Motorsport Industry Association

The Motorsport Industry Association (MIA) is a global trade association based out of Coventry. Fiona Aylett, Head of HR, gives us an overview of where the association stands after 25 years in business. “We now have around 300 members in the motorsport industry, most of them are UK based, and the industry itself has about £9 billion global turnover. So it is bigger than people think. We mostly work with SMEs which are predominantly engineering companies.

“We are an incredibly proactive group as we have to mirror our industry, and our industry is very fast-paced. We have a small team of about 10 people: 5 employees, and 5 freelance consultants.”

When the MIA first signed up with Croner, almost ten years ago, they were taking their first steps as a solo organisation. “At the time we were part of a federation of trade associations,” Fiona reflects, “and they used Croner, so one of the benefits of that was that we had access to the helpline facility too. Eventually we decided to go it alone, and that’s when we got our own contract with you.

“I manage the HR and the health & safety, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to get it all done on my own. Since we were essentially starting from scratch, and I am only in the office for 3 days a week, it just wasn’t manageable. So, we had a SafeCheck, which gave us a bit of a shock,” laughs Fiona, “we realised we had quite a bit to do.

“We were doing all the common sense things of course, we had first aiders in place, and Fire Marshalls as well as basic health & safety, but there were a few bits that just fell through the cracks.”

In June, the MIA received their business SafeCheck, and found the results surprising, but helpful. “James came out and did the initial assessment, and then Thomas came over to talk me through the Health & Safety report. They were both lovely, and the report was very good, although it did frighten the life out of me! We work in an office, so we thought the risks would be minimal, but there were things raised in the report which we hadn’t even considered, and it was all very good to know.”

Following the SafeCheck, the MIA signed up to Simplify H&S to help manage their health & safety while Fiona continues to focus on providing excellent HR management.

The MIA are also long-time users of the helpline, among other services. “We’ve been customers of the helpline for around 15 years, mostly we’ve used the helplines to make sure we are up to date with current employment law. Also, last year Croner did a document review which was very helpful. We also ran a fantastic event together a couple of months ago.”

“I’m so happy with the service Croner provide, I’d be hard pressed to find a fault, even down to the event we co-hosted— we had a wonderful presenter, Amanda Chadwick, thanks to her we had an absolutely cracking event.”