Focus on Weatherill House businesses during Covid19 – Sean Doyle Painting Contractors

Over the next few months we will be featuring some of the clients who occupy office space at our prestigious Enterprise Centre, Weatherill House.  We would like to introduce to you:

Sean Doyle Painting Contractors

Weatherill House acts as a Satellite office for Sean Doyle’s presence in the UK.  Their core business is new build residential and commercial painting works, with their target market being larger scale developments – but projects do vary in size  At present their largest project, Project Derrick,  is overseeing 981 Units in a 75 Storey Tower in Canary Wharf, and their smallest is 15 Units in a small development in Barnet. They are also looking at facilities management and maintenance painting works for hotels and councils but they are only just making tentative steps in the early stages.

Patrick Lefan, one of the Directors from Sean Doyle, had this to say about the effect that Covid19 has had on the business:

“Like many businesses the Covid19 pandemic has caused a large shock to our business in several ways. Initially with the lockdown there was a certain amount of ambiguity as to whether construction sites were to close or remain open. Government guidance on the matter was quite sketchy and in most cases the decision was left up to Contractors themselves. Many of our clients took the decision to close sites but similarly many others remained open, we found that we were contractually obliged in many cases to remain operational and thanks to the great team that we have we managed to do while also accommodating staff members who didn’t want to take the risk of working due to family members with underlying conditions or other concerns around Covid19. We had probably a 10 week period where our overall works were probably around two thirds of what we would have expected, but we’re pretty much back to full capacity at this stage. The challenge for our business will come further down the line where projects that were in planning or early stages of development now have to evaluate if its still feasible to progress in the current climate. The issue of Brexit hasn’t gone away and while its been relegated lower down in the general public conscious there are many issues to be resolved and coupled with the future uncertainty with Covid, I think we’re in for a challenging period ahead”

“We’ve implemented a range of changes around work practices, but as we’re involved in Construction the option of working from home isn’t an option for most of our staff. We’ve always had good H&S policies and implementation and we’ve built on that to try ensure our staff are kept as safe as possible. We’ve tried to base people on sites as close as possible to their homes so there’s less requirement for travel and along with Main Contractors we have staggered starts to minimise numbers entering site together. PPE has always been a requirement in our Industry so from that aspect additional PPE and compliance is not a concern but we have had to ensure there’s an increased awareness around good personal hygiene, handwashing and use of hand sanitizers.”

“We had to place some staff on Furlough temporarily and we availed of the Government scheme for this but other than that we have not sought any other financial assistance. We’re in a reasonably good position financially and as we were able to keep turnover at over 50% of normal levels and cashflow coming in we didn’t feel the need to seek any other support”

“In general the return to work by office based staff has been positive but we’ve also reduced the amount of physical meetings and numbers of staff in the building at any one time to try minimise contacts. What we’re finding is the Businesses are very good at implementing processes to keep people safe, whether its office building, Construction sites or general retail areas, the big area of concern for us is how people travel and get to and from places of business”

“We have found StartUp Croydon’s news bulletins and web blogs very helpful.  Information is critical to all businesses and knowing that the information you get is from a trusted and reliable source is key. There’s any amount of information available but I think it more important than ever to know where the information is coming from”

At Weatherill House, we currently have office space available for 2-3, 3-4 and 4-5 people.  So, whether you are a small start-up in need of an affordable and professional place of business, or a larger organisation who is interested in a satellite hub, please speak to us about your needs so that we can tailor an all-inclusive package for you, or make an appointment to see our impressive, modern enterprise centre on the outskirts of Croydon Town Centre, close to Wandle Park tram stop.  Telephone: 0203 7474747