Since our last check-in in December 2020, a lot has changed within the companies. With the restrictions easing, we wanted to round-up the last 6 months of life at MVIS and sister company Bartco, to highlight the changes we have made internally.
During the last year, we have been able to use our products and solutions to help keep the nation safe with messaging and important notices. Not only have we been working hard to help towards safety for the nation, but we have also been hard at work in the background. We are always looking to see if there is room for improvement of the service that we provide our customers and our community, from upskilling our team, to achieving the best in the industry standards and raising accreditations.
One of the achievements that we are proud to have earned is Gold status in the Constructionline Program, which offers a platform for thousands of buyers in the construction industry that enforces an ethos of trust and quality amongst its members. Our credentials were assessed for environmental management, quality management, equal opportunities, modern slavery act adherence and anti-bribery and corruption policies.
Whilst achieving Gold status may seem like a high climb for many businesses, for us here at MVIS, it was very achievable. Already having an integrated ISO management accreditation, which we recertified for in April 2021 along with Achilles Building Confidence it was an easy move for the team to obtain Gold Constructionline status.
Achilles Building Confidence is a UK construction industry accreditation and risk management scheme that aims to help organisations identify, assess, qualify, and monitor suppliers throughout the supply chain, reducing operating costs. Achilles enables communities of buyers and suppliers to build better business relationships through a more open, trusting and proactive approach. Sharing knowledge, standards and best practice leads to buyers and suppliers sharing success.
Not stopping there, we have also achieved Gold status in the Supply Chain Sustainability School, a platform that offers businesses extensive training around various sustainability, offsite, digital, procurement, lean and management topics relevant to the business environment.
The accreditations take their place alongside our team’s Highways England Passports and the list of reasons why you should ‘choose MVIS’. The Highways England passport database offers a smartcard for each worker – giving them a single, transferable record and confirms worker’s authority to work in real-time in areas of Highways England’s responsibility, enforcing safety standards across the board.
During the last 6 months we have also looked at the IT systems we use and remote working, this lead to us upping our game in security of our systems and gaining the Cyber Essentials Certificate of Assurance with the assistance of Sheffield based company Resolve.
It is not just in areas of accreditations where we have seen changes. After a long year of lockdowns, restrictions and daily updates from the Government, we have come to realise how truly vital our ITS solutions have been in directing and keeping the public up to date in the seemingly unpredictable future. Whether it be delivering information to shopping centre visitors about overflow car parks or directing delivery drivers to the correct unit on an industrial park, the original 5-colour Bartco portable VMS has been serving on the front line from day one of the pandemic. Regularly seeing our units on the news headlines giving out information in high areas of Covid, helping to reduce the spread of the infection.
Following the same crowd control model more commonly seen when providing portable VMS for events, the adaptable nature of both Bartco web studio system and the products that we provide meant that when it came to displaying government slogans, we were able to adapt smoothly into the transition of a public notice, wayfinding and assistance for retailers and other industries.
In the last 6 months, we have also been working on preparing the launch of new solutions that we have been developing since before and during the pandemic, allowing us to help solve new and existing safety issues within society. With this being said, a company is more than just its products and accreditations, especially MVIS and Bartco.
Our responsibilities as a business in today’s world have only increased since the pandemic, with such a serious event in all our lives, we have to step up to our commitment as an employer across the UK to better support the lives of our team and our community.
At the end of 2020, we introduced a service offered by Peninsula called the Employee Assistance Program (EAP). Already having a well-rounded approach to our team’s wellbeing thanks to other services that Peninsula have to offer, we understand that when it comes to Mental Health, there is never too much that you can do to support and provide stability within your team.
This EAP service is in place to help our staff with challenges and obstacles in everyday life. With their 24/7 advice line, face to face counselling and a suite of online tools, we want our team to be able to have all of the support to live a rich and fulfilled lifestyle so that we know we are getting the very best from them in day to day life and challenges.
But we haven’t stopped there – in early 2021, we mandated our whole team to sit the COVID-19 Site Safety Plus course accredited by CITB, a course that has an expiration of 5 years from completion that attests to the quality of information and learning received for participants. We wanted the team in the office to understand the dangers out on site of transmission, by everyone undertaking the course we could support each other more safely.
Keeping staff morale high and maintaining a healthy work-home relationship during the last year has meant that we have had to get creative with our team-building exercises. Before COVID, we partook in regular social events which we believe is the key to our incredible bond between departments and is what makes MVIS and Bartco outshine our competitors in the customer service department.
Since this kind of social activity has been impossible during the pandemic, we have had numerous online social events and parties to maintain our in-house relationships and celebrated birthdays, anniversaries or just to catch up on a Friday evening.
Another area we have improved is in our commitment to our community. We are always seeking ways that we can assist local charities and causes, which has never been more important than it is now, having been dealing with the impact of COVID for over a year now. Three charities who have of course been impacted by this are Ashgate Hospicecare, Blythe House Hospicecare and Helen’s Trust, who are not only continuing to do their great work in supporting patients and their families needing end of life care but are also playing a vital role in our community’s fight out of the current pandemic, despite the limitations placed on their activities.
MVIS are proud to support #challengeDerbyshire with our continued membership throughout 2021, as well as going towards helping our latest company charity, Ashgate Hospicecare, in line with our commitment to them, our local community and our corporate social responsibility. To support the charity, we held a car boot sale that took place in early June 2021, raising a whopping £312.05 for Ashgate Hospice and also reducing unwanted household items being thrown away as the easier option.
An additional aspect of corporate responsibility that we have been addressing head-on recently is our local environment. Partaking in litter picks, ensuring our local wildlife system is thriving around our Matlock HQ and also having energy-efficient lighting and heating installed within the business are a few ways that we keep on top of to give back to our community.
Anne Ashman, UK Group Commercial and Operations Director, commented “The first half of 2021 has set the tone and direction for our way out of this pandemic. As with 2020, this has been an eventful period of great change for not just us but the whole of society. We proved last year that the MVIS team are made of robust stuff, weathering the storm that hit us all with hard work and commitment, which is what you can expect from us coming out of it as well.”
The next 6 months will hopefully see us easing back into our typically normal day to day life, with businesses re-opening, it is exciting to see our local areas thriving as before. With our 9th year anniversary around the corner, we are proud to have such a wonderful team and support behind us.
