Lanes shortlisted for Construction News Specialists Award

Lanes Group plc has been shortlisted for the prestigious Construction News Specialist Health Safety and Wellbeing Award.

The drainage specialist has been named as a finalist for its pioneering work to use digital app technology to monitor workforce happiness and provide professional wellbeing support for colleagues who ask for it.

The Wellbeing App and Practitioner Programme, the first of its kind in the UK, has been created by Lanes Utilities, the wastewater network services maintenance partner for Thames Water.

It has been championed by Lanes Group Director Andy Brierley in line with research that indicates a happy workforce is safer, delivers better customer service and is more stable, retaining vital skills, saving on recruitment and training costs.

He said: “We’re absolutely thrilled that the judges at the Construction News Specialists Awards have recognised our innovation and success in supporting the happiness of our colleagues.

“We benefit as a business, and Thames Water and their 15 million wastewater customers also benefit. But, fundamentally, we care about each other at Lanes and want people to be happy at home and at work.”

The Construction News Specialists Award recognise the excellence of specialist suppliers in the construction industry delivering services that include access, demolition, mechanical and electrical, and drainage.

Lanes Utilities’ wellbeing app asks field workers at the start of each shift how they are feeling, with responses ranging from very happy to very unhappy.
Colleagues who respond with unhappy or very unhappy are offered the chance to talk to professional wellbeing and mental health practitioner Kelly Hansford who provides counselling and advocacy.

Since the programme was fully launched at the end of 2017, scores of colleagues have been helped with problems that include depression, relationship breakdown, homelessness and debt.

Most of the personal problems the programme has helped with have not been work related, but it has contributed to the effectiveness of Lanes Utilities operations.

Andy Brierley said: “A lot of our colleagues are in a much better personal place because of the help they’ve received, which is fantastic.“It has also helped us measurably and significantly increase workforce happiness, contributed to a 57% reduction in staff turnover, saving £1m a year in training, and allowed us to identify smart new ways to train and support colleagues to amplify the positive effects of having a happy workforce still further.”

Lanes Utilities employs more than 1,100 wastewater professionals. It carries out more than 1,100 jobs a day to unblock, repair, rehabilitate and clean drains, sewers and water treatment assets across the Thames Water region.

Construction News Specialists Awards winners will be announced at a ceremony held at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London on 27 March 2019.

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