Three years ago, with support from sustainability consultancy firm JustOne, we launched our Beyond Cleaning strategy to ensure progress in driving positive change within the cleaning sector and promoting a better tomorrow for all. The launch of our Beyond Cleaning strategy was held at Fora Spitalfields.
Last year, we returned to the same venue where we first held the launch of our strategy to reflect on our progress and host our inaugural 2024 Beyond Cleaning Awards. The awards honoured the four key pillars of our Beyond Cleaning strategy: Creating A Positive Legacy, Empowering Our People, Ensuring Safer Spaces and Inspiring Bold Action. We also acknowledged a Team Of The Year and introduced two new awards – the Roger Odle Memorial Award and the Bob Andrews Rising Star Award.
The award winners were carefully selected from the monthly entries put forward by supervisors and managers across the entire business. See here our list of last year’s winners.
2025 Beyond Cleaning Awards
On Tuesday 21st October, we proudly hosted our second Beyond Cleaning Awards. The awards ceremony was held at Crypt on the Green, an event space in Farringdon, where more than 100 members of our team gathered alongside a selection of our key supply partners.
The day began with a supplier showcase, providing an opportunity for our teams to ask questions, see demonstrations and get to know some of our most trusted Tier 1 suppliers – including Simply Washrooms, Facility Apps, SMI, Bunzl Cleaning & Hygiene Supplies, Wessex and First Mile.
Following the supplier showcase, our Joint Managing Directors, Lee Andrews and Jamie Bull, delivered our annual company update. From financial performance and contract retention to operational excellence and social investment highlights, the duo provided a high-level overview of our progress over the last 12 months.
Gareth Thomas, Managing Director of our Vertical Division, was invited to the stage to share an update on developments across our newly launched window cleaning division which was introduced earlier this year. Gareth revealed that the first six months of the division have seen more than 20 new starters join Team DOC, including on-site and off-site operatives, in addition to nine new electric vehicles joining our fleet and heavy investment in technology across the board.
The focus then shifted to the year ahead as Lee and Jamie announced the company vision for 2026 and our new values centred around building trust, taking pride, welcoming challenges and empowering our people. In conjunction with these enhanced values, Lee and Jamie shared details on our newly launched internal committees – introduced to encourage people at all levels of the organisation to play a part in shaping DOC’s future, including our Artificial Intelligence (AI) Group, our Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Group, and our Service Excellence Group.
Lee and Jamie then passed the baton to our Director of People & Culture, Jane Malone, who led our penultimate event – the awards ceremony. The ceremony honoured the same award categories as our 2024 Beyond Cleaning Awards.
Creating A Positive Legacy
Tamara Cabey was awarded the ‘Creating a Positive Legacy’ title for her work in creating a system to improve waste management across the Evelyn Partners office in Bristol. Her work has contributed to not only improvements at site-level, but also supported our wider environmental goals.
Our Operations Director, Tony Hall, who assumes ownership of our Evelyn Partners portfolio, presented Tamara with the award and personally acknowledged her incredible efforts.
Ensuring Safer Spaces
Carl Haynes and Glen Travers – both stationed at The Cube in Birmingham – were selected as this year’s winners of the ‘Ensuring Safer Spaces’ award.
Carl and Glen received recognition for their professionalism while dealing with an emergency situation on site over a weekend to ensure that the premises and all groups of people were safe. Paul Rogan, our Operations Director who oversees the Midlands region, proudly presented Carl and Glen with their trophies.
Empowering Our People
Central to our business is the development of our people. From attracting and retaining top industry talent to coaching team members through the rankings to achieve their full potential, our ‘Empowering Our People’ award aims to recognise those who have dedicated significant time to building the infrastructure to help others to grow and supporting them throughout their career journey at DOC.
Jose Cavallaro, our Head of Learning, Development and Quality, was selected as this year’s award winner for his continual efforts to enhance employee development and training, in particular his recent work to ensure we achieved our UhUb Gold Engaged status for a third consecutive year and latest BICSc accreditation, as well as the creation of a bespoke suite of training videos for one of our newest clients, the National Theatre.
Jose was presented the award by Jamie Bull, our Joint Managing Director.
Inspiring Bold Action
Our Operations Director, Justin Gray, took to the stage to present Jickson Berrmudez with the award for Inspiring Bold Action. Jickson, who is based at the Courtauld Institute, received the award in recognition of his work and his dedication to helping others and getting involved in tasks beyond his core duties.
In his role, he provides outstanding support to the on-site Estate and Facilities and Maintenance teams, as well as providing a liaison between the café and common room to ensure that consumables are replenished and the coffee machine cleaned.
Team Of The Year
Diego Vera, Ricardo Justino, Luiz Davilla, Gustavo Sollis, Javier Penaloza, Oscar Nunez and Maria Espinoza – our team at South Bank Central – received our Team of the Year award at our 2025 Beyond Cleaning Awards, presented by Luke Smith, our Operations Director. The team were gifted the award as a result of their exceptional performance during a recent protest in London.
Once the crowds dispersed from the protest, the Estate was left in an unacceptable state with broken glass, copious amounts of litter and puddles of urine. Without hesitation, the cleaning team mobilised on a non-contractual day to restore the area to its usual high standard, ensuring everything was fully prepared for Monday morning. Their dedication and commitment to maintaining safety, order and cleanliness were exemplary.
Bob Andrews Rising Star Award
To present the Bob Andrews Rising Star Award, we invited our Joint Chairmen, Lee and Danny Andrews – Bob Andrews’ sons to take to the stage. The Bob Andrews Rising Star Award was introduced last year in honour of DOC’s Founder to recognise an outstanding individual’s trajectory within the company.
The winner of this year’s Bob Andrews Rising Star award was Carlos Rodrigues. Carlos is based at the London Museum, and was selected for his dedication and professionalism in everything he has done since the commencement of his placement.
With support from his team, Carlos played a significant role in turning a troublesome contract into a smooth running, well-managed contract. He has been the first to complete all training requested of him and is an excellent communicator with the client. Carlos has risen through the ranks since initially starting at DOC as a porter cleaner, and his level of detail and information provided as part of the recent tender further identifies this.
Roger Odle Lifetime Achievement Award
Similarly, the Roger Odle Lifetime Achievement Award was introduced to honour a long-standing member of DOC and friend of the Andrews family. Presenting the final award was Joint Managing Director Lee T Andrews.
The Roger Odle Lifetime Achievement Award was given to Evelyn Foriwaa who dedicated more than 25 years of her life to maintaining our high standards at one of our key sites in the City of London, Tower 42. Evelyn recently retired and will be sorely missed by the entire team.
Thank You!
Congratulations to all our winners and nominees, and a huge thank you to our amazing team and valued suppliers for making it such a memorable event.
Everything we’ve achieved, and everything still to come, is made possible by our people. Thank you for making DOC what it is today, and for shaping what it will become tomorrow.