From window rounds to the region’s biggest indie cleaning company
BROTHERS CELEBRATE 50 YEARS IN BUSINESS
A FAMILY firm which went from two brothers cleaning windows to become the largest independent cleaning group in the East Midlands is celebrating its 50th anniversary.
Hands Cleaners Limited, now based in Shepshed, launched in 1970, when Bill and Eddie Hargrave decided to expand their window cleaning round and begin operating from under a railway arch in Duns Lane, Leicester.
The company now has about 400 employees, mostly cleaning schools and offices, with one of their biggest clients being Fisher Scientific, a laboratory supplies group in Loughborough.
Managing director Bill Hargrave, 73, said: “When Eddie and I started the business we had no idea that it would grow into such a success.
“It is a great delight to reach this wonderful milestone and much credit should go to our loyal staff who have helped achieve it.
“The pandemic has thrown many challenges our way. Some customers have cut back on cleaning due to staff working from home, but this has been more than compensated by new contracts and much extra cleaning to ensure customers’ staff stay safe.”
Hands Cleaners started out just cleaning offices, but by 1980 they had more than 12 full-time industrial cleaning staff, along with a team of full-time and part-time office cleaners.
In 1980, they acquired a much larger premises on Humberstone Gate and their new janitorial supplies business, Jangro, occupied the ground floor.
Soon their area of operation expanded to Loughborough, Nottingham and Derby.
Eddie said the key to success in business is “caring about the service we give, looking after the staff, ensuring we employ staff who care about the job as much as we do and making sure we deliver what we say we will do”.
By 2013, the managers wanted to relocate to a more central place in the East Midlands so moved to their current home on the Gelders Hall industrial estate, near Junction 23 of the M1.
Jangro is based in the same unit. This year has been the busiest in the company’s history, with three new schools signing up for a contract, and many clients wanting several cleans a day, rather than one in the evening.
The company works by contracts but without long-term arrangements as, in Eddie’s words, “we’re only as good as last night’s cleaning”.
They had a big boost about 10 years ago when they were doing all the cleaning for the Walkers Crisps offices in Leicester and Coventry, as working for such a big name helped them get more contracts.
The founding brothers still work two days a week and Eddie says he is happy for the business to keep on steadily growing.
He also has a son who works as a sales director for the firm.