How International Workplace helped a leading charity with its health, safety and environmental development
About Alzheimer's Society
Alzheimer’s Society is the UK’s leading dementia charity. It campaigns for change, funds research to find a cure, and supports people living with dementia. The charity employs 1,700 people and has over 10,000 volunteers across the UK. International Workplace has been working with the Society since 2012, and helped it work towards its ISO 14001 accreditation. The company has also delivered IOSH Managing Safely courses in the past and is currently developing further bespoke training via the virtual classroom experience.
Craig Brooks is the Health, Safety and Environmental Manager. He explains how continuity is key for instigating major change.
Introduction
When I started with the Society in 2016, International Workplace was already one of our preferred suppliers in the area of consultancy services and had helped us initially achieve the ISO 14001 certification around 2012. Because they helped us set up the original environmental management system, we decided to use them again in our progression to the new ISO 14001: 2015 standard as they had a good working knowledge of the Society and the way we operate. Building up a rapport and a really good relationship with the consultants was really important, to keep that continuity as we did more work with the company over the years.
Whenever we have any type of work that requires external support, International Workplace is our first port of call and always provides competitive quotes that are tailored to our needs.
Bespoke training packages delivered online
Our latest venture with IW is to ensure the Society’s Employee Forum Representatives are trained in their safety functions. In conjunction with International Workplace, we developed a bespoke package to be delivered via webinar for this group, over several sessions, in which we trained over 30 Employee Forum members, Society-wide, over the space of approximately a month in early 2021.
We are now in the process of arranging further training to pick up the newly elected members of the Employee Forum in early 2022. Everything we develop with International Workplace is tailored to the Society, incorporating all of our policies and procedures, so it’s specific to us. The Society recently created an internal elearning platform, so the training from International Workplace fits well into the governance process.
"Everything we develop with International Workplace is tailored to the Society, incorporating all of our policies and procedures, so it’s specific to us."
As a charity we must keep a very close eye on costs, and International Workplace’s costs are always competitive. They’re very flexible with the way they work, and we can ask for a bit of wiggle room here and there in what we do.
Looking to the future, the Society will always consider International Workplace when we require consultancy services or need to use an external training source within the areas of health, safety and environment.