Emrill Celebrates 20 Years in the UAE

Stuart Harrison, Emrill’s CEO & Sam Emery, Emrill’s CFO talk about the company’s growth and future.

Total facilities management services provider, Emrill, is celebrating 20 years of operation in the UAE, paying tribute to the people, partners, and clients who have helped the organisation cement its position as a leading FM partner in the region.

Opening its doors in 2002, Emrill was established to raise the region’s facilities management standards and profile through the provision of world-class services in strict adherence to internationally-recognised standards and best practices. In the 20 years since the organisation was founded, Emrill has won multiple regional and international industry awards for its contribution to the sector, demonstrating its ongoing commitment to providing its clients with best-in-class, innovative solutions, and the UAE’s residents and visitors with great places to live, work and visit.

Emrill has achieved consistent growth since its establishment and has announced a 32 percent increase in revenue and an 81 percent increase in profitability in H1 2022 when compared to the same period of the previous year.The integrated facilities management provider has recorded a contract retention rate of 82.26 percent in the last twelve months and has won over 190 contracts.

Stuart Harrison, Emrill’s CEO, commented on the organisation’s growth in 2022: “Emrill has achieved impressive results during the first half of 2022, demonstrating the effectiveness of our client-centric approach and ongoing commitment to providing our client with innovative solutions and market-leading services and technologies. Every member of the Emrill team is dedicated to continuous improvement, and employees across all departments and levels of the business come together for our Continuous Improvement Workshops to ensure we are sharing and exploring every idea that could benefit our clients, the business, and the industry as a whole.”

Harrison continued: “Over the last six months, we have continued to identify key sectors for growth and have further penetrated our target markets, including residential, commercial, critical transportation infrastructure, entertainment, and leisure, logistics, and education. We have achieved this through a seamless blend of our existing services, the introduction of new services, including rope access cleaning, key hires, and the expansion of our business through new divisions and entities, including Emrill Consultancy (EMCO) and Emrill Interiors.”

Over the last 20 years, a core pillar of Emrill’s business has been safety, and the organisation has achieved over 23 million safe manhours across its contracts since the beginning of 2022. To further promote health, safety, and wellness, Emrill launched ‘Safety By Choice – Not By Chance’, an umbrella programme comprising several initiatives aimed at empowering employees to take ownership of the safety of themselves, their colleagues, and Emrill’s clients. Road To Zero targeted road safety, including a defensive driving course to ensure those tasked with transporting Emrill’s people do so safely and with consideration for passengers and other road users. Emrill also introduced the Frontline Heroes Workplace Safety module to its comprehensive education and development schedule. This course addresses the learning and development needs of all frontline heroes, so they can create a safer workplace.

Since the launch of ‘Safety By Choice – Not By Chance’, Emrill’s lost time frequency rate has decreased by 50 per cent, which is a clear sign that the initiatives launched as part of this programme are keeping Emrill’s people and clients safer than ever.

Sam Emery, Emrill’s CFO, explained the importance of education and development to Emrill’s ongoing success: “Emrill is driven by its excellent people. We are committed to employing, retaining and developing a diverse range of talent and giving our employees the tools they need to excel and progress in their careers. As a result, we have several employees who have been with us since the very beginning and have many more celebrating key service milestones, including five years, ten years and 15 years.”

To expand its learning and development offering, Emrill achieved Continuing Professional Development (CPD) accreditation in 2021 and has gone on to have twelve courses accredited. These courses are available not only to Emrill employees but also to other organisations via the CPD website, so other companies can learn and benefit from them. Emrill also launched Masterminds, a knowledge-sharing programme developed to circulate relevant, credible and current knowledge, experience and expertise through masterclasses, enabling employees to connect with experienced and trusted subject matter experts. Emrill also provides a range of courses for trainees and graduates with the aim of upskilling employees so they can become the facilities managers of the future.

Emrill has also launched several initiatives that focus on employees’ wellbeing beyond their physical safety and education opportunities. ‘A Better You’ has been developed to prioritise the emotional and mental wellbeing of employees. As part of this initiative, Emrill’s Employee Assistance Programme gives Emrill’s employees, and their families, access to mental health services and professionals.

“Emrill takes a holistic approach to our employees and their wellbeing,” said Harrison. “We understand a happy, engaged workforce is essential to Emrill’s continued success. Through the provision of diversity and inclusivity programmes, tools to empower our employees to create a healthy work-life balance and events, such as Emrill’s annual staff carnival, we have been able to stay connected, even while we have been facing the challenges of the last couple of years.”

In recent months, Emrill has announced the launch of its efficiency-enhancing app for vertical communities, which has enabled the organisation to increase manpower efficiency by 20 per cent and reduce manual task supervision by 10 per cent. To increase efficiencies in the delivery of hard FM services, Emrill developed and launched the TechCompanion app. The app, which is currently being utilised by over 2,000 technicians, engineers and supervisors across multiple sites and shifts, empowers Emrill's employees to access and utilise data and information to drive efficiencies across the company's contracts and support success for its clients' projects and communities.  Emrill has also launched an online hub for all employees, providing them access to corporate communications, offers, a knowledge hub and administrative approvals via their desktops or mobile devices. As well as increasing efficiencies across the business, this hub presents the latest step in Emrill’s objective of becoming a paperless organisation.

Other sustainability initiatives Emrill has launched have included the provision of drinking water through the conversion of air humidity and the introduction of solar-powered equipment to reduce the carbon footprint of the organisation’s contracts.

Emrill has celebrated 20 years of operations in the UAE with a month-long calendar of employee events, including a raffle that gives employees the opportunity to win flights and cash prizes in addition to events that have brought employees and clients together to celebrate the organisation’s achievements over the past two decades.