Getting 14,000 People Home Safe at the End of Each Day

For our construction customer who operates across several sectors, with large numbers of employees at multiple sites, keeping everyone safe and compliant can be complex and challenging. My job is to help simplify their procurement and safety so that together, we can get their 14,000 staff home safe at the end of each day.

With such a range of roles from cleaners in schools to people working on overhead lines with all the associated safety issues, we need to be able to help them manage and mitigate risks as diverse as high voltage and working at height to slips, trips and falls.

To help them do this we've created an agreed catalogue of products. We undertook hazard profiling for all their job roles, identified the health and safety challenges, and put together a safety kit for each, together with an illustrated list of items. This was loaded against their contracts, so that for each role there was appropriate branding added to the kit.

Ordering access to the agreed product range is carefully controlled so an individual needs to be in a specific role on a specific contract to be able to access the right products or kit. This protects both the employee and the business and ensures everyone has the right equipment to do their jobs safely, productively and comfortably. Our expert product knowledge has allowed us to rationalise and reduce their product portfolio down from around 10,000 items to 5,000.

During the shortages of PPE caused by the pandemic, the market was awash with non-compliant goods. So, even though we were unable to supply some items, we supported our customers by assessing what they sourced elsewhere for suitability and compliance.

We've also helped the customer reduce cost and wastage by creating a range of bespoke garments. This involved working in partnership with a manufacturer, using our specialist sector knowledge to ensure the appropriateness of the designs and that the resulting workwear would be fit for purpose.

A further innovation we have been able to bring them is PPE vending facilities for their highways maintenance division. This gives teams who are out on the roads, in all weathers at all times, round the clock access to the right PPE, even at 2am on a snowy February morning.

This is just one of countless examples of where our deep understanding of the needs of customers in the sector helps us to tailor product and training solutions that keep people and businesses in the construction industry safe.

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