Door Industry Journal - Spring 2021

Also online at: www.dijonline.co.uk Industry News THE door industry journal spring 2021 record, based in Blantyre, Scotland, immediately moved to a socially distanced, safe working model: procuring a large number of laptops and setting up a virtual phone system to allow staff to work successfully from home. “In our factory and warehouses, we reduced staff that were in at any one time but continued to operate in all areas throughout the crisis. Manufacturing never stopped, even though we had to overcome some supply challenges with glass,” admits Managing Director Mark Ayton. The business also put in place a priority customer process to help front line operations and maintain safe working. “We provided appropriate additional PPE to all staff but particularly to service and install engineers. In the early days of lockdown, we prioritised service to frontline organisations such as hospitals and food retailers, but as time progressed, we continued to provide service to all buildings and customers that needed us.” Cloud capability and developments in IT infrastructure also allowed companies to embrace different ways of working. “We made a conscious drive a number of years ago to move our accounting, customer relationship management, and phone system to the cloud. This was a good move as it allowed us, without much disruption, to request all of our sales and support team to work from home,” reveals David Morgan, Managing Director of Hotron Ltd. Different ways of working were also introduced at its Dublin head office where staff were urged to be mindful of hygiene levels particularly in shared facilities. Those in shipping and logistics who had to attend worked within separate offices and lunch breaks were staggered to keep people apart during periods of normal high interaction. During the early stages freight costs increased and delivery times became slightly longer – the ability to move goods around the UK and neighbouring countries became problematic. We also entered the age of the virtual meeting: “ Whenever possible we advised our staff to use ‘Business Collaboration Tools’ such as Skype, Microsoft Teams, telephone, instead of face-to-face meetings in order to keep personal social contacts to a minimum. Important personal customer appointments were still made in consultation with the customer and in compliance with social distance and infection protection measures,” says Paul Wright, Managing Director of Dormakaba UK and Ireland. Few of us had probably ever heard of the word ‘furlough’ before the pandemic but the will to remain operational within the automatic door industry meant that the support scheme was generally less used than in other sectors. At FAAC Entrance Solutions, the UK’s sole suppliers of Assa Abloy automatic pedestrian door products, there was no initiation of furlough or redundancies. “Our recruitment continued as planned throughout lockdown months. For new joiners, office- based staff completed their inductions remotely and engineers trained only with their supervisors and following safety and social distancing protocols,” says Service Director Kudret Kahraman The requirement to modify workplaces also led to the industry leading by example. record automated every door at its head office “both for the safety of our staff and as a case study for what can be achieved in a busy office environment”. When staff began working from home, FAAC’s Technical Manager Kevin Ryan upgraded every door at its Middlesex offices to contactless switches. “This not only allowed us to create a safer working space but also allowed us to test different options and space but also allowed us to test different options” and adds Kudret.