Following the Raymond Brown Group’s Investors In People (IIP) Accreditation in February last year, Raymond Brown have successfully passed an interim review with IIP Practitioner, Dorothy Shrivell.

Dorothy visited the Raymond Brown head office to meet with Steve Clasby, Chief Operating Officer and Gemma Taylorson, HR Manager to see how the group businesses are progressing with their targets for improvement set with the initial accreditation last year, discuss key areas the businesses are focussing on and to look at developing an action plan for the next 12 months.

IIP is the mark of high performance in business and people management and as a result of this, the business has regular briefings, frequent feedback and review meetings about its performance.

Practitioner, Dorothy commented: “The team were able to confirm that a number of the recommendations highlighted within the IIP report had been implemented and it was helpful to remind themselves of these.  In particular, senior leaders have worked hard to improve communication across the whole business, created more team building opportunities to strengthen inter and intra team relationships and created better awareness of the new values.”

Gemma Taylorson, HR Manager commented said: “The recognition from IIP is very positive for us as an organisation, we have also found it invaluable working with them to ensure we are continually improving as an employer.”

Last year, Raymond Brown commenced a contract with Oakleaf recycling to supply residual waste to be converted into Solid Recovered Fuel (SRF) for energy production. This has, in turn, seen an average of 470 tonnes of waste per month (almost 5,000 tonnes of material in total) get converted into energy rather than sent to landfill from the A303 Materials Recovery Facility in Andover.

The continued investment and improvements to our recycling capabilities and in creating renewable fuels from the residues of our processes, ensures that we are able to recover more materials which otherwise would be lost to landfill.

Children from the local Fairisle School were invited by Raymond Brown to visit our Nursling Recycling Facility to learn about the site and how recycling affects the environment. The 94 children were split into four groups and taken around our site by coach learning about how the site recycles the material received and also given a classroom lesson on recycling.

Each coach was driven onto the weighbridge and two volunteers from each group were taken into the weighbridge office to sign for and receive a ticket to show their total weight, our Operations Director Tim O’Leary compared the weights to African Elephants to give the children an idea on scale.

The children in the classroom were given a recycling lesson and provided with cut out paper hands in several colours to write recycling messages on, they were then invited to stick them onto their own Recycling Tree to form a leaf effect which is on display in the site offices.

Tim O’Leary, Operations Director commented: “It was great to see the enthusiasm from the pupils taking part. It is so important to help the children understand the pressures on the environment, the world’s resources and the part that they can play in improving things for the future. It is also good to see them having fun whilst learning!”

Accompanied by Sustrans, we took one of our HGV tipper lorries into Fairisle Junior School in Southampton, to increase knowledge of cycling, scooting and walking participation in the local area and to demonstrate ‘Blind spots’ etc as part of road safety for the children.

The children were invited to walk around the Raymond Brown lorry, pick out/spot any warning signs displayed on the lorry and to sit in the lorry cab to make them aware of what HGV drivers are able to view when driving.

‘Sustrans’ talked to the children in great depth about road safety, riding of cycles on the roads and what to be generally aware of when out and about. They also made them aware of the importance of reducing congestion and pollution around the school and the beneficial effects it would have on the children’s mental and physical health.

The children really enjoyed the visit and Headteacher, Peter Howard commented: “Thank you so much for coming to us today, it was brilliant to see the children’s faces especially when they were in the cab. I think we taught everyone a very valuable and potentially lifesaving lesson this morning.’’

Last year, we introduced three Core Values to the business: Passion, Responsibility and Engagement.  As part of the Employee Satisfaction Surveys this year, we asked employees to nominate their colleagues under each of the core value categories.

As a result of these nominations, four individuals were recognised at the Raymond Brown Christmas Party earlier this month for exemplifying our core values within the workplace.  The four employees who were nominated repeatedly by their teams and colleagues were each presented with a John Lewis voucher and an engraved wooden plaque by Chief Operating Officer, Steve Clasby:

Passion – Tom Weeks, Customer Service Supervisor (Raymond Brown Distribution)

(4 years with the business)

Tom was commended on his passion for the business and his “solid enthusiasm and dedication to achieve” by fellow colleagues and that he is “always willing to assist”.

Responsibility – Vanessa Smith, Shift Manager (Raymond Brown Waste Solutions)

(1 year with the business)

Vanessa (pictured) stood out under responsibility.  She was described as “always helpful” and that she “always sorts things which need to be fixed, always worries about H&S and never ignores hazards”.

Engagement – Stephen Hall, Driver (Raymond Brown Waste Solutions)

(16 years with the business)

Steve was nominated for his engagement.  Colleagues stated that Steve is “always willing to help” and that he “believes in being honest to management if he can see a better course of action to implement”.

One individual, Karl Reed, stood out across all three areas, with some outstanding nominations for his efforts at the A303 IBA Processing Facility:

All Three Core Values – Karl Reed, Site Supervisor (Fortis IBA)

(21 years with the business)

Karl was one individual who stood out significantly and who was nominated repeatedly for all three values, his colleagues described him as; “committed and he cares a great deal about his team” and that he is “enthusiastic, driving the business forward.”  Other comments included that Karl is constantly “feeding back lots of ideas and coming up with brilliant solutions to issues affecting the operational areas of the business” and that he “makes you feel like part of the team and is looking out for your safety”.