally I will attend a face-to-face meeting, but I find most people are happy to talk virtually these days!) Strengthening and maintaining relationships is extremely important to me, and I’ll do whatever I can to look after the people in and around the business.
I’ll also spend time devising ways to generate new clients. I’ll use this time to run an idea past our marketing team, review some new content for the website, or brainstorm new advertising approaches to make sure we’re always moving forward.
Generally speaking, my schedule is very much led by what’s happening within the business. No two days are the same, and that’s the way I like it!
I’m a keen fisherman and a member of Chelmsford Angling Club. I also hold a season ticket at West Ham, so you’ll often find me at a match in the evenings or at weekends. When I’m not enjoying either of these pursuits, I’m spending quality time with my wife, my two young daughters, and my two older sons.
I take my job extremely seriously – but I think we have created a brilliant way of running things at TWO that gives me and the rest of our staff the flexibility to find that elusive work/life balance we all dream about. I am privileged in that, when I leave for the day at around 5.30pm, I can usually leave work at the door and really immerse myself in the things I enjoy.
Also, readers might be surprised by just how close knit we are as a team. We operate an open-door policy here, so if any member of staff wants to discuss something – whether it’s a work-related problem, or something that’s happening in their personal life – they know they can always turn to me and the rest of the board for help and advice. I enjoy being able to support my staff in this way, and in turn, they feel heard and valued.
My number one piece of advice would be this: get the right people around you, as soon as you can.
We’ve got an outstanding team. Many of our staff have been with us for years, if not decades. But though we’ve been lucky, this hasn’t happened by chance. We’ve spent a lot of time and energy creating a company culture that makes people want to not only stay with us in the longer term, but grow their careers with us, too.