Over the next few weeks, 4 of my blogs will mention how, in my opinion, Solar Solve is one of the best businesses in the world to trade with. The original company motto, which has been our motivation ever since 1975, was ‘The Customer is King’. It still is, even though we realise it may not be considered politically correct or appropriate in some parts of the world, we hope that the core message by implication is; – at Solar Solve no one is more important than our customers and we do absolutely everything we can to delight them. Customers can expect Exactly WHAT they want, Exactly WHEN they want it and EXACTLY WHERE they want it.
Being the best does not just happen, it has to be worked hard for by the whole team, who are all committed to the cause. I have tried to combine all of the requirements into 4 main categories, one for each of the 4 blogs referred to above. They include:-
1) Regular Staff Training And Appraisals For Our Committed Employees.
2) Constant Checking And Performance Analysis Monitoring.
3) Reliable Suppliers/Service Providers.
4) Maximum Control.
Regular staff training and appraisals for our committed employees is very important and when planning for 2019, way back in October of last year, we expected the summer to be a bit quieter. We therefore planned to hold a number of staff training sessions and mid-year appraisals in June / July. It turns out that we had a very successful first half-year and whilst we expected the usual summer respite would provide time for the training etc, the anticipated reduction in Enquiries, Quotes and Orders did not materialise.
Fortunately, our employees are not able to take any holidays during the summer training and appraisal weeks, so with the benefit of some overtime working and extra commitment from the whole team, we were able to achieve all our objectives within the scheduled timescale.
Some of the training is general like Health and Safety, Fire Safety, SWOT Analysis, Cyber Security Awareness, GDPR Awareness and so on. The rest tends to be more job-specific and includes on-going projects, company performance, Quality Assurance Responsibilities, Skills and Requirements to Perform Work-Related Processes.
Every January the main staff appraisals take place, when employees meet with their managers to discuss the employees progress, objectives, any problems, suggestions, salary, etc. All of the salient points are documented, read out, agreed and signed by employee and manager. Being open and frank is encouraged as the best way forward for a happy team of committed, long serving people who are never late and 99% never off work sick. We enjoy an incredibly high attendance record that everyone is very proud of. The mid-year appraisals are more relaxed and take place in June. Generally a brief resume of the January appraisal and documentation takes place and the opportunity is there for anything at all to be discussed. The review usually lasts only about 10 minutes because employees are encouraged to approach a manager of director at any time if ever there is something they want to discuss, formally or informally. It does not make any sense to wait until a scheduled appraisal takes place.
A great indicator of how well the company treats its employees can be seen here . It highlights the teams 250 years of combined service. The resultant benefit for the directors of their long-serving and highly committed team is to make Solar Solve Ltd one of the best businesses in the world. There are numerous commendations on our website testimonials page here , some stating that we are perfect and cannot improve. They are nice to receive but there is a lot goes into earning them. You can read more about some of the other factors in future blogs over August and September.
JHL MBE SSL Co. Chairman
