JULIAN HILL

At first glance Julian is not the sort of person you might expect to find in charge of a London office cleaning company - he was born and grew up in Surrey, went to a leading English public school. But life took an unexpected turn at 17 when a series of pranks and misdemeanours resulted in a run-in with the local constabulary cutting short his happy days at Charterhouse.

His parents were understandably unsympathetic; they told him to go straight to London and find a job - where Julian picks up the story...

With no qualifications and no experience I was lucky and grateful to be given a job working as an office cleaner for OCS which was, at the time, the largest office cleaning company in the country.

I earned so little I couldn't afford to take the bus or tube. I had to get up at 5.15 every morning to walk a couple of miles through freezing cold London where I would meet up with Tom Salmon and spend the day cleaning at the filthiest sites they could find. This was not how I thought my career would begin. But despite the hours, the pay and the conditions I found purpose to the job. Tom taught me to take great pride in all the work, roll up my sleeves and do whatever was necessary to give every client a great service.

I worked my way up the ranks at OCS and eventually joined the Management Services Division, travelling around the UK and overseas organising, quoting and starting many of the larger office cleaning projects. It was all very enjoyable but I was bursting with different ideas.

After I had been involved in all aspects of the office cleaning industry, both with OCS and other companies, I had seen so many examples of poor quality cleaning that I knew I could do better. There was only one answer: I would have to set up my own office cleaning company from scratch - which is how Calabash got started.  

Calabash Office Cleaning has traded profitably ever since we started in 1992. Our success is down to our people.  My first recruit was obviously my former colleague Tom. Since then we have brought in like-minded associates, friends, family and even ex- colleagues  - concentrating on providing a different approach to our office cleaning business and helping us branch out into washroom hygiene and other successful areas.

There are many office cleaning companies out there but I believe that Calabash is the best.  The staff here believe this passionately too and as a result we will always go the extra mile, it's central to all that we do. Calabash's  success was built on the mutual respect between our staff and our clients and suppliers.  We understand the challenges of our role, we make it our priority to understand the needs of our clients and we are completely committed to meeting those needs.

Please contact me if you have an office cleaning requirement or if you'd like to apply to join the Calabash Team

Regards

Julian

JulianH@calabashgroup.co.uk