One of South Wales’ key providers of civil engineering services to the utility industries has successfully navigated various pandemic-related issues to successfully increase business at the same time as getting its quality, environmental and health & safety management systems recertified.
Hayward Utility Services, based in Bridgend, provides services around enabling works and civil engineering for projects in power generation and renewables across the UK.
Even though their work was classed as essential, the family owned and run business found it difficult in the early stages of the pandemic to manage suppliers, materials, deliveries and site operations while the country got to grips with the new way of working.
But they quickly overcame these issues and, through careful management, saw a steady increase in turnover as major companies came to rely on their professionalism and competencies.
Chris Lawless, Managing Director, said: “We’re thrilled that, despite often extremely trying circumstances, we’ve shown how we’ve still been able to give our clients a high level of service and this has been recognised in the achievement of our ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 recertification.
“There were a number of complex issues which we had to tackle when lockdown first took hold, but we worked around these successfully.
“We spent significantly on sanitiser, face masks, gloves, etc and put sanitisers on every site to make sure workers had enough for their personal use as well as providing disinfectant cleaning products for cleaning touch points such as machinery controls and door handles after use. We closely followed government guidelines and amended our working procedures to take into account the risks associated with the spread of the virus which was then also reflected in our work instructions.
“Fortunately a lot of our work meant it was not necessary for workers to get too close to each other and we created a policy for our vans to contain only one member of staff, meetings were to be socially distanced and out in the open, where they could not be held remotely.
“We also introduced a raft of other measures such as regular cleaning, the stopping of visitors coming to site, and office-based meetings being held via videoconference. On-site signage was made up to warn staff, customers and members of the public of the requirement to maintain social distancing and PPE had social distancing messages printed on it.
“We now enter 2021 full of confidence and have purchased new tools, vehicles and machinery.
“The health and wellbeing of our own people and that of our customers was our key priority and, still today, we continually monitor Government guidelines on social distancing to implement, as appropriate, their recommendations.
“I’d just like to thank our whole staff, who have delivered a magnificent response to keep our level of service as high as it has been in extremely testing circumstances. I’d also like to extend our gratitude to The Ideas Distillery who were brilliant in getting us ready for our ISO recertification,” he said.
Hayward Utility Services often carry out work on brownfield sites and are used to dealing with complex problems related to previous site uses, working through them to find solutions that will ensure successful project delivery and conformance with safety, quality and commercial targets.
They were quick to set up a COVID strategy which revolved around:
- Setting up a dedicated Management Team who met daily.
- Issuing new guidelines to all field operations staff including providing them with the appropriate PPE.
- Ensuring a constant supply of hand sanitiser and disinfectant cleaners within the business.
- Introducing agile working for many support functions including working from home, where possible, and removing any non-essential travel.
Russell Lawson, Managing Director from The Ideas Distillery, said: “We would like to extend our most heart-felt congratulations to Hayward Utility Services who really stepped up to the plate for their customers in very turbulent times.
“Their great commitment to their quality, environmental and health & safety management system is readily evident and it was no surprise when they were recertified to ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 despite all of the issues they have had to overcome over the past months.
“We’ve no doubt that they’ll continue to deliver for their customers in the coming months, no matter what else is thrown at them,” he said.
Visit the website here: www.haywardutilities.co.uk