RoSPA President’s Award – that makes 12 Years of Consecutive Golds
Our teams are proud to have achieved another President’s Award in the RoSPA Health and Safety Awards this year. This was awarded following our 12th consecutive Gold award.
The award recognises our achievements throughout the year in health and safety management, including practices such as leadership and workforce involvement.
Organisations receiving a RoSPA Award are recognised as being world-leaders in health and safety practice. It is one of the most prestigious and recognised schemes in the world, with almost 2000 entries every year and a reach of over 7 million employees
Rob Kendal, Tamdown Managing Director said
“Health and safety is central to everything we do and Tamdown teams are committed to maintaining the highest of standards on all of our sites. This 12th consecutive ROSPA award is a testament to our people and their ongoing dedication to protecting each other and the communities we work within.”
Helping our people, customers and the public get home safely at the end of the working day is the Tamdown Way.
Tamdown Plant – Quality, Safety and Efficiency
Last year the Tamdown Plant team put in place a ‘6Cs’ quality standard to ensure optimum delivery and safety for our customers and people.
Customer: ensures all plant dispatched is fit for purpose and supports the best level of delivery
Care: teams take care in the quality of plant we buy, hire and supply to our site teams
Clean: plant is always sent out clean, covid safe and to a level we are proud of
Certified: all appropriate certifications and safety checks are completed
Corporate Branding: plant is correctly branded to positively position our business
Checked: all plant is checked to ensure it meets all our high standards
We have also further enhanced our processes with the addition of an asset management software within the plant department.
The team have embraced the new system and the efficiencies and time saving it offers including; instant access to all jobs and information, avoiding duplication and physical printing and filing, paperless service scheduling and records, inspection planning, reporting and repair history.
Enhancement of labour and skills management systems
At Tamdown we currently have around 45 sites across London and the South East of England. Following an audit of our labour management and the tools available to support this, we have put in place a labour and skills management software. This tool enables both our site attendance and training records to be efficiently monitored and managed.
The new solution is enabling us to continuously improve our service on site, ensuring the right operatives with the right skills are always placed to best suit each project.
As well as managing direct employees we are also using the system to oversee our trusted group of subcontractors.
In addition, the systems face recognition tool is further supporting our dedication to Covid safety by reducing touch contact with the screens.
By freeing up administrative time both on site and at head office we are already seeing time-saving efficiencies which are enabling our teams to focus more time on delivering for all our customers.
Supply chain award for Driving Excellence Forward Together
We are very pleased to have recently received the supply chain award for Driving Excellence Forward Together from our valued customer Morgan Sindall Construction
Work begins on exciting new site in Tye Green, Cressing
We have recently started our exciting new site in Tye Green, Cressing for Countryside Properties.
Our teams are currently undertaking the S278 Works, including the construction of a new roundabout on the busy B1018 road.
Work has also begun on the sales units of the new 225 home development, where we will be delivering the on-site infrastructure, plots up to and including the oversites and associated works.
The site will provide residents with an abundance of green open space, including a new village green and play area.
Engagement during a pandemic
Tamdown Managing Director Rob Kendal featured in this months Housebuilder Magazine Last Word feature discussing; Engagement during a pandemic. Here are his insights and reflections.
In my Last Word last year I wrote about “Engagement in action” including talking to customers, our employees and what would be next. What I did not predict next was Covid-19, and that the following 12 months and beyond would mean a whole new approach was needed for many of these engagements. The fundamentals I discussed were unchanged, but they needed to be adapted to fit into lockdowns, social distancing and other measures as they changed throughout the year.
We continued to reach out to our customers and suppliers, and this was even more crucial as we prepared to return to site after the initial lockdown and get our new operating and safety procedures in place and aligned.
video conference anyone?
I can hear many of you groaning at the thought of another Zoom or Teams video call, but I also wonder how we could have got through 2020 without them. Being able to meet “virtually face to face” with customers, our suppliers and my teams was invaluable. I can think of many meetings which would have been a lot less effective with just a phone call.
Video conferencing allowed me and my team to ask those important questions and still see and respond to the reactions of those we were engaging with. This kind of technology has been around for a while of course, but never adopted in the same way it is being now, we also saw virtual home tours becoming more commonplace to support developer sales.
Reaching out to an entire workforce is vitally important for any business, at any time. But it can also be challenging. Layer on uncharted territory – a pandemic no one had ever encountered – and we saw both the challenge and importance increase tenfold. At the point of the initial March lockdown, we kept our workforce up to date at least weekly with the changes. We did this as quickly as we knew them and how the business needed to react or respond to them, such as confirming home working for office staff and the initial closure of housebuilders’ sites.
From here we ensured constant communication and touchpoints with staff. Some weeks during the site closures we did not have that much to say – but we reached out anyway as the ongoing connection was so important to our people. As we started to return to work on site, we had to manage the ongoing messages carefully. Some of our people were returning to work, while others were waiting for updates on when their sites would reopen.
It was a stressful time for people across the housebuilding industry, with uncertainty and concerns for the future. We found that being authentic with our people and letting them know what was
happening as soon as we did was both vital and appreciated. Our leadership team supported the staggered return to work, often managing complex situations and different understandable responses. However, keeping people up to date and informed proved to be the key – remaining positive and patient of both the situation and each other as we chartered the
new territory we all found ourselves in.
Our communication with our teams needed to be easy to understand but comprehensive enough to ensure everyone knew what was going on in the business and what they needed to do to
keep themselves and each other safe. We made use of many tools including animated video to support getting the essential messages across and understood by our teams.
Another area we featured regularly, and continue our focus on, is mental health. We are all too aware of the frightening statistics in this area, particularly within our industry. Supporting people during the challenges of Covid-19 is more important than ever and we provided regular information and resources. Our wellbeing champions and everyone across the business supported each other too – which I am immensely proud of.
supporting our customers
Following the dedication of our NHS and all the key workers in essential shops, care facilities and more, by the early summer construction was also given key worker status which saw the return to sites.
The foundation we had laid in our engagement with our people helped them prepare for the return to site, and then support our customers to get back on site safely. This saw us helping customers in various ways, including widening walkways to allow social distancing, building additional parking areas for more solo travellers, and installing hard-standing areas for outside eating and handwashing stations.
This came about by talking to our customers to really understand, then help deliver, what they needed – for me this is the foundation of real engagement rather than the buzz word it can become.
Overall, it feels that the engagement levels across our industry from developers and the whole supply chain is something we should all be proud of.
A great testament to the way we work together.
Halstead Project Groundworks & Engineering
At Tamdown we specialise in both residential groundworks and complex engineering solutions. We have recently combined our expertise by constructing a complex reinforced bank and retaining wall as part of one of our residential housing projects.
We delivered specifically designed soil reinforcement and ground stabilisation to the precise loading capacity required for the reinforced embankment. The structure, which also featured gabion walls, was part of a broader landscaping feature on the site.
The scheme design provides residents with the beauty and attraction of the countryside and also consists of two ponds, 360m of the reinforced walls and 1,500m of open space footpaths.
We were also able to utilise more than 10,000m3 of recycled soil in the final design.
Rob Kendal, managing director of Tamdown, commented: “These kinds of projects prove the skill of our teams in delivering solutions for our customers, to achieve their final vision for the new development.”
NHBC Award Winning site – Stortford Fields, Bishop Stortford
Tamdown are pleased to have worked with Taylor Wimpey North Thames in delivering their award-winning site.
Stortford Fields, Bishop Stortford was recently announced as an NHBC Pride in the Job award winner.
Tamdown Site Manager Julian Balliu and his team have been delivering infrastructure works and foundations, brickwork, drainage and floors for both house plots and flats
Ben Smith, Production Director for Taylor Wimpey North Thames added:
“I want to thank you for your hard work in helping North Thames win these awards, without your significant contribution we would not achieve this level of success.
Julian deserves a lot of credit for his contribution.”
NHBC Award Winning site – Corinthian Place, Burnham
Our team is proud to have supported our customer Barratt Eastern Counties in delivering their award-winning site.
Corinthian Place, Burnham was recently announced one of the NHBC Pride in the Job award winners.
Tamdown Site Manager John Wilson and his team have been delivering infrastructure works and foundations, brickwork, drainage & floors for both house plots and flats
NHBC Award Winning site – Kingsley Grove, Melbourn
We are very pleased to have worked with Hopkins Homes Ltd in delivering their award-winning site.
Kingsley Grove, Melbourn was recently announced one of the NHBC Pride in the Job award winners.
Tamdown Site Manager Jason Downes and his team have been delivering infrastructure works and foundations, brickwork, drainage and floors for both house plots and flats
Bogdan Balas, Site Manager for Hopkins Homes commented:
“I am very pleased and proud to announce that we have achieved this year another NHBC Pride In The Job Quality Award. I would like to thank you for what you have done at this job (a very challenging one) and please pass the message to the team on-site and to your other departments involved in our success.
Also, I would like to highlight the contribution of your senior position on site, Mr Jason Downes, which with his knowledge, determination and strength helped us to achieve the standards required . Thank you again and keep up with the good work.”