Lucion Services and its subsidiary companies have taken action to ensure we continue to deliver trusted risk management services to keep your projects moving during the COVID-19 outbreak.

 

Our Executive Team share their message:

 

Working Safely During COVID-19 and Designing a Sustainable Future

- Phil Rozier, Chief Executive Officer, Lucion Services

The health, safety, and well being of our teams, our clients, and your building users remain our number one priority. 

I am immensely proud of our business and our team’s resilience through the global pandemic of COVID-19. 

Overnight, in March 2020, we transitioned our teams to home working, distanced our laboratory operations, and brought in safe working procedures for those of our site based staff that remained operational. We did this in true partnership with our clients, to continue to support you with your compliance management requirements. 

We continue to adapt and evolve our working procedures and our available resources in line with the latest guidance and regulations, with constant consideration for yours and our safety, in line with the UK Government’s “Working Safely During COVID-19” guidance. 

Never before has our operational and QHSE procedures been tested so rigorously, and our ability to assess and adapt to changing hazards and develop risk assessments has been proven in the continuous safe delivery of our essential services.

Examples of how we are currently mitigating risk on sites and in our offices include:

– Those of our team who can work from home continue to do so for the foreseeable future, with all equipment required for seamless service delivery to our clients

– Extra space, one-way systems, staggered breaks and split shift rotas have been assigned in our  UKAS ISO 17025 accredited testing laboratory

– Allocated appointment slots for site staff to attend our storerooms to pick up any equipment they require

– Hand santisers and masks issued to all staff who are required to attend sites

– Further improved our Take Care Be Aware observations tool, to build on our two-way communication route between teams and senior management, of their encounters with both positive and poor experiences of social distancing applications in our offices and out on sites. 

Whilst Lucion has always been at the forefront of technology and innovation in our industry, we have taken this time to address the continuous improvements we could make, and strive forward into best practice solutions for our clients. Throughout this period, we have released service level upgrades as standard, and continue, behind the scenes, to design value-adding and innovative features to our service lines. 

With Lucion, not only can you be sure that we will be here and we will deliver when you need us, but I hope through this testing time, you’ve seen that we will continue to innovate and challenge the norm, offering beyond compliance, to best practice, trusted risk management solutions. 

We look forward to continuing to work with you through this time and beyond as we continue to design and build a safe system for everyone.

 

Historic Investment Creating a Future of Certainty

- Jamie McGivern, Chief Financial Officer, Lucion Services

In these difficult circumstances, it is important to consider the financial security of any trading partner. At Lucion Services, our balance sheet remains strong, as a result of our historic culture towards business sustainability and financial security. Our working capital position continues to be robust. 

As an illustration, our acid test ratio on our balance sheet is 2.52 [calculated as: (cash plus accounts receivable) / current liabilities]. This is a result of the excellent trading performance we have made during the last financial year. 

Furthermore, during the last financial year, we received external investment into our business to ensure that we have a robust model to allow for growth. This investment allows us to look to the future with greater certainty.

As we look to the future, the world is uncertain. However, we are well placed to not only ride out the coming months.

 

Developing a Connected Collaboration

- Sarah Taylor, Chief People Officer, Lucion Services

Being ‘Lucion’ means being part of a network of collaborative individuals working throughout the UK and internationally. Our teams are used to connecting digitally. This has long been part of our environmental and sustainability goals, ever since CEO Phil Rozier set up our first remote office in 2008. We regularly had teams working remotely, on client sites, on vessels in the Atlantic Ocean, or at home working flexibly around childcare needs. This is not new to us. We had the infrastructure in place, tried, tested and used daily; including video conferencing, instant team messaging and a dynamic online wellbeing platform. 

With all this in place, our teams moved seamlessly into full-time home working and social distancing requirements. “Change is a constant” is a phrase you’ll hear almost daily within our company and has become something of a mantra as we strive to continually improve. I continue to be impressed and inspired by the adaptability of the individuals in our Lucion team. 

Furlough is a measure we have had to take, to continue to run a financially healthy business through this period, as there are some services that we do not wish to undertake that may risk the health of our people or our clients and their customers. However, all of our colleagues whether on furlough or working have fed back their support of the messages they receive daily from Phil, that we will come back to full capacity stronger and more supported than ever.   During this time we have further expanded our current Wellbeing program to all of our colleagues, with an emphasis on mental health and wellbeing.

 

Business Continuity for Continued Compliance

- Ross Boulton, Chief Technical Officer, Lucion Services

The HSE, as quoted by Phil above, acknowledges that we’re facing very challenging times, but that there’s still a responsibility to ensure that what was required before the COVID-19 pandemic is still required and that legal and regulatory requirements are met. 

This reiterates that our job is vital and provides an essential service to our customers; providing the confidence that our valued and much appreciated contribution will certainly preserve the lives of many for decades into the future.

To continue to do this, it is my responsibility to ensure we remain compliant ourselves and to ensure the quality and accuracy of the services we provide remains unaffected.  In March, we completed 5 weeks of UKAS assessment, resulting in our continued ISO 17020 and ISO 17025 accreditation. We also recently completed virtual, remote assessments from the British Standards Institute, to maintain our ISO 9001, ISO 14001, and OHSAS 18001 certified management systems. In addition to these two successes, we were re-awarded RoSPA Gold awards for occupational health and safety and management of road risks in our fleet vehicles for the third year in a row. 

Our Business Continuity Plan has been tested over the recent weeks beyond levels we thought it may ever be required to endure, but endure it has. With updates in some cases daily, to mirror the changing status of the virus and the Government’s response, business continuity is exactly what we have achieved, where many other consultancies in our field have been unable to do so. 

To support our clients in maintaining their compliance with H&S regulations, we continue to utilise authorised, audited and competent individuals, who are equipped with the skills, knowledge, and understanding to risk assess their tasks in line with the latest requirements and guidance from the Government.

 

Building an Operating Model Ready to Scale Up As Well As Down.

- Adam Mead, Chief Operating Officer, Lucion Services

To deliver trusted risk management services to our clients requires input from many distinct expert functions within our Lucion team. Continuing to safely deliver our services during this pandemic, the likes of which we have never before seen, has required dynamic, creative thinking. 

Overnight, our centralised laboratory reduced physical interaction within the building by 85% (in response to UK Government instruction) whilst still being able to analyse all quota requirements and hitting all KPIs for our clients. This was achieved because we always work to “scale”. We have 4 laboratory areas, one of which was prepared for peaks in client demand, which allowed us to spread our scaled back laboratory staff over 4 distinct spaces, enhancing social distancing procedures, minimising footfall in each area and introducing different entrance and exit pathways.

Within 24 hours notice new risk assessments were written, reviewed and issued digitally to our remote-working site teams with instruction on how to work safely and assess the low-risk environments they are in. This was supported by our internal digital platform; NexGen. Built on the web, NexGen updates in real-time with the latest information for our teams and our clients. NexGen is secure (Cyber Essentials Plus certified) and has been integral to our resilience through this process, thanks to our internal team of software architects and site technicians for adapting to the data we need as a business now. 

We are used to delivering an “always up” service to our clients who need us to respond instantly, nationally, and this is also supported by NexGen’s bespoke portal function for each of our clients, allowing them to access all asbestos information remotely as they move to home working. We continue to respond to asbestos-related emergencies, attending site safely, following social distancing with all required PPE and returning home safely, with results delivered digitally to our clients on the moment they are ready for issue. 

In addition, we have a large team of expert consultants working from home, to maintain our client’s compliance with Health, Safety, CDM and Asbestos regulations as part of our low-risk service delivery model. 

We continue to provide qualified experts, to deliver trusted risk management.

 

To find out more about the services we are offering during this time, please Contact Us or email us at info@lucionservices.com