Seven Seas Ltd

G4S Secure Solutions operates locally in Yorkshire and is working with Seven Seas to secure their head office and manufacturing site.

G4S Secure Solutions (UK) Ltd worked in partnership with Seven Seas to successfully move an in-house team of security officers to G4S.  G4S was also able to drive out inefficiencies through effective planning and management of employees.

Overview
G4S Secure Solutions (G4S) operates locally in Yorkshire and is working with Seven Seas, the UK’s leading supplier of vitamin supplements - to secure their head office and manufacturing site, which are based in Hull.   The contract commenced in March 2011, after a short turn-around from the tender going out to mobilisation, and included the management of transferring staff from an in-house delivered security service to an outsourced security service solution.

Economic pressures
With economic pressures upon businesses and consumers, Seven Seas needed to save costs without compromising on service quality. Seven Seas wanted to work with a global organization that had a local footprint – this is because a global organization has the expertise it was looking for and support of the rest of the business to draw upon, and a local presence enables an organization to relate directly to staff and understand local pressures and the local environment. Seven Seas also wanted to work with an organization that could demonstrate the ability to successfully manage the implementation of a new security process, whilst also making sure that the welfare of the current team was maintained.

G4S was able to fulfill all of these requirements

Service solution and planning
Due to the sensitive nature of the operation and because Seven Seas did not want the proposed plan to outsource the in-house security service to become public knowledge, frequent site visits were not possible and the flow of information was restricted.   After numerous meetings with Seven Seas’ representatives and through our knowledge of the industry, we were able to develop an accurate solution, in-line with operational requirements of the site and requirements of employees, albeit based on limited information.

G4S developed a streamlined solution, which will bring in cost saving, and drive out inefficiencies

The service delivered
There are currently 10 members of the team deployed over two sites – the team consists of nine security officers and one supervisor who has overall responsibility for both sites.   A range of services are delivered through an integrated service delivery approach, which involves multi-skilling our employees. The services include:

▪ Gatehouse management
▪ Visitors access and egress control
▪ Foot patrols
▪ CCTV management
▪ Incident Reporting
▪ First Aid
▪ Reception management.
▪ Searches (vehicle and personal)
▪ Alarm monitoring.

G4S is operationally led and has provided a complete service solution, which has eased pressure on Seven Seas.

Implementation and planning
G4S managed the consultation and TUPE transfer on behalf of Seven Seas. G4S representatives attended site every Friday and took part in group sessions and held 1-2-1 consultations with employees, to ensure they felt confident and secure in the process. Employees had the opportunity to ask questions – openly and honestly, and G4S would respond and address any concerns. This was completed over a four week period.  After thorough review and risk assessment planning it was decided the operation could be successfully managed with a reduction in manpower (reduced by two). Once the decision had been made the entire process was managed by G4S and we entered into full, open and honest consultations with the security team.

Compliant and fair
To ensure we were compliant and acted fairly we worked closely with Seven Seas’ HR team, G4S HR Team and the union, GMB. We advised Seven Seas that we would TUPE over all remaining security officers and organized SIA licenses for those Officers who did not currently have this legally required accreditation. This meant that we were able to successfully manage the transfer process for Seven Seas and give staff an opportunity to familiarize themselves with G4S, the management team, new working practices and how we could help them develop in their career.

“Once the process was completed we were ready to go live with no major issues or concerns. This was largely due to the planning that went into the process in the early stages. We made sure that we had covered of all areas and had regular meetings with Seven Seas throughout the process.”
Darren Bidgood, Regional Director, G4S Regional Security

Career development
An additional requirement of Seven Seas was they wanted to provide a structured development career path for the security officers in the security industry, as this was something they were not able to provide directly. G4S is able to provide this and has a number of successful career development programmes for security officers, supervisors and management.

“A decision was made to outsource the in house security service during December 2010, at the Seven Seas site in Hull.

G4S were selected as a potential vendor based on their global presence and their expertise within this field. This was apparent after the initial meeting with their approachable and knowledgeable representatives. The nature of the particular outsource was extremely sensitive for Seven Seas and G4S acted professionally and confidentially at all times. They guided Seven Seas throughout the whole process, providing workable solutions to whatever problems were encountered during the short-time scale given for implementation. The level of sensitivity and confidentiality of the tender also restricted the level of information that Seven Seas were able to provide G4S, which also contributed to a very challenging situation.  G4S were able to react quickly to the needs of Seven Seas, providing full transparency at all times. As a result G4S were able to offer cost savings and greater efficiencies to the original process.

Although the relationship with G4S is still in its infancy I truly believe that a long-term partnership will develop over time.”
Julie Daine Procurement Specialist, Seven Seas