As we wave goodbye to 2023 and welcome in 2024, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on what we’ve learned from the past 12 months and share these with you.
Firstly, at the start of 2023, we deployed a new field services project management platform, this allowed for more efficient scheduling of client risk assessment work, this was a first for us where we’d previously used spreadsheets and Outlook to schedule site work. This move was a significant investment in technology and training for the team. As the year progressed, we experienced an increase in demand for our Legionella risk assessment services, in line with our people plan we were able to recruit five new team members throughout the year.
Being UKAS accredited to deliver legionella risk assessments we need to ensure suitable and sufficient training and evidence competency for all staff. When onboarding new team members our primary focus is their training in our service methods and standards of service. This ensures their delivery of risk assessment excellence for clients.
What are the learnt points? It’s fair to say with new solutions come new unforeseen problems, there were some project work ‘clashes’ that required rescheduling coupled with the training of new team members which therefore had an impact on the delivery of some risk assessment projects.
Those clients who’ve experienced a less than excellent risk assessment experience have been patient and understanding, for which we are humbled and in equal measures thankful. We’ve worked closely with clients, listening to their feedback and thoughts on how we can improve further.
As we embark on a New Year, we wanted to share updates on how we’re improving…
We’ve restructured our Legionella Risk Assessment team to provide more resilience within the team and ensure we continue to deliver timely and technically excellent risk assessment services to our valued clients.
What does the restructure look like…
Technical & Operations Manager:
Neil Bielby will be taking on this crucial role, he has extensive experience with client partnering and relationship management and will be able to onboard new clients with their risk assessment projects and be their point of contact on their risk assessment journey with us. Neil will continue to oversee technical developments of our risk assessment offerings.
Team Leader:
Brad Harrison has been appointed to this new position. Since joining us in May 2023 Brad has demonstrated leadership and people skills, what with his in-depth knowledge of Legionella risk assessment, he will be the day-to-day operations lead for the team of risk assessors working closely with Neil and Mark Greenwood who manages the field services project management platform.
Quality Assurance Champion:
Steve Simpson has been with the Water Hygiene Centre for several years and is a stalwart for excellence and quality. He was the first choice for this new position! The role will ensure the delivery of technical excellence through monitoring client reports and feeding back to risk assessors where improvements are required. Steve will be responsible for the onboarding of new risk assessors through the delivery of their training and assessing their competency.
Lead Risk Assessor:
Dan Edgecombe continues in this role, leading larger client risk assessment projects. The position of Lead Risk Assessor provides a visible career pathway of progression for our risk assessors within the Water Hygiene Centre.
Projects Coordinator & Financial Controller:
Mark Greenwood was instrumental in our market research for an app-based solution to bring improvement to our scheduling method. He ‘road tested’ several possible solutions before presenting to the Board the options for a new solution. Mark has worked closely with all members of the risk assessment team and our clients with scheduling risk assessment work.
As a market leader for legionella risk assessment services, the Water Hygiene Centre recognises the importance of delivering technical excellence. Our continued commitment is demonstrated through our UKAS accreditation, ongoing investment in our risk assessment team training and competency and finally the new structure of the team for resilience and support.
Brand Ambassador:
Our accredited training courses remain exceptionally popular with delegate bookings increasing. For the past 10 years, Sarah Morley has been managing our training course administration, delivering excellent service for our delegates. Summer of 2023 Sarah’s role changed to Brand Ambassador, focusing on our Socials and increasing our brand awareness. We created a new role ‘Training Academy Manager’ to ensure our training courses and delegates continue to receive excellent support and management.
Training Academy Manager and Consultant's PA
We’ve recruited Sarah Collett [we now have two Sarahs] to take on the role of Training Academy Manager. Following several months of onboarding and training Sarah Morley handed ‘over the reins’ to Sarah Collett towards the end of 2023.
Our Senior Consultants continue to be exceptionally busy delivering high-brow consultancy such as our Authorising Engineer Water service to our clients. As our Senior Consultants are becoming busier they need support with ‘back office’ support, such as email management and scheduling client appointments. This is where Sarah Collett will be wearing a second hat as ‘Personal Assistant’ to our Senior Consultants. Sarah will be watching their email inboxes daily and offering support to them. Along with scheduling meetings [Water Safety Groups, Appraisals, Training, Audits] for the team with clients and liaising with clients when change happens!
With growth, there are growing pains. We are learning from these experiences to ensure our clients receive timely and technically excellent risk assessment services.
Onwards and upwards for 2024!
