What this is, and what it isn't.
Greystar is reviewing its operational contingent labour arrangements across its UK and Ireland portfolio, including subsidiaries such as Student Roost. We want a like-for-like view of the market as it stands today — and an understanding of current spend across the category — directly from you.
The discovery covers the services you provide to Greystar assets within head office, property management, maintenance, cleaning, concierge, front of house, porterage and security. It captures every temporary placement from the last six months — both workers currently on assignment and placements that have since ended. It does not include permanent recruitment or recruitment for fixed-term contractors.
This is not a tender. It is a short, structured data request — what we call a commercial discovery. You submit placement data and your supplier profile, and it gives Greystar a clear, like-for-like picture of how its contingent workforce is engaged, paid and charged today.
The exercise is run through Greystar's group procurement team, with Nutral Solutions supporting as neutral vendor. All communication, submissions and analysis flow through Nutral. No supplier gets preferential routing.
Three things to work with.
You have received three items — this guide, the covering letter, and the workbook. You will only need to complete one of them.
Covering letter
Two-page letter explaining scope, regulatory context and timescales. Read once.
This guide
The field-by-field manual you're reading now. Come back to the field guide (Section 04) as you complete the workbook.
Placement data workbook
Greystar Placement Data Return.xlsx — three sheets: README, PLACEMENTS (the one you fill in), and DROPDOWN LISTS. This is what you return.
Email submission
Send the completed workbook to pete.sheppard@nutral.uk by 7 August 2026. Receipt acknowledged within one working day.
From zero to filling in.
The workbook is designed so you can start entering data within five minutes of opening it. Follow these four steps before you type the first entry.
Open the workbook in Excel
Works in Excel 2016 or later, Microsoft 365, and Excel for Mac. Google Sheets will open it but may not preserve the dropdowns — please use Excel if possible.
Read the README sheet
The first tab explains purpose, return details and timeline in under 150 words. It also confirms the confidentiality terms.
Go to the PLACEMENTS sheet
This is the only sheet you need to complete. Row 4 contains a worked example in italics — use it as a reference, then delete it before returning the workbook.
Enter one row per worker placement
Yellow cells are for you to type in. Grey cells have dropdowns (click the arrow). Green cells are formulas — don't touch these, they populate automatically. Keep going until every placement from the last six months is covered — workers currently on assignment and those whose placements have ended.
Work from your payroll export, not from memory.
The fastest way to complete this accurately is to export your placement list for the last six months from your payroll or VMS system, then copy across into the PLACEMENTS sheet. Most suppliers finish in 25–40 minutes this way.
Thirteen columns, explained.
The PLACEMENTS sheet has thirteen columns. Most are self-explanatory. Where they aren't, you'll find guidance and a worked example below.
| Worker Ref | Role | Asset | Region | Pay £/hr | Charge £/hr |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | Housekeeper | Chapter Old Street | UK — London | 13.85 | 20.08 |
Workers have names. Don't send them.
Greystar and Nutral do not need personally identifiable worker data to analyse your rates. In fact, we actively do not want it. Submissions containing worker names, National Insurance numbers, PPS numbers or dates of birth will be returned unopened.
Use a reference, not a name
In the Worker Ref column, use a short anonymised reference. If you need an internal mapping, keep it on your side — we only need something we can use to discuss a specific row if there is a query.
Good and bad examples
- Good: A, B, C · JS, MK, PD · W-14782 · Worker-01
- Bad: John Smith · Maria Kowalski · Peter Dunne
- Bad: Any entry that contains an NI number (e.g. QQ123456C) or PPS number
- Bad: Dates of birth, home addresses, nationality, visa status
Nutral processes this data on Greystar's behalf.
Under the services agreement, Nutral Solutions Limited acts as Data Processor. Data is held confidentially, used only for this procurement exercise, and analysed on an anonymised, aggregated basis at sector and region level.
The dates that matter.
The discovery runs from issue on 20 July to the response deadline on 7 August 2026. The confirmed dates also appear on the covering letter.
One email. Done.
Return the completed workbook as an attachment to an email. Use the subject line below so we can route your response correctly.
pete.sheppard@nutral.uk
Subject: Greystar Commercial Discovery — [Your Company Name] · Deadline: 7 August 2026
Include in your covering email
- Your intermediary / umbrella payroll suppliers, if any sit in your pay chains beyond what is captured in the Intermediary Name column.
- The accreditations you hold — FCSA, SafeRec, Professional Passport, SIA, BICSc, ISO and so on. A reference list is on the DROPDOWN LISTS sheet of the workbook.
- Your insurance position — employer's liability, public liability and any sector-specific cover, with limits.
After you submit
- Receipt is acknowledged within one working day.
- If the data has obvious issues — missing columns, PII included, formulas overwritten — we will come back to you with a clean copy and ask you to resubmit.
- If the submission is clean, nothing more is needed from you — any follow-up comes from Nutral.
- Greystar operational teams are not involved in receiving or reviewing this data. Please do not contact them directly on matters related to this exercise. Questions for Greystar's group procurement team are routed via Nutral.
Common questions.
The questions below come up repeatedly across commercial discoveries. If yours isn't here, email us.
Complete both jurisdictions in the same workbook — one row per placement, use the Country / Region dropdown to indicate which applies. Put Irish rates in euros, UK rates in sterling. We reconcile currency from the region selection.
A full response is strongly preferred — the review only works on complete data. If you genuinely only have partial data, submit what you have and flag the gap in your covering email, and we will come back to you if anything is unclear.
The existing services agreement between Greystar and Nutral covers the handling of this data. Your submission flows through that agreement and does not breach supplier-level confidentiality clauses. Your data is not shared with other suppliers, and any analysis is anonymised and aggregated.
No. This exercise captures placement data from the last six months only — it does not ask for, or evaluate, forward pricing.
Yes. The discovery covers every temporary placement from the last six months across the Greystar UK and Ireland portfolio, including subsidiaries such as Student Roost — whether the worker is still on assignment or the placement has ended. For ended placements, enter the final shift worked in the Shift Date column.
No. Permanent recruitment and recruitment for fixed-term contractors are outside the scope of this discovery. Include temporary contingent placements only — head office, property management, maintenance, cleaning, concierge, front of house, porterage and security roles.
State them in your covering email when you return the workbook: your umbrella/intermediary payroll suppliers, the accreditations you hold (a reference list is on the DROPDOWN LISTS sheet) and your insurance position. They do not go on the PLACEMENTS sheet.
Enter the worker's typical weekly hours averaged over the last 12 weeks. If the worker is genuinely zero-hours with highly variable patterns, enter the 12-week average and note "zero-hours" in the Engagement Model dropdown.
The workbook is built for Excel 2016+. If you're opening it in Google Sheets or Numbers, the data validation may not carry across. Please open in Excel — if that isn't possible, reach out and we will send a simplified CSV version.
Raw responses are seen only by Nutral's commercial team. Greystar's group procurement team receives anonymised, aggregated analysis — individual supplier data is not shared with Greystar operational teams at this stage.