Company information
- Background
When one of The Frog Squad’s biggest customers announced its intention to become ISO45001 (Health & Safety standard) certified, it made it clear that it would like its suppliers – including The Frog Squad – to do the same. Keen to meet this customer’s needs, The Frog Squad team became determined to have their certification to health and safety formally recognised through ISO45001 certification. - ClientThe Frog Squad
- CategoryISO Standards
- TagsISO Standards
- Websitethefrogsquad.co.uk
Company background
Since being founded almost 30 years ago, The Frog Squad’s dedication to the safe lifting and moving of plant and telecoms equipment has earned it a reputation to rival that of its larger competitors. With over 15,000 lifts under their belt, the team works seven days a week in varied sites across the UK and Ireland, including huge stadia, busy city centres and remote woodlands.
Protecting the safety of its team, its customers and the general public is vital to preserving The Frog Squad’s reputation and ensuring continued growth through referrals.
The need
When one of The Frog Squad’s biggest customers announced its intention to become ISO45001 (Health & Safety standard) certified, it made it clear that it would like its suppliers – including The Frog Squad – to do the same.
Keen to meet this customer’s needs, The Frog Squad team became determined to have their certification to health and safety formally recognised through ISO45001 certification.
The challenge
In theory, The Frog Squad should have been able to achieve ISO45001 easily. Stringent health & safety measures were already well embedded, new and existing staff were well trained and the firm’s recently appointed H&S Officer, Julie Barsby, had already thrown herself into the role with gusto. However, things were not so clear cut. A few years earlier, the firm’s leadership team had recognised the growing importance of ISO45001 and had engaged an independent ISO consultant to help ready the internal H&S system for assessment. Julie takes up the story, “I joined the company two years after the project started. Progress had been frustratingly slow, and we were repeatedly told that it would take a few months longer, with no real end in sight.”
Julie recommended that The Frog Squad find an ISO specialist who would act with a sense of urgency.
Fortunately, one of Julie’s colleagues had attended a Risk Evolves GDPR event. She suggested that Julie contact us to see if we could help The Frog Squad achieve certification more quickly.
Establishing needs
Our MD, Helen Barge, and Ian Munro, The Frog Squad’s MD, met to discuss how best to tackle certification. After reviewing The Frog Squad’s hefty documentation, it was clear that there was still a significant amount of work to be done. Helen explains, “It was a really painful conversation for both of us. I knew how much time and money they’d put into the project already, and, as a small business owner, I really felt for them. It was really important to me that we helped them turn it around and prove that they could achieve ISO45001 in a matter of weeks, without spending much more.”
Matching consultant and clients
Having established The Frog Squad’s needs, Helen matched them with Roger, an expert ISO45001 consultant with the relevant industry experience and a cheerful personality which would fit with Julie and the team. Asked to guide Julie through the certification process, he promised to be there every step of the way. She was glad of the support, as she explains, “There was so much to go through. The existing documentation turned out to be overkill, it had a mix of ISO content that we didn’t need. We had to start from scratch and change a lot of the documents.”
Preparing for assessment
Following an internal audit, run by Roger, Julie was relieved to hear that he felt that it was time for Risk Evolves to arrange The Frog Squad’s external audit. True to his word, he supported Julie during the auditor’s visit, helping to calm any nerves and ensuring she did the firm’s commitment to safety justice. Julie comments, “We achieved certification at the first attempt and – best of all – we beat our customer to it!”
What's next for The Frog Squad?
Having been certified to ISO45001, Cyber Essentials, SafeContractor and SafePQQ in a six months window, it seems there’s nothing that The Frog Squad can’t turn their hand to. Having passed their audit with flying colours, the team is working together to continually improve H&S for everyone. Julie has set up a H&S WhatsApp group to make it easy for field workers to access the latest H&S guidance and news, including instructions on COVID-19 safety. Keen to safeguard employee wellbeing, this family-run business has also recognised the importance of mental health. Now, every employee has access to a confidential counselling service.
We have recognised that mental health problems are on the rise and as a company we feel it’s extremely important to do everything we can to support our employees’ mental wellbeing. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been exploring ways to do this - we have introduced an Employee Assistance Programme, where our employees can talk to a trained professional about anything that may be troubling them.
