Context
Hydraclean are one of the country’s leading water treatment companies. They provide essential services for the monitoring and control of Legionella across a huge portfolio of businesses in a wide range of sectors. They have many different departments within their organisation, including risk assessors, engineers, chemists, hygienists and office workers. Each branch of the organisation has its own individual health, safety and wellbeing demands.
Risk assessors and Engineers visit sites to assess their client’s waterborne risks and carry out remedial works for them where necessary. Hygienists and Chemists work under controlled lab conditions and many office and operational staff adopt hybrid working between Hydraclean’s premises and working from home. The teams are required to work in lots of varied environments, including aerospace, local authority, construction, shipping, military sites and many more.
Hydraclean’s objective is to eliminate risk for their clients wherever possible, keeping businesses and their people safe. We work with them on a retainer basis, providing vital support for this business that needs incredibly strict and robust health and safety procedures based on the kind of work they do.
Task
Despite having over 25 years’ experience working for the company as a chemist, the new manager didn’t have the requisite training for the health and safety manager role and they quickly needed to gain the right qualifications.
Although there were no emergency challenges to the current health and safety procedures, Hydraclean clearly needed some expert support to steady the ship and provide consistency during a period of significant transition in the company.
Solution
Our first step was to complete a gap analysis against ISO 45001, the global standard for occupational health and safety, to get a clear picture on the health and safety performance of the business, and then provide advice and support for the new health and safety team on how to execute any tasks that came from it.
As the business moved into a new sector in the construction industry, we were able to provide help and support to help them navigate and understand the Construction Design and Management (CDM) Regulations and provide training for their people to understand the duty holders. Consequently, they now feel confident and comfortable in tailoring these processes to their needs with confidence and skill for the future.
By building a relationship with Hydraclean, we were able to offer further support and suggestions on how they could continually improve health, safety and wellbeing in their business. We advised on the importance of mental health support, especially during periods of change and provided guidance on how best to provide support for their teams.
Results
Operating five separate departments, each with varying health and safety demands and dependencies, it could feel like they were running five different companies at once. Engineers, chemists, hygienists, risk assessors and office workers have different needs, spreads across varied locations. Add to that the huge portfolio of sectors they work with, and the situation they’re faced with looked very complex indeed.
We were able to provide the advice and support that Hydraclean needed to navigate some significant change in their business without any downtime or negative affect on performance. Through our audits and surveys, such as for noise and hand arm vibration, combined with personalised advice and guidance, we were able to make sure they knew all their bases were covered whilst the business could continue to perform at full capacity.
On top of this, we were able to add value to their processes, supporting in the development of new health and wellbeing measures for their teams. They now have two trained mental health first aiders.. This is an area of their organisation that they hadn’t previously focussed on and will only serve to strengthen their team’s wellbeing and productivity.
Looking Ahead
A huge part of what we do is focussed on the idea of continual improvement for our clients. We want to leave a lasting impact that will add value to their business and instil good health and safety practices as part of the culture of their teams.
At Hydraclean, all managers hold generic health and safety qualifications from an online source. We saw an opportunity to improve their knowledge and skills beyond these generalised qualifications. We’re currently building a bespoke health and safety training course for all of Hydraclean’s managers. We also identified where noise and vibration surveys were required and have subsequently delivered detailed reports on both topics. This will mean that their knowledge is better suited to the environments they work in, and ultimately creates a better working environment for all their clients and staff for the future.
