Forging Black Country links

One of the UK's best known companies has launched a new business that has created more than 400 jobs in Dudley in the past 12 months.

Rat-catching to school meals giant Rentokil Initial decided more than a year ago to combine the accounts, HR and back-office work of scores of its businesses onto a single site, Castlegate Park in Dudley.

The move was doubly good news for Dudley, as Rentokil moved into the empty building left by hotel group Travelodge when it shut down its reservations calls centre last year, with the loss of 200 jobs, just three years after it had opened.

Now based in the renamed Ebony House building, Rentokil Initial's shared services operation has grown so much it now also takes up the ground floor of a neighbouring building used by Dudley's long established Rentokil Initial UK Cleaning & Facility Services business.

The cleaning operation and the headquarters of the group's IT Hygiene division employ around 200 people, while sister business City Link - Rentokil's parcels delivery arm - employs around 600 people at its national depot at Willenhall, beside the Black Country Route.

It makes Rentokil Initial one of the Black Country's biggest private sector employers, with around 1,200 people on the books. Worldwide, Rentokil employs around 70,000 people in 40 countries and had a turnover of £2.28 billion this year.

Colin Tyler, head of shared services, is in no doubt that it was Rentokil's previous positive experience of working in Dudley that led to the new business being set up on Castlegate Park.

"There is a great work ethic among local people," he said. "It was no accident that we based ourselves here, and it has proved a good move. There is an excellent team spirit.

"And we can assure the local community that we are here for the long haul. This is no experiment. Rentokil Initial has invested heavily in this new business."

The shared services team work across a string of UK-based Rentokil Initial businesses, providing both front and back offices services from cold-calling and arranging appointments to handling accounts, legal services, tele-sales, human resources, customer service, as well as providing tropical plants and artwork for offices through the Ambius business.

The payroll team, for example, handles the wages and salaries of 57 different Rentokil companies, ensuring 45,000 people are paid a total of £220 million a year. Every day another 400 new staff are added to the total payroll.

The job of welding the different teams into a single, well-motivated, workforce in the space of less than 12 months falls to head of HR at Ebony House, Anne Jordan.

"When we first moved here it was just an empty building," she said. "We started from scratch, but we have a really marvellous group of people here now.

"We had about 100 people who transferred from offices around the country to be based here. All the rest have been recruited locally.

"About a third of our staff are under the age of 25, around 60 per cent are female, but they are covering every kind of job you can imagine. We are offering a huge range of opportunities for people and are already looking into providing NVQ training through the local Learning and Skills Council.

"We are determined to make ourselves the employer of choice for people living in and around Dudley by 2009."