Another Award For Xmo Strata
13 May 2008
The sign installation and maintenance company which is revolutionising its industry's approach to health and safety has won an 'exceptional performance' award from the BP/Bovis Global Alliance.
Six year old Xmo Strata's bulging display cabinet now holds 11 customer health and safety awards - believed to be a record in the high-risk sign industry; the latest comes within weeks of the firm winning a similar award from ABB / Coteba / ExxonMobil, and receiving an achievement award from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents.
Martin Rackley, the UK Health, Safety, Security and Environment Manager for the Global Alliance, handed over the award at a ceremony at the Holiday Inn, Milton Keynes, on the evening of April 26 - and joked that the Kent-based firm had now won it so many times that “if it had been the World Cup, they'd be allowed to keep it”.
Sign installers and maintenance engineers work at height, and in hazardous locations such as busy motorway fuel forecourts, and the company has made strict adherence to health and safety a key aspect of its operations. The firm - which works nationwide - employs the most highly trained sign crews in the UK.
“Working unsafely puts the employee in peril - and the employer, as well as the owner of the site on which the work is being done, at risk of legal prosecution,” said Xmo Strata Managing Director Steve Martin. “Customers sometimes think that they are protected from the consequences of unsafe working and that it is all the responsibility of the contractor - in fact, they risk potential jail sentences in the event of serious injury. The sign industry is particularly high risk and we protect our employees, ourselves, and our customers by investing properly in comprehensive training and procedures, and ensuring that every employee fully understands the company's dedication to the subject.”
Mr Martin is the author of a whistle-blowing book on the sign industry - Safety Quality Tricks and Lies - dirty tricks in the British sign industry and 100 questions your sign company doesn't want you to ask!