We will work safely or not at all
We continue to following the Government updates and advice carefully in relation to COVID-19. Based upon recent Government Guidance, we have created, and continue to update, our company-wide COVID-19 Risk Assessment. We have implemented control measures to minimise the risk to our employees and the people we interact with through the course of our work. You can read our current Risk Assessment here.
As always, and in line with our company values, we will work safely or not at all.
40SEVEN is proud to announce that we been accredited to the Van Excellence operators programme, which demonstrates our commitment to achieving the highest standards of safety, compliance and efficiency in fleet management.
The Van Excellence operator programme is a voluntary scheme administered by FTA, that requires operators to carry out daily vehicle checks, regular servicing of vehicles and to encourage safe and efficient driving skills through training and driver awareness.
Chris Lipscomb, Director of Operations at FTA, comments:
“Van Excellence was launched in 2010 with the aim of professionalising van driving; nearly ten years later, it is fair to say its members have made great strides in improving the operational standards of the sector. With 91 companies achieving Operator Accreditation this year alone, we are extremely proud of Van Excellence; it remains the only industry group responsible for maintaining and championing the very highest standards of compliance across the van market.
“Whether a business operating a fleet of more than 5,000 vans – as does our largest member, BT Fleet – or an organisation with a single vehicle, the need for safety remains the same and must not be overlooked. Van Excellence is at the heart of FTA’s vans strategy and we plan to take it from strength to strength. And with many new projects in the pipeline, including the development of a specialist emission zone advice service, FTA has positioned itself at the forefront of the burgeoning vans sector; watch this space for more exciting developments in 2020.”
For more information on Van Excellence please visit Click Here, email info@vanexcellence.co.uk or call 03717 11 22 22.
40SEVEN is officially the sole supplier of topographic and underground utility surveys for National Highways for the Midlands and the South East regions! We have signed a 7-year contract to support National Highways with their survey requirements, which will include traditional survey, mobile mapping and drone technologies.
The next 7 years promise to bring many exciting changes and developments to our highway networks, with the increased use of electric vehicles, the advent of driverless vehicles and continued focus on driver safety, we are extremely proud to be playing an integral part in the future development of the country’s highway infrastructure.
Our annual Verify Audit was carried out by Achilles on 7th – 8th June. The audit covered our Management Systems and Site operations and provides assurance to our clients that our Quality, Health & Safety and Environmental procedures are robust and more importantly are being put into practice on site.
Last year our average score was an excellent 99%, but this year we went one better and achieved a fantastic 100% score across all categories, which is a phenomenal achievement and testament to our employees continuing to deliver ‘Quality data without Compromise’. Well done everyone!
We have just awarded the first of the 2021 Values Awards to our employees across the business.
Each quarter, all employees are able to nominate any one of their colleagues for a Values Award. This is recognition of the fact that they have gone above and beyond in any one of our core Values – Happy People, Happy Customers, Working Safely and Being Successful.
The competition was strong this quarter with 43 nominations from across the two businesses (40Seven and our sister company IETG), and our judges were certainly impressed with the calibre of the nominees. Our winners this quarter were:
We look forward to the Q2 nominations to find out who our colleagues believe are really living our Values.
Just over 3 years ago 40Seven launched a training programme for Land and Utility Surveyors. We had recognised that there was a shortage and Surveyors within the industry, and we believed that the best way to resolve this was to provide opportunities to people to learn this trade, whilst being paid a fair salary.
The plan was to find people with no prior experience of Land and Utility surveying and train them in the basics. Since 2018, we have taken at least 4 new trainees each year; 2 Land and 2 Utility Surveying apprentices. Each year, we review how well we have managed to deliver training whilst providing real life-on site experience and we aim to improve the experience of trainees each year. We don’t get everything right and 2020 has been extremely challenging in terms of pairing up inexperienced trainees with experienced Land and Utility Surveyors due to COVID restrictions and safety measures. This meant that early in 2020 training did have to take a temporary back seat. Despite this, we got things back up and running towards the end of the year and all our trainees are progressing impressively well and we expect them to ‘pass out’ to Junior Surveyors very soon.
Shortly after the launch of the programme we developed a pay and promotion scale for Surveyors; this enables our Surveyors to see where they currently are on the scale, where they can progress to and what they need to do to achieve progression. Our path for progression ranges from Trainee Surveyor to Junior (Levels 1 and 2), Surveyor (Levels 1 and 2) and Senior Surveyor (Levels 1 and 2).
To equip our Senior Surveyors with the skills they needed to train their colleagues, we worked with a trusted training provider to develop and deliver a bespoke ‘Train the Trainer’ programme. The programme focussed on training others in vocational skills. We plan to continue with this and deliver it to some of our newly promoted Senior Surveyors over the coming months.
Through our recruitment process, we aim to find people who, first and foremost, have a great attitude towards learning. It is also important that we find people who have an interest in and desire to work outdoors and travel to different locations each day. In Land Surveying, we also feel that those with a natural ability to pay attention to detail are successful at the role, whereas we find that in Utility Surveying it is most important for candidates to have a natural curiosity in how things are engineered and the ability to problem solve.
If you are interested in learning more about our Trainee programmes, please feel to get in touch with our Training and Quality Manager; Maddy Lees.
We are pleased to announce that 40SEVEN has achieved Cyber Essentials accreditation, which demonstrates our commitment to protecting our digital network, systems and data from malicious activity and theft.
Cyber Essentials is a Government-backed and industry-supported scheme that helps businesses protect themselves against the growing threat of cyber attacks and provides a clear statement of the basic controls organisations should have in place to protect them.
The certification defines a focused set of controls which provide clear guidance on basic cyber security for organisations of all sizes, and offers a sound foundation of cyber security measures that all types of organisations can implement at a low cost.
For more information on Cyber Essentials and how to become accredited please visit:- Cyber Essentials Online
Maddy Lees, our Training and Quality Manager has recently become a Member of the Chartered Institution of Civil Engineering Surveyors (CICES). As a Member, Maddy is now able to mentor our Surveyors through CICES accreditation, using her own direct experience of the process.
Over the past 18 months, Maddy has been working with CICES to put in place a structured development plan for all 40Seven Surveyors that will enable us to become a CICES Approved Development Partner.
As an Approved Development Partner our structured scheme will allow all 40SEVEN Surveyors to work towards CICES accreditation, through the course of their work with us. Surveyors will be able to easily identify gaps in their experience and knowledge and will then be able to work towards filling those gaps.
Our Project Managers are currently working on their own CICES applications and we hope that over the course of the next six months they will also complete their own CICES membership applications and will then be able to work with our surveyors through their own development journey.
As a highly valuable, professional qualification, we hope to not only support the development of our existing employees, but to attract, motivate and retain high calibre employees in the future – benefiting our company, as well as our clients.
For more information, please contact Maddy Lees; mlees@40seven.com
IETG and 40Seven HR Manager Susanne Hudson has recently been accredited as an approved instructor to deliver i-act managing and promoting positive mental health and wellbeing training for managers and employees.
Having already trained 10% of our employees to become Mental Health First Aiders, the next step in our development is to provide tools for managers to enable them to continue to improve workplace wellbeing and support employees who may experience a mental health or wellbeing issue.
The i-act course is a fully CPD accredited evidence based programme which has over 50 tools to support managers to proactively support their own mental health and wellbeing as well as their teams. The online training also provides access to a comprehensive manual, online resources and templates to use after the training has been completed, ensuring that managers can refer back to relevant material as they require.
Susanne said “I am delighted to be able to carry out the training for our managers which is particularly important in the current pandemic. The Centre for Mental Health recently published briefing (Covid-19 and the nation’s mental health) indicated that if the economic impact is similar to that of the post 2008 recession, then we could expect 500,000 additional people experiencing mental health problems, with depression being the most common. It is so important that we can provide our managers with the knowledge and tools they need to support our employees with their mental health and improve wellbeing – which is a key part of our Happy People Value”
Maddy Lees, our Training and Quality Manager, has been successful in being voted onto the The Survey Association (TSA) Council.
40Seven have been longstanding members and supporters of the TSA and recently Maddy has sought to strengthen our relationship with the council.
Maddy’s has over 25 years surveying experience, mostly based in the Middle East and Africa. Since returning to the UK, she has focused on training and developing surveyor skills and believes the TSA and The Survey School have a key role to play in this.
We know that there is a shortage of skilled surveyors in the UK and Maddy is keen to ensure that as an industry, we act now to attract and train more people into the industry. She is keen to be involved in the work needed to address this, and believe the TSA, along with ICES and RICS, can work together as an industry to develop a forward-looking approach.
If you would like to chat with Maddy about her role on the Council or how we at 40Seven are supporting the survey industry in attracting and training new entrants, please get in touch.
