Choosing Sypol
Kew turned to Sypol to help them ensure excellent occupational health and safety for staff as well as for visitors to all of their sites.
With a well established reputation for their occupational health and safety best practice, Kew wanted to put the structure in place to maintain this going forward. Kew chose to partner with Sypol because of their experience in influencing improvements in health and safety on a strategic level.
When Sypol was instructed in 2008 they carried out a strategic review in order to analyse Kew’s current working practices and then make recommendations for improvements.
Karen Baxter, Managing Director at Sypol led the review: “Working with Kew has been a great experience, they are already well known for being leaders in their field when it comes to health and safety. We have been able to offer our expertise to help ensure that Kew’s reputation is upheld.”
Growing best practice
One of Sypol’s main challenges has been to meet Kew Garden’s aspirations to provide the best possible service in every part of their organisation whilst also ensuring best practice occupational health and safety procedures are adopted.
Karen Baxter says: “We have helped Kew adopt new working methods and review their working processes with contractors. We have been able to create simpler health and safety working practices which staff can adapt to easily, therefore ensuring not only their own safety and wellbeing, but the safety of the visitors to the gardens.”
As well as reviewing health and safety procedures with staff, it was important to revise the organisation’s working processes with contractors to ensure they all understood and complied with health and safety standards.
A continued partnership
The ongoing targets for Kew and Sypol’s working partnership include audits of all the departments across Kew and Wakehurst to produce an action plan for the next 18 months.
Karen Baxter explains more: “Over the next few months, Kew will start to see more significant improvements as Sypol’s recommendations are adopted. We will continue to work with Kew offering weekly support to their estates department as well as working to a longer term goal of implementing new health and safety training for all staff.”
David Holroyd, Head of the Estates department, at Kew Gardens said: “Kew has constantly reappraised its obligations regarding its impact upon the environment, which includes making it a safer place to visit and work.”
“Through access to Sypol’s unique knowledge and experience, we have been able to make significant inroads into setting new standards and adhering to best practice, whilst we maintain our status as a world leader in our field.”