Greenhous Group

The Greenhous Group is one of the top 20 motor groups in the UK. Its principle activities include the sale, and distribution of fleet and retail cars, vans and trucks, the refurbishment of contract hire, rental and fleet vehicles after the completion of their contracts, the service and MOT of vehicles and the wholesaling of truck, van and car parts.

Founded in 1912, the company has an annual turnover exceeding £1 billion and is listed in the Sunday Times top 100 largest private companies in the UK. The company currently employees nearly 1,000 people, across many sites, mainly in the North Midlands and Wales.

Growth in business increases risk exposure

In the last few years, Greenhous has experienced significant growth both organically and through acquisition. This has resulted in more staff driving for work and, therefore, the total mileage driven by ‘at-work’ drivers has increased. While the company has always been legally compliant by checking driving licences, it wanted to do more.

The company has 4 key categories of ‘at-work’ drivers – fleet 'vehicle delivery’ drivers, vehicle technicians, company car drivers and employees who use hire cars for work journeys. Nobody is permitted to drive their personal vehicles for business purposes. As a result, around 250 people regularly drive for work.

The key driving force behind the Greenhous work-related programme was the health and safety of employees. In early 2018, sponsored by the board, the company chose to take a pro-active and wide-ranging approach to driver safety, not only to keep their drivers safe and reduce collision costs, but to support a broader safety culture within the whole business.

In May 2018, Greenhous chose our Continuum platform to provide a full driving licence checking, driver assessment and training programme to support the whole business.

Introducing the programme

Any change management programme, aimed at making drivers more aware and therefore able to take better driving decisions, needs careful consideration. Employees can see that the leadership of the business is committed to the programme and that it has sponsorship from the top leadership team.

As a result, the Greenhous Fleet Operations Director was instrumental in the initial pilot, not only to work alongside the 20-plus fleet drivers on the trial but, most importantly, to demonstrate the board’s commitment and support of it.

Programme roll-out

After the trial was successfully completed in the summer of 2018, a further 180 staff were invited onto the programme. Every driver undertakes a formal licence check, an online driver assessment followed by a tailored programme of elearning on an ongoing basis to ensure consistent engagement in the scheme. Little and often is the key here without being intrusive.

Once the results of the licence check have been returned by the DVLA, these are reviewed and any anomalies are communicated to the relevant manager and Gina Hughes, the Health and Safety Co-ordinator, via email alert or phone call.

The outcome of the assessment and licence check drives the amount and type of further driver education required. In addition to on-road driver coaching, our Continuum platform offers 15 online elearning modules as well as 36 micro driver training videos that can be rolled out over the lifetime of the programme directly to the driver.

Programme management

Critical to the success of any road risk programme is management information that drives decision making. Continuum offers dashboards and drill-down capabilities. This allows the fleet manager to understand the status of their programme at any time 24/7. Continuum also provides compliance reports and, where necessary, alerts the manager to information that may need immediate action. Greenhous, because of its 4 categories of ‘at work’ drivers, each of which are based at different locations and have different levels of experience, need to manage its drivers through a single online portal. This allows the management team to compare different initiatives and share best practice.

Outcome

Greenhous now has full control over its work-related programme and works closely with our team to co-create solutions if a new requirement is identified. Future opportunities include rolling out the programme to people who use hire or company cars on an occasional basis, as well as looking at technologies such as telematics.

“Continuum provides us with a continuous programme to ensure we manage our duty of care to employees. We’re also delivering a health and safety programme that reduces the risk exposure of our drivers, both at work and at home. Our drivers like it too. In fact, several have told me directly that they have changed the way they drive following the driver coaching. Working with TTC has helped us create a strong foundation for ensuring our drivers are safe, our vehicles are less damaged, and our business is compliant.”

Gina Hughes
Health and Safety Co-ordinator, Greenhous