People

Jack Chitty

Jack Chitty wasn’t looking for a career at ISS. In fact, when he joined us in 2015, he was happy in his role as a Traffic Officer for Highways England. He only took on a late cleaning shift at Hewlett-Packard Enterprise’s office in Hook to help pay for his upcoming wedding. 

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Two years on, when his manager, Alan Mayhew, asked him to apply for a full-time role, he still felt uncertain. “I took a week to think about it,” Jack says. “I don’t like to move from job to job, and I already had a steady job. But Alan liked the innovation I brought to the role. He was confident in my potential, and he could see I wanted to progress. In the end, I decided to go for it. After all, you only live once!”

After a multi-step interview process, Jack was appointed Soft Services Manager for Fujitsu, taking responsibility for 12 sites across the UK, including a data centre. Following just a two-week handover, Jack was “thrown right into it,” on an account he ended up running for the next three years.

In his role, Jack built on his innovative, client-focused attitude. In Bracknell, he developed a zonal cleaning approach for a 10-storey site, helping the team improve their efficiency and transforming performance against their Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). He prided himself on being an early adopter of new technologies and greener products, trialling them with his team to test them out. 

In fact, there was nothing Jack wouldn’t do for the good of his customers and his team. On one occasion, he even arranged a tour of the local waste disposal centre to assure both his cleaners and his client that they had the best possible waste management programme in place. 

After Alan moved on, a further opportunity for career development came up. Jack had phoned Ro Walker-Gordon, a manager based at Micro Focus and an old colleague of Alan’s, to seek career advice. But Jack’s reputation for getting the job done preceded him—and he joined her team the next day. 

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I say I love to be involved, but actually, I have to be involved!

Jack Chitty, Regional Workplace Manager, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise

Jack showed continued dedication both to Micro Focus and as an ad hoc support on the HPE account and other high-profile projects. With support from Ro, in 2017, he was promoted again.

“I was thrilled to have been appointed Facilities Manager. Until then, that had been the goal. But Ro didn’t let me stop there,” he says.

“She was proactive when it came to offering me valuable experience. She trained me up on a daily basis, showing me the systems and letting me shadow her. But she also helped me to manage one-off projects, like the sale of a site and any associated impacts on our people.”

Thanks to this on-the-job training and experience, and continued support from colleagues including Ro, Spencer Birt, Peter Jones and new account manager Renata Girdvaine, Jack has developed a reputation as a trouble-shooter and was parachuted in to manage a number of high-profile projects, including moves and site closures, with minimal disruption to the ISS team and client.

One of those projects included the design and setup of Hewlett-Packard Enterprise’s newly refurbished site at Winnersh Triangle, where Jack is now based.

“When Ro was promoted and moved to a different area of the business, I had an opportunity to apply for the Regional Workplace Manager role at Hewlett-Packard Enterprise— the account I had worked on when I joined the business,” he explains.

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After the first interview, I didn’t think I would get the position. But my experience came through in the second interview, and I was appointed in 23rd March 2022

Jack Chitty, Regional Workplace Manager, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise 

Jack has now been in his current role for around a year. He’s encountered some challenges —but describes himself as “thriving on adversity”.

For example, when the chillers in the Bristol server room went down at midnight on a Saturday, Jack was happy to roll up his sleeves and work with the team, hosting conference calls every 30 minutes until the issue was resolved. Another time, an alert went off for the server stacks in Winnersh Triangle just as his engineer, Mark, was on the way to the airport for some well-deserved annual leave. Jack went to the site, and video calls and some virtual guidance from Mark allowed them to fix the issue.

After seven years at the company, Jack has no regrets about his decision to change career all those years ago. “I love being in this job,” he says. “I feel like ISS is dedicated to me, and I am 100% dedicated to the company. If I need to fly to Ireland tomorrow, I’ll fly to Ireland. I say I love to be involved, but actually, I have to be involved!”

As well as his own hard work and commitment, Jack attributes some of his success to his inclusive and supportive managers. “I’ve been fortunate enough, to have had two great managers at ISS who have helped me to get where I am today,” he says. "First Alan, who saw my potential and convinced me to join ISS full-time and make a career here. Later, it was Ro, who shared on-the-job training that put me in the best possible position to be appointed to my current role.”

And some great experiences with brilliant team members have only reinforced his commitment to the company. “I like that I’m working with people who all have a passion for the business. And I love having a thriving team and seeing the effort we all put in. It’s really rewarding.”

When it comes to his next steps, Jack admits that he’s hungry to progress. But he’s also reluctant to step away from the operations work he enjoys and the tight-knit team he’s built across the UK. “We used to be very disparate, depending on where we were based. Not anymore. Obviously, we stand or fall as a team. But more than that, we’re a family. In fact, that’s what we say when someone joins us: ‘Welcome to the family!’”

 

Sustainability champion

Jack is always on the lookout for new ways to make the soft services environment more sustainable. At HPE’s site in Winnersh Triangle, he has piloted the installation of Lotus Pro, a filter that ensures only ozone water comes through the mains. Not only is the product wowing both Jack and the client, but it also has the support of his most important stakeholders: his team.

“Maggie, our amazing housekeeper who has more than 13 years of experience, just thinks it’s amazing,” he explains. “Not only can you use ozone water to clean surfaces and kill contaminants, but it’s also so safe that it’s cut our safety reporting down in this area by more than 90%. The team couldn’t be happier and the customer knows we’re continuing to improve the service and try new things. That’s a win-win for me!”