News

This year’s Mental Health Awareness Week (MHAW) focuses on the benefits of staying active for a healthier, happier life. The programme, ‘Movement: Moving more for our mental health’, which takes place from May 13^th to May 19^th, is on behalf of the Mental Health Foundation. BriggsAmasco highlights the company’s commitment to enshrining employees’ mental wellbeing, which is essential to maintaining a contented, productive workplace.

As one of the country’s leading roofing contractors, BriggsAmasco is well aware of the pressures the job can bring. Roofing can pose great physical demands, which over time can take a mental toll. Roofing is one of the more challenging building sectors to work in, this is due to the risks associated with working at height. Spending periods working away from home and loved ones can add to mental pressures, with toiling in a male dominant environment making it perhaps difficult for those to open-up about their problems. The suffering-in-silence issue is one we’ve spent the past few years across all areas of BriggsAmasco business.

Mental Health Awareness Initiatives

We ensure that staff and operatives are fully aware that their mental health, wellbeing and safety is the company’s number one priority. To aid us in this endeavour we have mental health first aid instructors who provide the necessary training for individuals to become mental health first aiders. This has led to staff being better equipped to spot developing behaviours that indicate a mental health issue. These might include a change to a person’s demeanour or personal appearance. Each of these potential red flags could help assign someone a source of help.

Staff feedback

The comments from our training course attendees have been extremely positive. Our instructors have earned praise for their excellent engagement and understanding of the course’s objectives. Others have spoken positively about group interaction making it easier for individuals to discuss mental health issues. The ultimate compliment is from employees telling us how they felt better equipped to spot signs of stress and mental illness in others.

Mental Health Awareness Benefits

Whilst we cannot divulge personal details, we have seen a reduction in staff-operative absenteeism due to anxiety or stress. This is a huge win for everyone. It fully endorses the long-held importance we’ve placed on staff mental wellness. It’s why, several years ago, we introduced a programme involving two dedicated mental health instructors. This was crucial to us keeping abreast of mental health issues and keeping staff and operatives informed of any new training requirements. Our development of mental health first aider courses ensure support is available for our staff throughout the UK.

BriggsAmasco has 36 mental health first aiders and two dedicated mental health first aid instructors. Our Mental Health First Aid Instructors deliver a full two-day Mental Health First Aid Course, as well as refresher training when required. Mental Health Awareness training is also provided as part of our company induction.

It’s Good to Talk

BriggsAmasco welcomes initiatives such as Mental Health Awareness Week. The more people are encouraged to talk about mental health issues, the less they will suffer from what is sadly a very prevalent problem. Four in five suicides are men, with suicide the biggest cause of death for men under 35¹. In 2020, reported suicide rates amongst construction workers were 3.7 times higher than the national average².

In terms of further training initiatives, BriggsAmasco is in the process of delivering refresher courses to all previously qualified Mental Health First Aiders. We are also in the process of recruiting Mental Health First Aiders, who will complete a two-day course at company branches throughout the country.

Our commitment to providing staff with the best possible mental health support remains absolute.

¹ UK Parliament report

² Office for National Statistics report

Learning at Work Week is a superb initiative designed to build workplace learning cultures and highlight the benefits of continual employee development.

Taking place between May 13^th to 19^th, this year’s LAW Week theme, ‘Learning Power’, focuses on knowledge and learning as a catalyst for personal growth and change, as well as achieving team and organisational goals.  

BriggsAmasco is fully supportive of this positive campaign, which is led by Campaign for Learning, and organisational champions. As well as helping boost learning opportunities for employees of all ages nationwide, LAW Week is a chance for us to highlight staff training initiated by BriggsAmasco.

Our employees are our greatest asset, and to this effect we have implemented a range of training programmes from NVQs and apprentices, through to Mental Health Awareness and First Aid courses, in order to boost staff personal development and create a workplace environment in which they feel valued and supported. 

With our training programmes, staff can study for degrees in professions including quantity surveying, IEMA (environment and sustainability studies) and Inspector of Record (IOR). Human Resources CIPD qualifications also form part of our personal development strategy. 

Currently, we have six trainees and seven apprentices learning and plying their trade throughout the business. We’re proud of our long-established record of nurturing young individuals as they take their first tentative steps along their desired career path. Many of our trainees have progressed to senior positions within the company, using their experience to support apprentices following in their footsteps. This lineage is crucial to not only developing the skills of a new generation of construction-based employees at a time when the UK building trade’s talent pool is known to be shallow, it is vital to enshrining the company’s best practice culture across all areas of the business.

Progression of In-house Training

In terms of the way in-house training culture has progressed throughout the decades, our health and safety programmes have increased exponentially as the construction industry has sharpened its focus on worker protections as its highest priority. Digital data capture and storage has also improved the way we are able to monitor staff health and safety performance to further improve training processes. 

The passing years have also seen us place a greater emphasis on safeguarding employees’ mental health awareness with the introduction of a series of exceptionally beneficial professionally-prescribed courses. Once something of a taboo subject, the building industry fully acknowledges that employees are more susceptible to mental stresses and strains than other professions due to construction’s unrelenting physical demands. BriggsAmasco has appointed more than 20 qualified mental health first aiders from its staffing pool. It means for anyone struggling with personal or work-based problems, a colleague is available to confide in and help ease mental burdens.

There is no doubt that campaigns such as LAW Week are the way forward for creating a contented, motivated, productive workforce. Hence, we will continue to provide training and personal development programmes that are commensurate with employee needs, giving staff the best possible chance to thrive in their day-to-day duties for their long-term fulfilment and success.

BriggsAmasco is a shortlisted finalist in two categories at this year’s NFRC UK Roofing Awards

The annual contest, a red-letter roofing event, recognises and rewards outstanding standards of workmanship and safety within the UK industry.

BriggsAmasco’s expert delivery of complex, high profile roofing projects at Perry Barr in Birmingham, and Sumburgh Head Lighthouse and Visitors Centre in Shetland have been respectively nominated in the Bituminous Hot Applied Liquid Waterproofing category, and the Mastic Asphalt category.

Tony Lawther, Managing Director at BriggsAmasco said: “This is excellent news. The NFRC Awards are revered throughout the roofing sector. Therefore, to be nominated in not one, but two categories is a real coup. We look forward to the finalists’ presentation event and hope our nominations extend to us being announced as category winners.”

For the Perry Barr project, BriggsAmasco was selected by Vinci Construction to design and install waterproofing for multiple roofs and a communal podium. The large, complex programme was integral to the residential scheme that will supply 1,400 sustainable new homes for the north Birmingham district.

At Sumburgh Head Lighthouse and Visitors Centre, DITT Construction appointed BriggsAmasco to supply a new roof to the historic site’s engine room. The project was on behalf of the Shetland Amenity Trust. This meant it was imperative costs were minimised during the roof’s refurbishment, which BriggsAmasco operatives carried out whilst the centre’s accommodation blocks were occupied by holidaymakers.

Tony continued: “Whatever the outcome of the NFRC Awards, it cannot be denied that our teams deployed the highest skills and workmanship to complete the two projects. We are proud of their achievements and thank them for their continued efforts. Their ability to deliver a wide range of roofing projects is BriggsAmasco’s greatest advocate.”

The 2024 NFRC UK Roofing Awards take place on Friday, May 10^th at InterContinental London – The O2.

Scotland

This week is BriggsAmasco Fire Safety Week, as part of this, every live site we are currently on will be visited by our Directors, Senior Management, Area Safety Advisors and Chairman.

On 30th April Allan Dorris (Glasgow Brnach Manager), Dave Maginnis (Chairman) and Tony Lawther (Managing Director) travelled to the West Coast of Scotland with a visit to the Rothesay Pavillion Project which we are delivering the Flat Roofing Package for the Robertson Group on the Isle of Rothesay.

Overall it was a really good visit, ensuring we are constantly reviewing our procedures and processes and on this occasion we had the added pleasure of a boat journey, perfect scenery and very good dialogue with the Roberston Site Team.

London

Whilst we have invested heavily in Gas free equipment and fire safety training, we actively strive for feedback and the continued support of our operatives, subcontractors and site management teams in delivering our best practices and procedures.

Pictured left to right Neil Harrison (Pre-Construction Director), Lee Virgin (Operations Director London) & John Ross (Area Safety Advisor)

A beautiful morning to visit our Tower Bridge Project which is being delivered in partnership with Willmot Dixon.

Yorkshire & NE

Completing our fire safety audit on Caddick’s site Railway Street Apartments in Leeds. In addition we utilised the opportunity for a site visit for our office based apprentices to gain valuable on site experience.

Pictured left to right Shona MacMillan (H&S Advisor), Keith Melling (Operations Director), Patrick Harvey (Trainee Quantity Surveyor) & Archie Melling (Trainee Designer / O&M & Warranty Coordinator).

Dave Maginnis, our Chairman, will be taking part in a 2 hour Body Combat fundraiser on Sunday 28th April, to raise funds for playground improvements and playground equipment that was destroyed after years of intense flooding at Joseph Hood primary school, Raynes Park, close to our Chessington Office.

Briggs Amasco has also donate £1,250.00 to the cause.

Their Story
After nearly a year of solid fundraising, the school’s Parent and Teacher’s Association has so far helped raise an impressive £14,600, yet there is still a way to go. Now Jaclyn Hughes, a Trustee of the school and the PTFA’s Chair with the rest of the parents and carers at the school, are kindly asking the wider community for support in meeting the final target. And what better way of raising the much-needed cash, than organising a mega fitness class at Raynes Park High, inviting the whole community to come and take part.

View the short video on Instagram

Dave warmed up with a 1.5 hour session in the morning, followed by the 2 hour body combat in the afternoon, burning just over 3,000 calories!