Peninsula saves us money by streamlining our processes

Empower Youth Zones is a youth charity in Manchester. They support children from disadvantaged communities, by providing a safe place to engage in positive activities.

CEO Adam explains how Peninsula refreshed his Health & Safety and HR processes, saving his charity time and money.

The charity provides space for arts and crafts, a climbing wall, dance studio, gym equipment, sports halls, and more.

With so many activities on offer, there’s a lot of potential hazards to manage.

As a result, his management team struggled to keep up with over 100 risk assessments. It was time-consuming to carry out such a heavy Health & Safety workload, and took focus away from important work – like essential fundraising.

The charity also delivered first aid training internally for every worker, which took up more valuable time and resources.

Wanting to save time for his team – without compromising the safety of the children – he reached out to Peninsula for Health & Safety support…

A Peninsula Health & Safety consultant reviewed his existing safety processes.

The consultant identified ways the charity could streamline their tasks, while continuing to protect the children against every possible hazard.

Previously, staff carried out a risk assessment for each type of sport – for example, basketball, cricket, and dodgeball. The consultant grouped the activities together under one consolidated ‘sports hall’ assessment, significantly reducing the overall amount of assessments.

Peninsula provided new, consolidated risk assessments, which still covered every possible risk.

With less paperwork and admin to manage, managers had more time to reinvest back into the charity.

Plus, the consultant identified that it wasn’t necessary to provide Level 3 Health & Safety training for every worker. Due to the nature of their role, some staff only needed one days’ training – to a lower level – which was more affordable for the charity.

A Peninsula consultant then delivered first aid training to Adam’s employees – saving staff time, and allowing Adam to keep the premises open.

Impressed by the improvement, Adam decided to outsource the charity’s HR too…

• First aid training

  A consultant delivered expert first aid training to Adam’s team

• Health & Safety advice

  Adam freed up more time and money for his business by taking onboard advice to streamline the charity’s previous processes

With sleeker safety processes in place, Adam wanted to streamline his HR too.

So as a first step, an employment law consultant Danielle reviewed all the existing HR policies within the organisation.

Danielle optimised the policies to strengthen them – ruling out confusion or legal risk. She then complied them all into one employee handbook, making it easier for staff to access their essential workplace rules.

Next, Danielle began to set up new employee contracts. Staff at the charity range from fulltime office staff to part time youth workers – so they require vastly different T&Cs for their unique entitlements.

So, Danielle set up contract templates for each kind of worker, making it easier to onboard new staff with the right T&Cs when they start. With summer or parttime staff, employee turnover is high – so having templates means that managers can save time when setting up new recruits.

Once Adam approved the contracts, he uploaded them onto his HR software, making it easier to access and share contracts with his team.

Now, Danielle is arranging management handbooks for the charity.

This handbook gives senior managers guidance around how to handle typical staff issues that appear in the organisation.

For example, if a manager ever needs to carry out a disciplinary process, they can refer to the guidelines set out in the handbook. This would give the managers prompts and step-by-step instructions to handle the situation safely.

It means that Adam no longer has to intervene when a staff issue crops up.

With expert guidance in the handbook, his team of managers feel confident in tackling day-to-day HR issues without requiring input. This frees up Adam’s time to focus on the more strategic elements of his charity, without getting caught up in staff problems.

• Staff contracts

  Adam’s team saves time on onboarding new recruits with watertight T&Cs

• Employee handbook

  Everyone who works for the charity can access the company policies in one place

• Manager’s handbook

  Senior managers can manage HR issues independently with step-by-step guidance