A friendly face can make all the difference

Did you know that in Switzerland, it is illegal to own just one guinea pig? This seemingly arbitrary rule is because guinea pigs are naturally social animals that need companionship and interaction.

People are much the same. Over the last 12 months (for those reading this post at a later date, at the time of writing, the UK is in the middle of its third national lockdown due to COVID), the way people interact with each other has changed dramatically.

A significant number of the sites where we provide services to clients take the form of a security concierge at the building's front entrance. As such, often for many people, the only interaction they will have face to face with another person has been with our operatives. Whether this is in student accommodation, build to rent, or corporate offices. The need remains the same.

Managing this interaction within COVID guidelines has been a challenge, particularly during periods of strict lockdown. But maintaining a level of customer interaction is vital.

We have worked closely with our clients to ensure that the service users can still benefit from this interaction. We have delivered this through careful risk assessments and training for our operatives. But the cornerstone of our approach is always to place the vital humanity of the site users first and foremost.

Even more than the typical day-to-day responsibility of providing a helpful, professional service, our operatives have been going above and beyond to identify unique ways of helping our site users.

Often that's a small but crucial contribution of a friendly chat or check-in with people who are missing human interaction. At other times, it's a more direct contribution to the efforts others are making as we all fight a pandemic.

We recently received this glowing testimonial of the difference our operatives make to their clients:

“(NGS Staff)....have been the sentinels of the building, while at the same time bending over backward to help us in our very minor contribution to the local NHS. I am so grateful for their input.”

Our hardworking staff exist to delight all of our site's users, and right now, that may simply be a friendly face and a 'how are you?'.