From Daunting to Done: Achieving Three ISO Certifications in Record Time

Summary

In this podcast episode, Hannah from Blue Machinery Group shares her journey of achieving ISO certifications, discussing the challenges and successes faced along the way. The conversation covers the importance of engagement, management support, and the benefits of simultaneous certification. Hannah emphasises the need for continuous improvement and the positive impact of involving the team in the process. The episode concludes with reflections on the certification experience and future plans for further health and safety and environmental standards development.

Takeaways

• Staff engagement is crucial for successful ISO implementation.
• Health and safety should be seen as facilitators, not obstacles.
• Digital documentation improves accessibility and engagement.
• Simultaneous certification can streamline processes and enhance ownership.
• Management support is vital for driving ISO initiatives.
• Training and familiarisation help reduce resistance to change.
• Post-certification, continuous improvement is essential.
• Visibility and communication have significantly improved post-ISO.
• The journey of certification is ongoing and requires commitment.
• Involvement of the team leads to better outcomes and ownership. 

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to ISO Certification Journey

03:03 Engagement and Communication Challenges

05:57 Implementation Strategies and Tools

08:44 The Decision to Pursue Multiple Certifications

11:37 Management Support and Team Involvement

14:29 Benefits of ISO Certification

17:06 Training and Familiarization for Auditors

19:52 Reflections on the Certification Process

22:37 Future Plans and Continuous Improvement

Key Links

Auva Website: www.auva.com

Apple Podcast:  https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/by-all-standards/id1771677594

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/79OUNj3vY9dmESR3okwHJa?si=871837f56dc149b6

LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/company/auva-certification-ltd 

Instagram: @auvacert

Michael Venner:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelvenner-isocertificationexpert/ 

Blue Machinery Group LinkedIN:  https://www.linkedin.com/company/bluemachinerygroup/posts/?feedView=all

Hannah James LinkedIN:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannah-france-cmiosh-dipnebosh-90b8b511b/

Blue Machinery Website:  https://blue-group.com/ 

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to ISO Certification Journey
• 3:03 Engagement and Communication Challenges
• 5:57 Implementation Strategies and Tools
• 8:44 The Decision to Pursue Multiple Certifications
• 11:37 Management Support and Team Involvement
• 14:29 Benefits of ISO Certification
• 17:06 Training and Familiarisation for Auditors
• 19:52 Reflections on the Certification Process
• 22:37 Future Plans and Continuous Improvement

Transcript

Michael Venner (00:03)
Yeah, good. Right. OK. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the latest podcast. We're joined today by Hannah, who is one of our newly certified clients. If want to just introduce yourself, Hannah.

Hannah (00:19)
Yeah, I'm Hannah France, work for Blue Machinery Group. a material handling distributor and engineering company. And we have recently in September received three of our ISO accreditations.

Michael Venner (00:34)
Yeah, that was a yeah plus the SSIP. So you got ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and 45001 with SSIP. You went all in. All in. Very brave, very brave. Yeah. So today we're just going to have a little chat about your experiences on that journey. Why you went down that route and things like that really. So it could be quite daunting for people I think.

Hannah (00:38)
Plus that too. Yeah.

We did.

Michael Venner (01:04)
It's one of the unknown things isn't it really?

Hannah (01:07)
It kind of, I think a lot of it feels like a bit of a foreign language if it's not something you've worked with before. So trying to communicate what the ISOs mean to people who've not come across them before is quite difficult at times.

Michael Venner (01:21)
Yeah, yeah definitely because you've got experience before haven't you?

Hannah (01:25)
Yeah, so I was involved with ISOs at previous company that I worked for, so I was responsible for maintaining those. So I do understand the language and I'm very familiar with what's expected, but it was a completely new thing to a lot of the people within the business.

Michael Venner (01:43)
Like I it can be quite daunting when they don't know what to expect. So when did you start the journey? So you're certified in September, you've got your final certification.

Hannah (01:53)
We were certified in September. Realistically, we've been talking about the ISO since I joined the business back in 2021. But we've been doing a lot of background work to try and establish and implement processes, try and make them work for us. So we didn't really start until probably end of 2023. We started having conversations with Auva and then it was early

24 that we sort of really rolled out the, you know, officially rolled out the process and we had over in April to do our stage one gap analysis and then obviously back in September to do the stage two.

Michael Venner (02:36)
Yeah, I suppose just put a bit of context, you're quite a large organisation, aren't you? So it doesn't take that long for everyone. Yeah. And it's over multiple sites as well. Is that correct? Yeah.

Hannah (02:41)
We are, we've probably got around 200. Yeah.

Yeah, we had Auva visited our at spares our spares site which is in Warrington, our central site which is in Northwich and our Scotland site in Stirling.

Michael Venner (02:59)
Yeah, yeah, so it's quite a task. that so you kind of 2023 so about a year was it roughly really sort of getting prepared.

Hannah (03:06)
Yeah, I'd say, I'd say, yeah, we've been sort of moving towards it more seriously.

Michael Venner (03:12)
Yeah. So what you said, you've started talking about it since 2021. So what was the, what was the reason for the delays? it just COVID?

Hannah (03:18)
Yeah, I, well, I came in, I came into the business in April, 2021, and there was already a really good foundation, lots and lots of documentation in place, but it was trying to sort of share that documentation and get engagement from staff that we had to work on a little bit.

Michael Venner (03:24)
Management.

Hannah (03:43)
So we've massively updated our documentation. We've taken a lot of it digital so that it's more accessible to staff. We've really had some engagement from the team. We set up committees. We made sure we had in-person toolbox talks. So we've had a lot more engagement from staff over the last three years, which has allowed us to sort of move towards this.

Michael Venner (04:04)
Right, okay, so yeah, so there's a lot of preparation involved, obviously. yeah, okay, been quite a long journey. Yeah, good to finally get it. Yeah, good to finally get it, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, that's good achievement. So what were the key things that needed to change in the organisation? What sort of bits did you have to sort of focus on that you found were lacking, really?

Hannah (04:11)
It has. Got there eventually.

Absolutely.

I think engagement was a key one. think particularly from the health and safety side of things, think health and safety often seems like an obstacle to people and it really shouldn't be that. We should be looking at the people who we work with as facilitators of health and safety rather than people who are causing issues. So we quite early on in 2021 set up committees and we set up

in-person toolbox talks to make sure that staff got the opportunity to have their say. If we were rolling out processes or we rolling out things like risk assessments, they had opportunity to give feedback. So that was really important and it kind of gave everybody a little bit more ownership of health and safety. I think quality-wise, we were already doing a huge amount of that already. We've got a lot of digital systems, we use SAP

Michael Venner (05:14)
Thanks.

Hannah (05:23)
We use things like fast-filled forms. So there's already really good traceability in terms of our processes. And then the environmental side, think that's been a more recent one. And I think it's something that businesses are having to look at a lot more at the moment when we're seeing tenders come through or pre-qualification questionnaires. There is significantly more questions based around.

what we're doing environmentally than there ever has been previously. So that was kind of a wagon we had to get onto and we wanted to do it sort of ahead of the curve.

Michael Venner (06:02)
Yeah, we're definitely seeing a lot of growth in the environmental and ESG is the big buzzword at the moment that's obviously everyone's like you say jumping on the bandwagon, which is a good thing to be honest. Yeah, it is a good thing. you're sort of saying that the 9001 system was pretty good already. Health and safety was sort of there, but needed a bit better and environmental was lacking.

Hannah (06:07)
Yeah.

Yeah, we

Yeah, we had some really good foundations. It was just building on them and it was getting the value out of things as well. think, you know, before I came into the business, a lot of documentation was put in place, which was really great, but it was getting people to use it and see the value in it and edit it and amend it and change it and adapt it to suit people. We have a lot of remote staff. So we have engineers who are out on the road and we have sales staff who are out on the road.

And giving them a Word document is not always going to be the right thing to do. So a lot of our forms have gone on to Fastfield, which is like an app-based form system so that the engineers can access those forms, whether they're on a quarry or in the office or in the yard. So we've just made it that bit more accessible to people, which has helped with engagement.

Michael Venner (07:02)
Okay.

Okay, was that sort of a suggestion from the management team or the people on the road? How did that come about? Because it is a big thing when people are on the road trying to keep them engaged and communicate with them.

Hannah (07:25)
Yeah, I think, you know, when you roll something out, you do get a bit of resistance from time to time, particularly with new things and particularly when we're trying to change things. So if we were rolling out a new bit of documentation that was difficult for the guys to access, they were never going to uptake it as much as if they could get onto it easily and use it and have a play around with it. We already had fast fields.

for other things in the background. So, you know, we sort of felt like we could utilise it a lot more. And since then, pretty much all of our health and safety forms have gone on to Fastfield. So whether it's reporting an accident, whether it's doing a point of work risk assessment, whether it's doing equipment checks in the warehouse, they're all now on that app-based form system, which makes them so much easier to complete.

Michael Venner (08:18)
So it's actually brought benefits really to streamline your system by the sound of it.

Hannah (08:22)
It has and Fastfield is very intelligent. can sort of set up rules. You can get things saved into certain folders. So it cuts down the admin a little bit as well. And yeah, I get to see what the guys are seeing on site. Previously we'd use like paper point of work risk assessment forms, which are fine. It means that the point of where risk assessments were being done, but actually the results of those risk assessments weren't being seen for maybe weeks.

because they were going in the back of the engineer's van and then being brought to us in a stack a few weeks later. Whereas, yeah, whereas now we see them immediately. So if there's a problem on that site, you know, we can address that, which is great.

Michael Venner (08:56)
screwed up.

Excellent, excellent. So why go for all three at the same time? You know, some people just do one and then add another one a couple of years later.

Hannah (09:13)
We're suckers for punishment, I think. I think they all fit together really nicely. There's obviously similarities across the three standards, but I think we were sort of in the mindset that if we were gonna do one, we may as well do all three. And I think we were introducing things to people, so it made sense to kind of introduce lots of things and get everybody to sort of take ownership.

these three areas that we were going for and seeing how we can use them to benefit the business internally. And I think, you know, when we initially looked at getting all three ISOs, there's obviously massive benefits to us externally in getting these. helps us with tenders and things like that. But we were really, really conscious that we wanted the internal benefits to outweigh the external ones.

Michael Venner (10:06)
Yeah.

Hannah (10:08)
And we sort of felt that doing all three at the same time, we were going to put ourselves some really good foundations in place to really improve as a business. And I do think they tie nicely together as well.

Michael Venner (10:20)
Yeah, I think you're quite right. I mean, it's a big task, especially when you're a large organisation, so you've done a fantastic job really. But yeah, people don't like change, do they? So sometimes doing one big change at the same time kind of gets over that initial impact, doesn't it?

Hannah (10:37)
Yeah, well, I think to be honest, you know, when we were developing documentation initially, you know, you don't necessarily get the engagement that you want to see, but when you start involving people in it, particularly things like the non-conformance process, which was quite new to everybody, we sort of had key members of staff involved in looking at that and really sort of taking some value away from it.

and actually realizing that if we start recording these non-conformances and start trying to solve the bigger problems rather than firefighting with the smaller problems, it's going to really benefit them in the long term. So I think it was trying to get people to see, even if they're seeing value in a couple of documents or a couple of forms rather than seeing value in the whole system, because it is a big system, that's the way to do it.

Michael Venner (11:26)
Yes.

Yeah, it kind of gets them on board a little bit easier, I suppose, when they start seeing benefits to them as an employee. Yeah.

Hannah (11:32)
Yeah.

Yeah, and not giving people something as a finished product as well. So we'd develop a form or we'd develop a process and say, right, this is what we're thinking. Can you give your input or does this not work? And why does it not work? ensuring people have got ownership of things is really important.

Michael Venner (11:53)
Hmm, yeah, that's good. Was there some resistance from people? Or was everyone generally?

Hannah (11:59)
I think there always is a little bit of resistance, there? know, change is difficult. And I think everyone's got their own jobs to do. Everyone's very, very busy and focused on doing a great job of their particular role. So, you we have to try and introduce these things in a way that was not distracting from that. But a lot of it does help with people's roles and eventually.

should streamline things and should make things slightly easier, particularly with things like the non-conformance process.

Michael Venner (12:33)
Yeah yeah yeah definitely. So with all these systems you need a lot of management sort of buy-in and input. If they're not concerned about it then it's very hard to implement. So sounds like you had quite a lot of management support but...

Hannah (12:48)
We did fortunately senior management buy-in was really, really strong. And we had a few initial meetings with Paula where we had quite a few members of the senior management team come and sit on a team's call with her. And she was great at explaining what the process is and what these ISOs are about. Cause as I said at the start, it does feel like a foreign language sometimes if you're not familiar with it.

and what the real benefits would be to us as a business and everyone really bought into that. I think, you know, initially there was that thing of, gosh, this is going to be a huge amount of work. But it was reassuring to know that actually a lot of the work we'd already done, we'd already established a lot of processes. We had a lot of documentation in place. you know, had a lot of traceability in terms of our quality processes because of the systems that we use.

Michael Venner (13:30)
Mm.

Hannah (13:41)
So it was just adding to that and making them a bit more valuable and a bit more sort of widespread across the business. But yeah, senior management buy-in has been really strong throughout and we've had a really good number of senior management at the management reviews of which we've done two this year. So we did one in January, which was via Teams. And then we did one in July where everybody came to our central office in Northwich. We all sat around a table.

look through our processes and we looked through some of our key documentation. We fed back on the internal audits that we'd done that far. And it was really, it was a really good opportunity for senior management to get sort of stuck in with developing some of the things that we're putting in place.

Michael Venner (14:27)
So they see the benefits, they? kind of, sounds like they're quite enthusiastic about it.

Hannah (14:32)
Yeah, absolutely. And I think, I think the really important thing from senior management is that the focus has been on the internal benefits rather than the external ones. I think it's very easy to look at the internal external ones because they're going to make us more money. Ultimately, if we're, if we're winning tenders because of them. But what we really wanted to do was improve as a business, improve at protecting our staff, improve at protecting the environment and make sure we're, you know, internally providing.

best service that we can do, whether that's externally to our customers or internally between departments. So the focus has been very much internal and the external benefits are almost like an added bonus really.

Michael Venner (15:17)
that's good for my personal experience. A lot of people have to get the standards like say for tenders and things like that but if they actually embrace it there's huge benefits to it so instead of thinking of it as a tick box exercise and gets us a certificate and we can get contracts and tenders you know embrace it it will actually add benefits to the to the business really yeah definitely.

Hannah (15:24)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, absolutely.

Michael Venner (15:44)
sort of got involved in the implementation because obviously it got a lot of people so I'm assuming it wasn't just yourself you had a couple of people helping you

Hannah (15:51)
Yeah, we've had people sort of from each branch helping out. I think I've dragged a few unwilling victims in who are now flying the ISO flag, fortunately. But we've obviously had an internal audit team as well who have been great. So we've sort of assigned someone from each of our branches to be an internal auditor. So they've done a fantastic job, particularly because it's been so new to them. So we use Fastfield again.

for writing our audit programs and all the questions were set out for them so they couldn't really go too far wrong. And they had my support throughout as well. But I think they've quite enjoyed that. They've almost seen the sort of behind the scenes of the business and looked at areas that they wouldn't necessarily have looked at previous. So they've done a fantastic job of that. And then we also have committees around the group as well who have, you

had eyes on some of our key bits of documentation and have been able to give their input should they wish. then we've, know, anyone who's been, anyone who's shown a willing has been pulled in at some point to give some feedback. And most people have been, you know, really good at giving positive feedback and helping to shape the processes and forms that we have and getting on board, which has been.

It's been good.

Michael Venner (17:20)
Yeah, you can tell in companies sometimes there can be some resistance. I don't think they don't want to do it. I think it's the unknown and the fear that, how do I do audits and things like that? What's involved? But you're right, it is a good way of learning about your own business. And I see some people will, if they're from an office environment, they'll tend to go out on site to audit that and it helps them in their own jobs really. Yeah. So did they have to go on training? Did you implement?

Hannah (17:28)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Michael Venner (17:50)
sort of training for people.

Hannah (17:50)
We did sort of a bit of familiarization training that I've audited before and I co-audited for this. I'm obviously not allowed to officially audit because I'm too biased, but I co-audited so that we had a bit of a reference point as well. So I sat down with all the auditors at the start of the year. We went through the full program. We sort of talked about, you know, the types of conversations that people needed to have.

and we showed them the types of questions. We also went through the integrated management system because it's so big that just finding the documentation sometimes can be quite difficult. So we went through that, but throughout the process, we've had it sort of scheduled throughout the year. So I know when the guys are auditing to sort of be on hand to answer any questions if needed, but we've really encouraged them to go and ask the questions of other people in the business.

Michael Venner (18:24)
Mm.

Hannah (18:46)
because chances are they'll look at a question and they might not be able to answer it, but somebody else probably will be able to. And I think that's the key thing, trying to get as many different conversations going as possible.

Michael Venner (19:00)
Yeah, have you had since being certified, have you had more people sort of volunteer for things or it was your team sort of the same?

Hannah (19:05)
I think everyone's having a little bit of a rest now. think everyone's... No, I think, yeah, it's been really positive. A lot of the people who've got involved are now, I hope, hook, line and sinker for it all and are gonna continue with the things that we've put in place. We've a huge amount more site visits recently with some of the service team.

Michael Venner (19:11)
Yeah.

Hannah (19:34)
and me going out as well, which has been great because the engineers have been able to see us and they've been able to talk about any challenges that they've got. They've been able to talk about their general wellbeing. We've been able to look at the documentation that they do. So, you know, so much of this stuff is being carried forward and built on. And we keep saying any meeting we have where we talk about the ISO success, we keep saying that.

This is a foundation, it's not a destination, so we need to keep building on it. We've got to keep moving forward. And yeah, we've got a great foundation that we've built and obviously the ISO success shows that. But we're very keen to keep pushing it forward and keep improving.

Michael Venner (20:19)
I that's an important part actually. Some people put the system in and sort of leave it and I think there's a bit of nervousness sometimes and well that was certified we can't change it but I think it's very important to the more you use the system you sort of change it adapt it and tweak it you know as necessary it's a big part of it yeah it's very important. So what are some of the benefits you've gained so far?

Hannah (20:39)
Yeah, absolutely.

Michael Venner (20:50)
Really.

Hannah (20:50)
I think engagement is a big one. And I think visibility is also a big one. So engagement has gone up massively, I would say in the last year. We already, like I said, had committees in place. We had in-person toolbox talks. But especially using fast-field forms as well to get input from the guys that are out on site has really helped us.

We get to see a lot more information from our engineers, which we can then use to help protect them and to help protect other parties. And it helps us to develop our documentation as well. Things like our RAMS, if they spot something out on site, they can feed that back to us via the point of risk assessments that they're doing. And yeah, think engagement's been really, really strong. think people have...

It takes a few years, doesn't it, to sort of get through change. And we have been changing, I would say, rapidly since 2021. And it feels like a lot of it is now sort of bedding in and people are really getting it, which is positive. Because it does take time. And like I say, people are all focused on the job that they've got to do. Our engineers have got to go and fix machines at the end of the day. That is their job. And this, think, you know,

Michael Venner (21:48)
death it does.

Hannah (22:16)
initially felt like an add-on, whereas now it feels like it's fully integrated into their role. And same for the other people who are dealing with the ISO processes. then yeah, visibility as well. I think the whole thing we were doing before was around, we're very, very good at problem solving. That's what we do as a business. But I think there was a lot of firefighting happening.

Michael Venner (22:18)
Hmm.

Hannah (22:45)
Whereas now we're trying to, especially through the non-conformance process, we're trying to look at root causes of things and we're getting a lot more visibility on issues that we have because people are reporting them and we're putting them into logs, we're seeing trends so that we've got the information where we can go back and have a look, see what the root cause might have been and try and solve that rather than trying to solve all the individual problems which takes a lot of time.

Michael Venner (23:12)
Yeah, definitely. You're not going to change everything straight away. You're not going to fix everything. It's getting some of those big hitters and things like that.

Hannah (23:20)
Yeah. I think, I think the other, the benefit we've had as well is that, you know, like I say, this is, this has been going on for the best part of three years now. And there's been a huge amount of commitment from, from everybody across the group, really. And I think sometimes you know, plugging away at trying to get things implemented and people are using documentation and everyone's trying to improve things and you don't often stop and sort of.

take stock of what you've achieved. And this was a really nice point for us to do that. I think everyone, whilst they were quite nervous about the audits, I think everyone felt a real sense of achievement once we got to the end of that week, even before we'd been told we got them, we sort of thought, right, we've got ourselves through this. And that's down to every single person's hard work and every single person's commitment to the processes and all the rest of it that we've been doing. So it's been nice to have that.

Michael Venner (23:51)
Yeah.

Yeah.

It's huge achievement, especially for the size and complexity of your business and things like that. It's massive. So yeah, it can never happen with one person. It needs everyone, everyone getting involved. yeah, definitely. So did you have a big celebration when you finally got your certificates or was everyone just like, ugh?

Hannah (24:29)
Absolutely not, no.

It does.

I think we're going to have one at some point. I think we're into Christmas do territory at the moment. So we've got a few Christmas do's coming up. We've put some celebratory posts out on our socials and I'm sure we will do something to sort of mark it. Yeah, we're very much into Christmas do territory now.

Michael Venner (25:02)
Yeah, is it actually, might be early days, has it actually helped you get some new work so far? Obviously, what you're...

Hannah (25:09)
Not that I'm aware of at the moment or it may well have done, but I wouldn't particularly be aware of that. But I know for a fact it has helped a lot of people with filling out tenders. So we've had, you know, we have some people around the business who are probably more responsible than anyone else for completing tenders and they are.

arduous at times and really, really time consuming. And often one of the first questions you get asked is, have you got your ISOs? And if you have got your ISOs and you can tick that box, you move on about 20 questions, which is, is always nice. So yeah, I think, you know, it's a matter of time. We are, you know, we're good at winning business. We do a lot of repeat business. Our customers really trust in what we do. But this is just that added.

you know, bit of reassurance as well and peace of mind for our customers that we are excelling in these three areas. So yeah, those tenders when they're coming through, be aiming to pick up the business off the back of them.

Michael Venner (26:14)
Yeah, yeah, it takes time. yeah, yeah, especially what you're doing. It can take six, 12 months really, really for tenders to come to fruition, can't they? So what was the, what do you say was the hardest part of the implementation process? Was there one bit that was just took so much effort and time to get right?

Hannah (26:23)
Mm-hmm.

I think the month leading up to the stage two was quite stressful for everybody. I think it was fear of the unknown, I think for a lot of people, making sure we were sort of belt and braces on everything. We were already there quite comfortably, I think, but it's that last minute panic from everyone to sort of think, is everyone aware of this?

Michael Venner (26:44)
Okay.

Hannah (27:06)
Are we happy we've got really good examples that we can show the auditors of different things that we've been doing? Have we got any gaps that we need to address before that stage? And we were talking about it very frequently in toolbox talks and things like that, and everybody knew it was happening. I think we had a lot of people book in some annual leave at that point.

Michael Venner (27:29)
Apologies. It's funny that.

Hannah (27:32)
But yeah, I think it was just that apprehension, that fear of the unknown and just making sure that we were super, super prepared because we didn't want to just sort of coast through it. We wanted to do really well. So yeah, we spent a lot of time talking to individuals about what to expect if an auditor was to sit with them. And we kind of went down the route of, you know,

answer questions directly. You know, don't expand too much, you don't need to. But I think when it actually came to it, everybody had so many good things that they wanted to talk about that they were sort of chewing the auditors' ears off, which is great because, you know, everyone was quite proud of what they were able to share and all the good things that they've been doing and how these processes have been implemented around their role. yeah, our keep it brief conversation went out the window pretty quickly. But that's

Michael Venner (28:25)
Yeah, don't offer too much. But yeah, that is a good thing. We find when we're auditing, if people are very sort of open and sharing things, that's actually a positive. Yeah, they can sometimes share a bit too much. But you know, it makes us feel that actually this is good system. People are proud of it. They want to do it right. They care about it. So yeah, that's good. Yeah.

Hannah (28:26)
That's a good thing.

Yeah.

Yeah. I think, I think, you know, most of the people who were involved during audit week and who spoke to the auditors actually really enjoyed it. I think it's that thing of, you know, taking stock of how well you've done. You know, people don't often get to speak about all the things that they've implemented or all the things they've been involved in and how it's working for them, where they really got that opportunity during audit week to sort of, you know, show off a little bit, which I think is a nice thing to do on occasion.

Michael Venner (29:13)
Hmm. Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

Hannah (29:17)
Yeah, so the month running up to it was probably the most stressful and then audit week, obviously, it was a lot. It's a lot to get through in a week. But it was enjoyable and, know, Paula and the team really put everybody at ease. They were so friendly and so personable with everybody. I don't think anybody, you know, felt that, you know, they couldn't share, obviously. So it was, know.

Michael Venner (29:42)
Hmm.

Hannah (29:43)
a stressful week, but a very pleasant week at the same time. And I think, you know, as we were going through it and we could see we were getting no nonconformances, we were sort of right, we've got to get through this whole week now and not get a single nonconformance. We wanted to keep a clean sheet.

Michael Venner (29:56)
Yeah.

Yeah, so did you get any findings? Wow.

Hannah (30:02)
No, we didn't. got opportunities for improvement, which you always want because that's stuff you can work with, but we didn't get any non-conformances, which I believe is quite rare.

Michael Venner (30:11)
Wow, that's especially for the size and complexity of what you're doing. is, you know, that's tremendous really, because it was like a 20 day audit, wasn't it? I think in total. So to have zero findings, that's incredible really. Yeah, that's definitely something to be proud of. Yeah, that's definitely well done. That is good. So what's what's sort of next? Are there big sort of changes coming?

Hannah (30:21)
It was, yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

Michael Venner (30:38)
you're planning because obviously your first surveillance it's not for a little while yet I think it's around July time I think I looked so

Hannah (30:44)
Yeah, yeah, so it'll be, I think our Southern branch will be being audited during the July audit. So, you know, making sure they're prepared for that and, you know, giving them the same reassurance that everybody else has had. But it's nice that we've kind of got the blueprint for it now that we've been there and done that and we know what to expect and we can share that with them.

And they're very prepared that, you know, everybody's been in the same boat in terms of, you know, all the stuff we've put in place has been group wide. So they are ready. It's just, you know, offering that extra bit of reassurance. And yeah, I think we now try and use this as a bit of a springboard really for the tron here.

you know, continue to improve health and safety, which is my main area of focus. And then, yeah, keep looking after the quality processes, keep improving on them and look at what we can do from the environmental side moving forward. Because I do think that's going to be a very, very big area, particularly with the types of companies that we are working with. You know, there's a lot of opportunity there for sort of moving the environmental thing forward.

From a health and safety point of view, which is my main focus area, we do such good things as a business and we really want to try and roll them out further. We want to try and benefit our wider industry as much as possible. We want to give people access to resources so that they can help their own staff because we are very reliant on

You know, the sites that we go to being safe as well, because we're sending our engineers out into new quarrying environments and waste recycling environments. So whatever we can do to support, you know, our customers as well with health and safety, I think is a positive thing. you know, trying to have that bit of outreach is something we want to build on.

Michael Venner (32:34)
Hmm.

Yeah, that's good. Yeah. Yeah, and they'll appreciate that because it's it's not their high risk environments, aren't they? So, you know, anything that you can do to support them in what you're doing to be hugely beneficial and like I said, keeps everyone safe at the end of the That's that's what's important, isn't it? Yeah, don't want any big accidents or anything. Yeah. So it might be a bit raw, but are you thinking about any other standards down the line or is it? That's what I said. It might be a bit raw at the moment, but it's a

Hannah (33:12)
Probably not right now. I think, you know, it's we need to take a little bit of a breather. Like you mentioned, we have the SSIP through the ISOs as well. And we have got CHAZ and we've got Safe Contractor, which is great for us because it takes away that little bit of administration when we're going for those accreditations. So we are currently

for a couple of our branches doing our Rosper submission. We've had Rosper Gold for three years in a row. So this will be our fourth year if we get it. So those submissions will be going in before Christmas. So that's our next big one. And the reason we do these is because we want to excel in these areas rather than just sort of meeting compliance.

And want to promote ourselves as being at the forefront of the industry for things like health and safety. But yeah, in terms of standards, I think we'll probably try and get the three that we've got working for us as best as we possibly can. And then we'll see where we're at, in a year's time.

Michael Venner (34:25)
Yeah, I thought it might be a bit soon, yeah, I'll say a bit raw because it is a painful process, but it's a lot of work. a lot of work. Yeah. Yeah. So looks like done great job. Great job. Okay. Is there anything else you wanted to add?

Hannah (34:27)
bit role

It is a lot of work. It's a big commitment from everybody.

No, suppose, well, for anybody who's sort of going for these, I think, you there's huge, there's huge benefits. So if you're, if you're a company that sort of sat there wondering whether you should go for them or not, do it. It's, it's well worth it. Like we sort of talked about earlier, there's a lot of external benefits, but the internal benefits are massive. And we're just sort of on the cusp of, of realizing some of those at the moment and,

going forward, we'll see more and more benefits coming through. It is a huge amount of work. But if you get the engagement from your team and you get people to give their input, that kind of spreads the work out a little bit. gets people taking ownership of different things. And it's well worth it in the end. I think it feels like a lot initially, but once you get it all implemented, it's a case of maintaining and improving.

and the work sort of comes in peaks and troughs then.

Michael Venner (35:47)
It's a journey, always say certification is a journey. We don't expect everything in day one and we see that continual improvement over the years. It's nice as an auditor to go in and we see that journey over the years, see the little improvements and things like that over the time. It's quite pleasurable really. So that's great. How can people get in touch obviously with yourself or

Hannah (36:06)
Mm-hmm.

Michael Venner (36:16)
the company itself.

Hannah (36:18)
so we, we've got a website, but you can get to us through our social media accounts as well. We're on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, you name it. in terms of getting through to me, you can always email me if you need to. I'm at hannah.france at bluegroup.co.uk.

But yeah, socials is a great place to get in touch with us and we're doing a lot of development with our website at the moment. So there's going to be loads of good stuff on there, including some resources for health and safety for this sort of wider industry as well.

Michael Venner (36:54)
Excellent. Yeah, it's good giving back to the community really, isn't it? It's bigger than just you, isn't it? This whole thing.

Hannah (36:58)
Yeah, is, yeah, health and safety particularly is something that needs to be shared.

Michael Venner (37:05)
Definitely, definitely. What we'll do is we'll put the links in the show notes anyway for people so they can connect to review and see what you're doing and tap into some of those resources as well. That'd be good. Okay, so I appreciate your time. Thank you. Yeah, good talking to you. Take care.

Hannah (37:18)
That's great. Brilliant. Thanks, Mike. Thanks.

Michael Venner (37:25)
All right.