Headland Foods Gains from gap Innovation

winning the work

gap personnel has been working with Headland Foods since 2005, when the company won a four-way pitch to become the Flint site's sole recruitment agency, handling all temporary and some permanent recruitment.  As Headland's Personnel Manager Joy Wilkinson explains: "I benchmarked gap personnel against three other agencies and my main reason for choosing them was its innovative approach.  We wanted something different and central to that was a solution for our laundry operation.  All the agencies had ideas, but gap's were definitely the most innovative."

Emma Ceballos, Operations Director, led the pitch and believes that our approach was simply best practice:
"We were given a full brief by Joy and a key factor at the pitch stage was that we took on board what Headland's requirements were - listening to the brief properly is very basic, but maybe the other agencies didn't!  We considered the requirements of running the laundry, which was new to us as we had no similar set ups anywhere else.  We knew Headland watned a bespoke service, so we considered what they wanted and why they wanted it, looking at the benefits to the site and the implications.
We based our proposal on this."

Continues Emma, "I think our level of professionalism at the pitch stage impressed Headland and they could see the preparation and work behind the proposal.  We gave it the time that the contract value deserved.  Up front we were able to offer a very experienced contract manager with a proven track record, and it must have helped to be able to give a specific person at pitching stage."

"As a given, we always back up what we're saying with invitations to other sites as well as taking in examples of our work.  Providing some evidence gives the prospective client confidence - it's all quite simple and part of how we always work, but again maybe not all agencies take the same approach."

day to day operations

Since 2005 the working relationship between gap personnel and Headland has gone from strength to strength.  A gap team of three covers the on-site operation 24 hours a day, five days a week.  Dedicated contract manager Jan Hogan also runs the Headlands laundry facility and is responsible for ordering all PPE within budgeted guidelines supplied by the site - these bolt-on services add value for the client and are unique to the Headland service.  Supporting Jan, an on-site supervisor covers afternoons and a working temp supervisor covers the night operation.

Personnel Manager, Joy is delighted with the service: "The laundry system works brilliantly in practice and no other agency can touch it.  I'm constantly bombarded with calls from other agencies and I can imagine them rolling their eyes when I tell them what gap provides."

ready for work

Headland uses its temps as basic Production Operatives and, although temporary staff need to have worked in a similar environment before, Headland operates a buddy system once they are on site to assist with integration and training.  All temps attend an induction programme given by gap, available in both English and Polish, before they come on site, which means that Headland can be confident that everyone starts with some knowledge."

"Three years down the line, it's clear that Headland Foods and gap personnel have worked together to develop a winning relationship.  From Headland's point of view, the secret to their success is clear as Joy sums up: "Today agencies have to be far more innovative to get and keep business.  Business is changing all the time and I can rely on gap to come to us with new suggestions.  gap can com up with far more ideas than I could, and that's what you need in this day and age."