Certikin

They currently employ over 130 people who are spread out across the various sites.

“We also employ a number of homeworkers as well as some are travelling sales reps,” says Diane Murray, HR Manager at Certikin, “so it is quite a varied workforce.”

Certikin have been operating in the swimming pool industry for over 50 years and have a disciplined health & safety focused culture.

We weren’t facing any particular challenge,” says Diane, “but we are very health & safety focused at Certikin and place a great deal of importance in being compliant. We wanted to reinforce our high H&S standards.

“I attended a seminar and agreed to have a SafeCheck, a consultant came out for the afternoon and did a check-up and provided us with a report. I was so impressed with the quality of the report that I decided to get the full audit for all of our sites from Croner.

“Now, we get 2 audits per year over 3 sites. At the biggest site we have 1 audit per year and then the 2 smaller sites every other year. We also use Croner’s Health & Safety Helpline for when we are unsure about certain legislation or procedures.”

The audits that Croner provide cover all bases and make sure everything is up to date and compliant, from large machinery to desk workers: “The SafeCheck reviews our whole health & safety system, they check documentation, risk assessments and check if we’ve got everything we need. Then, they will physically walk around the building, check we’ve got the correct signage and check the various machine guards and racking. They make sure all of our legislative requirements are being met. So I would say we have a very strong health & safety culture by and large, we meet all legislative requirements so I found it very useful to have someone come round and make sure everything was up to date, give advice and just support our health & safety culture.”

Certikin have now received a number of health & safety audits, as Diane reflects: “We’ve had a couple of consultants come down to our sites for an audit and they were both very good. The most recent SafeCheck was done by Timothy Yarnall, we got on very well with him.

“The SafeChecks have greatly supported our health & safety culture, but we are always focused on continuous improvement and that is what Croner’s support helps us do.

“The entire operations management team have access to the H&S helpline and although they only use it sparingly, they like knowing it is there as a safety net. I personally have only used it a couple of times. One of the issues I had was with the frequency of LOLER inspections for certain types of equipment. I also wanted to know the difference between a thorough examination and an inspection. I was sent the documents I needed to answer my query the following day after I’d received advice over the phone.”

Diane recalls one occasion when a manager needed assistance on a very technical matter: “Our Distribution Manager had a particularly technical query relating to respirators, he contacted our Health & Safety Consultant, Tim Yarnall and received an answer almost immediately.”

Finally, Diane stated: “I would recommend others to use Croner’s health & safety services. We will be using their SafeCheck service for the foreseeable future and already have our next check booked in.”