As 2023 draws to a close, I reflect on the year and realise the last twelve months have all been about growth and action.

I’m proud to say Anabas has experienced double digit growth, for its third year running, and this is testament to the incredible service our teams deliver to clients, day in and day out. This year we’ve retained 98% of our clients and have expanded our client base by 25%, which includes a global cosmetics giant, the UK’s number one consumer rights organisation and three global financial services organisations.

These great achievements could not have been realised without an exceptional team. You don’t recruit a brilliant team, you build one, and I am pleased to say we have done this very well at Anabas. I’ve had the pleasure of visiting many sites and experiencing this for myself throughout the year, and it’s fantastic to get consistent, positive feedback from our clients. Customer advocacy is something we will always prioritise and strive to achieve.

A warm welcome

A fundamental milestone for us this year has been joining forces with our sister company and launching Anabas Welcome, an exciting new front of house (FOH) brand that will strengthen our FM service offering in response to our surging client demand, and also Privée, its luxury events and lifestyle management service. This integration has taken Anabas from a £35 million turnover business to a £50 million business.

I’d like to take this opportunity to welcome, once again, our Anabas Welcome and Privée teams to the wider Anabas family.

Looking after one another

At Anabas, we have been working hard to mirror what we do with our clients for our internal teams. We strive to help build employee-centric workspaces, and we are committed to learning and improving what we do. As part of our growth, we have introduced a team of Mental Health First Aiders to benefit everybody in the business. Anabas employees now have someone to turn to that can listen, without judgement, and signpost support, and I anticipate this will grow and develop in 2024 and beyond.

The integration of our new Anabas employee intranet, MyAnabas, has also been a great success. This was an investment to make sure that, as we grow, we still retain the close-knit family feel and the connection that brought us together in the first place – unwavering desire to do good and do better.  It’s a platform for collaboration, knowledge sharing and creating connections wherever you are in the country and across the business. Importantly it is a platform for communication. We can only continue to evolve a business with a great culture, diversity, and opportunities for progression if everyone has a voice, and MyAnabas is the right tool to support this.

Inspirational influencers

Due to our growth, we have restructured this year and I’ve been pleased to see a series of internal promotions and additional new appointments to strengthen our team further and prepare for even greater growth.

This year we’ve been thrilled to see Richard Bostelmann as a finalist for Manager of the Year at the IWFM awards, as well as winning the International Safety Award from the British Safety Council for Anabas. Lauren Thornton, helpdesk and compliance manager, was also a finalist for the Emerging Workplace Leaders’ Young Leader of the Year award, a fantastic achievement and recognition of her career journey at Anabas.

New horizons

As we move into 2024, I look forward to building on the already great achievements we have made this year. I want to close 2023 by saying the biggest thank you to every single Anabas colleague. I’m so proud of what we’ve achieved together and I’m looking forward to building on this in the years to come.