Bethell drives forward road safety champion status

A ‘pain and gain’ ethos to encourage employees to maintain the highest standards of road safety as part of their culture has been introduced at Bethell Group, the most recent organisation to become a ‘business champion’ under the Government’s ‘Driving for Better Business’ campaign.

The Greater Manchester-based independent construction, power and rail group, operates a fleet that includes 249 light goods vehicles, 95 company cars and 67 HGVs. In addition, 89 employees drive their own cars on business.

One of the Group’s mottos is ‘Remember - safety is everyone’s responsibility’, and Bethell aims to live up to that claim by sharing its fleet and road safety vision with other public and private sector organisations.

The ‘Driving for Better Business’ campaign is managed by RoadSafe on behalf of the Department for Transport, which is working with the police and a raft of other agencies to encourage companies and organisations nationwide to implement best practice occupational road risk management programmes.

A key feature of the campaign is the highlighting of best practice fleets - known as ‘business champions’ - which are then used to fly the flag for at-work driving safety at seminars, conferences and shows both locally and nationally.

Bethell Group financial director Neil Hopkins-Coman said: “I am delighted the Group has joined the ‘Driving for Better Business’ campaign as a ‘business champion’ and acting in this capacity will underline our professionalism encompassing all driving issues whilst at the same time we can share our experience and vision with others.”

A robust health and safety culture is at the heart of the Bethell Group, which includes Bethell Construction and Bethell Rail with an associated business Bethell Power Services. Each business holds quarterly full staff health and safety briefings, regular tool box talks and training and, at a higher level, puts safety as the first agenda topic at key management meetings.

The Group developed its ‘pain and gain’ process, which is monitored via an internal ‘insurance taskforce’, to ensure all staff are focused on the issues and on risk management generally. Additionally, due to the fleet size varying throughout the year due to workload, insurance claims were deemed not to be an accurate barometer for measuring risk because of the peaks and troughs in the type and number of incidents.

Bethell’s insurance claims manager Dave Barton-Sharratt explained: “It is an effective carrot and stick process. If, for example, a Bethell vehicle is involved in an incident where total costs are estimated to be about £5,000, then this sum is added into a loss ratio calculation. If the loss ratio exceeds pre-agreed thresholds then the ‘pain’ calculation equal to the excess is charged to the Bethell company involved. More positively, if the loss ratio remains below the threshold then a ‘gain’ is credited. Once the final costs of any incident are identified a balancing adjustment is made.

“Importantly this ‘pain’ charge or ‘gain’ credit will impact on the bonuses of company employees. But by ensuring the highest possible safety standards within our culture and therefore reducing incidents, employees ‘gain’ through salary bonus payouts.”

The ‘pain and gain’ process is under pinned by a string of initiatives that are designed to ensure that road safety remains front of mind for all employees.

For example, underlining the Group’s occupational road risk management focus is the fact that all light commercial vehicles which have had additional equipment fitted are treated as vehicles operating under the stricter Operator (‘O’) Licence regulations, which legally apply only to heavier vehicles.

The Group’s transport department then carries out random internal inspection audits on commercial vehicles to ensure compliance with ‘O’ Licence requirements.

While daily checks and defect reporting is carried out, detailed vehicle safety inspections are carried out every six week with records retained for a minimum of 15 months as part of the vehicle’s maintenance history.

Improving driving standards and behaviour to reduce avoidable vehicle accidents is crucial to Bethell, which has adopted the following to try to ensure employees are as safe as possible behind the wheel.

Drivers’ risk potential being identified through psychometric profiling and training provided for those deemed to be at risk

A ban on the use of hand-held mobile phones while driving and staff cautioned against the use of hands-free phones until they are parked up

Electronic driver licence checking against DVLA records on a quarterly basis

Records relating to employees’ own vehicle driven on business including insurance, servicing and MoT data are all rigorously checked and recorded

Prospective foreign workers undergo driver training tests in order to confirm their ability to drive

Every employee being issued with a drivers’ handbook, which they have to sign after confirming that they have been briefed on its contents, understand the requirements and agree to comply with them.

Additionally, if a driver is involved in an incident or if checks on driver licences establish that a driver has incurred points, line managers are required to reprofile the driver or to review the need to raise their risk status.

Mr Barton-Sharratt said: “The purpose of this process is to decide whether the individual should be allowed to continue driving for the company. Any driver who refuses to undertake the profile assessment is prohibited from driving on business.”

Finally, Bethell has invested in insurance management software designed to further improve claims management control enabling pro-active monitoring of trends

Mr Hopkins-Coman added: “We invested in this new tool as we were convinced that it would help us identify areas of higher risk both in terms of capital losses as well as personal and public liabilities. Two years in this has delivered on its promise and is an important part of our continual fight to drive down the number and value of these claims across the Bethell companies.”

Campaign manager Caroline Scurr said: “Bethell Group is at the forefront of introducing new initiatives to reduce the number of deaths and injuries on Britain’s roads. Our ‘business champions’ have a crucial role to play in promoting occupational road risk management across the UK.”