2020 – The Silver Lining….
2020 – The silver lining….
The end of 2019 was to herald an exciting future for Electrical Testing in 2020. There were many things to look forward to and the year started as it had ended, with the company looking forward. A bigger and brighter future was promised.
I won’t dwell on Covid-19, but suffice to say this wouldn’t be a review of the year if I didn’t mention it at least once. The initial lockdown created uncertainty for everybody but our status as key workers and a willingness from all site staff to keep working meant that, for us at least, it was business as usual.
There were of course some significant challenges to overcome such as restrictions on site staff staying away, Covid-19 RAMS to implement and our office staff who were now all working remotely from home. Despite these challenges, we managed to keep going, to keep servicing our clients and to keep each other buoyant through what has continued to be a difficult period. With a vaccine now within touching distance, it will hopefully not be too long before we can consider a return to some sort of normality,
So the year hadn’t started has we had planned but there was a bright side… a silver lining if you will.
With our staff working from home but the wider construction industry still active, it meant our new offices could be completed earlier than planned. In fact with many other projects being put on hold, our contractor was able to increase staffing and with social distancing, deliver the completed building a month and a half ahead of schedule.
While any formal grand opening has been postponed for now, our office staff have returned to bright, modern, air-conditioned offices which it would be fair to say have exceeded everyone’s expectations and we look forward in the new year to showing them off to clients, friends and family.
The views not bad either!
The ETL Training division, have also benefitted from our remote working office staff. Our old offices, which now lay empty, have been going through their own changes. While not quite finished, 2021 will bring about our new state of the art, training centre for Highways Electrical courses, NVQ’s and Apprenticeships. Modern bright classrooms, skills rooms and breakout areas will greet our learners from across the UK.
Our new ETL Training website will enable local skilled electrical workers to further their skill set by booking onto one or more of our electrical courses delivered by our growing team of trainers in our new centre. Exciting times ahead for Carl Green and his team.
The downside of our remote working was the regular interaction we enjoyed with clients, in person, now made more difficult by a restriction on travel. Online video calls became the replacement for face towards face meetings, but we felt we could offer more.
On the 23rd April, James Hill, Sales Director delivered the first of a series of webinars. ‘Acceptable in the 80’s’ was an award winning ILP paper, which James had updated and presented via a Zoom webinar to over 85 attendees. This was well received, and Simon Hobbs and Greg Jarvis followed suit, with their papers on 18th Edition and EV Charging respectively.
To date, we’ve presented 6 different webinars to over 600 people and they’ve continued to be well supported. They can be viewed in our Webinar Library. Our next webinar is on the 11th February – BSEN40 – To design or not to design… That is the question. This will be presented by James Hill who will be joined by a design consultant. They’ll be explaining requirements for those asset owners who are responsible for adding attachments to lighting columns.
You can register for this webinar by clicking below.
2020 also saw a confirmation of our commitment to customer service and high-quality delivery through the award of multiple ongoing contracts by contractors across the UK. This recognition and subsequent appointment as a key supply chain partner has enabled us to invest in the future to further improve our offering to customers and clients alike. Newer, more fuel-efficient vehicles, recruitment of more locally based staff, new local depots and updated software and hardware to further improve the staff and client experience. More on this in the near future!
So, as we leave behind 2020, and look forward to 2021, what can we expect?
The future is uncertain but the promise of normality for all, is hopefully just around the corner. One thing I can be sure of however, is that 2021 will be just like 2020. A year where we face each challenge with good humour, hard work and humility.
Whatever happens, that is something that doesn’t change.
