An insight into our new health and safety services

Host: Welcome to NFP insights. Today we've got John Williams from our health and safety division at direct safety. How's it going John?

John Williams: Really good yeah, we've been part of the NFP group since the 6th of January so really enjoying it and yeah it's a great opportunity for us as a business to take it to the next level. So yeah very good.

Host: Really good to have you on board. So just this is a new kind of business vertical I suppose for NFP here in Europe, so first question to you John is going to be.
What exactly do direct safety do you? kind of 30-second elevator pitch.

John Williams: Well, what we do is we provide health and safety services consultancy and Training Services predominant to small medium-sized businesses in the UK. So again setting their structure up for managing health and safety and supporting them, in sort of developing health and safety policies procedures and ensuring that they comply with the law.

Host: So when you talk about health and safety specifically what other kind of core services that you deliver?

John Williams: So we have got some core products that we do, so every client we work with gets a really detailed audit at the start. Obviously so we can find out where they're matching up with legal compliance in the UK. From that, they get an action plan so they've got a clear strategy of getting things in place that are missing. Obviously, if they're doing good things and we recognise that as well. Then from that we develop a health and safety policy management system for them to implement what we're asking them in the action plan and then they also get an employee health and safety handbook which is really important to get sort of the key messages across to the employee, so we make that nice and pictorial and to the point.
So again if you're giving it out to work because it's a little bit more interesting than just a sort of wordy legal policy. So every client gets those those sort of core packages and the backup and the support of a health and safety advice, if they need anything if anything goes wrong we keep clients up to date with monthly newsletters and obviously there's lots of other things that we can do sort of support them from these core services.

Host: So in a business and apologies for the ignorance here so because like I said this is a new business line so if you were coming into an office like this which is a professional services office, we haven't got any machines we haven't got any kind of moving parts how would you help a business like this?

John Williams: So again every business has got it got its risks and while an office is a lower risk environment the things we'd be looking at is things like using computers, display screen equipment. We've worked a lot with businesses through covid we're home working is now, hybrid working is now the new thing. So that's really important and something that you know just because they're at home doesn't mean that there's no duty of care that we haven't got to look after them so that's been a big piece of our work.

Host: What exactly when you go into their home and you're looking you're doing that audit. What kind of things are you looking for?

John Williams: Just that they've got a setup that they're working safely. So obviously in the office then it's very well equipped, so we want to make sure that we're not giving them any sort of back problems or any stress issue or anything like that, that you might pick up in an office that we're not picking up at home. And other things we'd look at is things like driving for work. So you think of the office and it's a pretty safe environment but if we've got you to know 10 or 15 guys out on the road doing 25,000 miles a year then you know we need to make sure that we're looking after that aspect. So every business has gone its different risks and we'll focus on that.

Host: I'm just picking you up on that bit, so that's if say that's not just if they've got a company car that could be someone just traveling for work it's their own car? traveling to a meeting?

John Williams: If they're using that for business and that's a great one because that's often what people may say they'll focus on the company cars but then people use their own cars. Really important that they've got business insurance for example, a lot of people won't check that, so yeah that's a good example.

Host: So on the other end of the scale then, we're surrounded by manufacturing businesses here on this business park. These are the kind of businesses say making widgets? So when you're doing your audit and inspection when you're in there what other kind of things you're looking for within those businesses? I know you said about doing an audit but what other kind of specific things?

John Williams: Yeah what we're really looking at is the management of health and safety so you know how they're managing things on a day-to-day basis how they're looking after their people and they're maintaining their equipment how they're checking their equipment and obviously we work with businesses like that then we'll do a real in-depth inspection as well. So we'll be looking at things like guarding the machines we'll be looking at interaction between vehicles and people, we'll be looking at signage so really everything that yeah everything's health and safety related within that within that business. But what we're interested in is how they're managing it, and that's where we want to help want to help to put a good foundation in so they can they can manage health and safety and comply with the law but also make it part of what they do so it's not to onerous. You know it's something they can do it's not something they're baffled with, but you know it works alongside what they're doing at the moment that's it.

Host: You said a word there law, so the cost so what are the kind of consequences of failing to comply or just completely ignoring this for a business?

John Williams: Again with health and safety law it's criminal law, so it's the same as any other crime. So again if you do breach health and safety regulations obviously at the worst end of the scale you've got, potential prison, you've got corporate manslaughter where the body corporate is prosecuted, you've got fines potential limited fines. So at the higher end you know you've got quite a lot of consequences but you know the criminal element is the important thing and ignoring it is another good point because ignorance is not a defense. So you can't just say well I didn't know about that so that's why I didn't do it. You know and that's where we can help by making sure they do know about that in the audit in our updates and they do know how to comply with the law and how to implement things through their management system.

Host: So next question I've got for you is, what makes direct safety different? so how do you differentiate yourselves from your nearest competitors?

John Williams: I think what we try and do is really focus on what the client wants instead of what we want if you want. What is inward looking so a lot of a lot of other consultancies you know have gone to sort of cloud-based products and obviously keeping people you know office based and supporting from distance, where we would rather be face to face and I think that's what our business and our client base want.

Host: When they say cloud basically, you're talking about like online questionnaires?

John Williams: Yeh, online systems which have got the place and you know good and we would use them as well. But our services are a lot more focused on getting out and seeing the client, being there and supporting them face to face.

Host: Have you got any kind of are there any particular industries that you'd say that direct safety are specialists in?

John Williams: We've got a broad range of industries that we work with, so construction, manufacturing, leisure, retail so we look at pretty much everything. Transport and distribution we've got two guys who are transport managers as well as health and safety experts.

Host: Managers within direct safety?

John Williams: No they've got transport manager qualification, so that's another thing that we do we do fleet audits so we'll look at fleet management as well so that's another aspect of what we do so yeah there's not many sort of industries that we won't yet we won't look at .

Host: So in particularly transport and Logistics NFP are quite specialist in that area. So if you're going into one of our haulage clients or our transport clients what particular kind of aspects of their health and safety kind of policies would you be looking at?

John Williams: So it's twofold really with that type of business so usually, they've got awareness or Distribution Hub, so that's where we'd focus on the health and safety side of things. Then we've got a Fleet Management product as well where we'd look at how they're managing that Fleet. So again that would be looking at their sort of daily checks, mots, maintenance and we also do a specific driver handbook as well right for the for the drivers as well so that's that's the two sort of products that we look at on there. So Fleet Management, health and safety they both go really well together and cross over but that's, you know those are the types of businesses we like really because we can look at the full range of risks and as I say get involved with both aspects.

Host: On that you mentioned construction, a lot of these typical typical construction business would be kind of like subbing their projects yeah so you might have a big where we've got a warehouse a few whereas warehouses being built next to us. I assume the kind of parent company there will be subbing out the on the side the groundworks and the finishing and the interiors. Can you handle that kind of contract to work? how does that work?

John Williams: Yeah I mean exactly right so what you've got now in in the UK and the construction industry you'll have what we call a principal contractor. So that's a company that will be at the top of the tree that will be building that project. But what happens now is they will exactly so they subcontract those packages out, so you'll have a groundworker, brickwork, electrician so on and so so forth and that is tends to be the level that we will support. So what these principal contractors will ask for is obviously all that company's health and safety documentation to demonstrate their competent. So again that's where we come in and help them establish those systems and there's also accreditations as well in that in that sector that we work with, so for example a principal contract to us so yeah you can work for us you can quote for us but you've got to have a certain accreditation, so there's a variety chas smiles and safe contractor are the most common ones. Again that's an accreditation that we can help support that client with and get that client, so not only does it get them legally compliant but it also gives them greater opportunities to work with bigger companies.

Host: So finally since you joined NFP, we've been I know personally I've been working on you working with you to develop a range of fixed price solutions or services should we call them for our clients. Could you tell us a little bit about, how we came to those services? and who they're aimed at? and what the differentiator is between the four?

John Williams: Okay so what we've done there is we've just looked at what the majority of our clients take from us in regard to a service, and as I say we've split those into four. So in four packages there's some sort of core products, core services that everyone will get. So that includes that audit, the action plan, the management system, the handbook, the advice and the update so that is in all four packages. So the main differentiator then is number of visits and that's always what we talk about with a client when we go and see them. How often do you want us to come in? Inevitably as I say that the more they want us to come in, the more we can get involved. But we leave that down to the client to tell us what do you think you need? Obviously, we'll work with them on that but usually, they're pretty clear on sort of how often they want us to accumulate it tends to be the larger the client the more often we're there.
The good thing with that is we can get sort of embedded then which is what we want to be. We want them to think, we can't do without direct safety. They come in every quarter every six months, you know it's invaluable we can't do without it and that's you know what brings us our retention of our business.

Host: Thanks for that John, found that really insightful, hope everyone found it really useful too if you want more information about our health and safety offering at direct safety part of NFP visit the nfp.co.uk website.