Category: Chairman’s Blog

Businesses are being urged to take more action on training and educating at-work drivers on the dangers of speeding to help make their fleets and local communities safer.

The call comes from Brake, the road safety charity, as it releases a new report showing that two in five (39%) of businesses don’t have a speed policy, either in the employee contract or handbook.

The report also found that 65% of companies with a speed policy don’t have one that applies to external contractors while a third of speed policies don’t apply to senior management.

Only a quarter of companies get involved with promoting speed awareness in their local communities, for example by supporting local training or education on speed.

And few companies are taking advantage of the full range of educational and training opportunities open to them, with only two in five asking questions relating to speed at recruitment or training during induction, and only three in ten providing additional training for drivers caught speeding

With excessive speed – either breaking the speed limit or driving too fast for the conditions – listed by the police in 27% of fatal crashes in the UK in 2013, Brake is urging all employers with staff who drive for work to implement policies and procedures to ensure their drivers are fully aware of the dangers of speeding.

Employers can access Brake’s expert guidance by ordering a copy of the report, which includes advice for companies, and becoming a member of Brake Professional at www.brakepro.org.

Dr Tom Fisher, Brake’s senior research and communication officer, said: “Our research shows that many companies can and should do more. This would help prevent the devastating impact of road death and injury, but also save companies money through reduced insurance premiums and improve their reputation within the community.”

Added by Natalie Middleton
Business Editor, Fleet World
Date: 15 Oct 2015 14:52

Martin Port
Founder & CEO

Lynx are a specialist family-owned building, repair and maintenance company based in Uxbridge.

They offer a fast response and first-class customer service to their ever-growing list of prestigious landlord and management clients, and maintain over 3,000 properties across the south of England.Lynx are a specialist family-owned building, repair and maintenance company based in Uxbridge. They offer a fast response and first-class customer service to their ever-growing list of prestigious landlord and management clients, and maintain over 3,000 properties across the south of England.

Founder & Managing Director of Lynx Maintenance, Chris Moseley, relates, “Our entire focus is on making service improvements. We recognised that the technology we used was not going to support the level of growth we are experiencing; we had a back office job-management system that was 10 years old, producing so much paper, and a separate vehicle tracking system that we used reactively.”

Lynx decided that they needed a Big Change. They wanted one system that could manage all aspects of their business, and they wanted a fully-developed, proven product that wouldn’t cost them a fortune.

Chris Moseley went on to say, “We were recommended to contact BigChange, who had developed a system that did everything we wanted straight out of the box. BigChange spent time with us ensuring that the implementation process and training of our Head Office and Engineering teams went smoothly.”

The BigChange JobWatch system has everything – built-in service management, customer relationship management, job scheduling, resource time management, health and safety, equipment and stock management, mobile apps, financial features (from quotation to invoicing, with integration to accounting software such as Sage) and vehicle tracking. JobWatch features intuitive reporting, including reporting on customer service and quality, business productivity, driver behaviour and risk management.

Chris recalls how “Implementing the system completely did away with paper in the office and in the field. We invoice instantly when a job is completed, and have seen our productivity and service levels hit new heights. This is just the beginning, as we believe that this technology will enable our company to grow without the cost and risk that goes with expansion. We look forward to celebrating 20 years in business next year, and the BigChange JobWatch system has given us exactly the tools we need to progress and grow our family business.”

Martin Port, CEO of BigChange commented, “We are delighted to have completed another successful implementation of JobWatch with Lynx Maintenance. JobWatch has revolutionised Lynx practices and processes, eliminated all paperwork and time consuming manual tasks.”

Martin Port
Founder & CEO