Together Magazine - December 2020

Together magazine &

December 2020

In a year when staying indoors has been more important than ever, your commitment and dedication has meant that thousands of people have been given the freedom to stay safe in the homes they love.

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Hello from your Senior Management Team...

Paul Stockdill, Richard Whitehouse, Paul Sykes, Ian Docherty, Emma Bowker, Nikki Thompson and Andrew Williams.

Our #OneFamily Album

Every issue we’ll be sharing photos and reviews received from happy dealers and customers – if you’d like to see more follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin!

There’s no denying 2020 will be remembered as one of the most challenging years in recent history.

As we head towards Christmas it will be interesting to see what highlights and events will feature in the reviews of the year…

For our Handicare family there have definitely been some highlights and record-breaking performances from the team. We know things have frequently gone wrong at the last minute in 2020 and how well ALL Associates have done in coping through this and going above and beyond.

We continue to strengthen and focus our business with the goal of becoming the world’s leading provider of accessibility solutions for homes. Many areas and roles have been transformed and there will be more changes next year.

Our vision to make everyday life easier has never been more relevant. More people want to stay safely at home for longer, avoiding hospital and care homes. Those people who are most vulnerable, their family and friends, are looking for ways to adapt their homes to suit their needs.

Shire Mobility shared photos of a job at Buckingham Golf Club on Facebook… Another Teerific install of a Handicare Stairlifts UK Freecurve stairlift by our engineers today. It’s certainly an install we won’t Fore-get!

A heart-warming story from Amsterdam: Madlen in Applications and Marcel Telman teamed up to ensure Mrs Heidebrink could stay living in her apartment, surrounded by 50 years of happy memories. The apartment’s narrow public staircase was a challenge, but the Handicare team was more than a match for the rules and regulations!

Our partner AAG from France shares a beautiful example of our curved outdoor stairlift. Although the stairs are straight, a curved stairlift was chosen so that the chair could be parked around the corner at the top of the stairs to minimise intrusion for other stair users. The cover will keep the seat dry in case of rain or wet conditions.

Looking ahead, keeping Auntie Doris at the heart of our business, staying committed to exceptional customer experiences for end-users and partners, and giving our people the tools you need to do your job effectively are our priorities.

A little less further ahead, we hope you all enjoy the upcoming festivities with your family and friends.

Wishing you all a happy and healthy Christmas! #StaySafe #StrongerTogether

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Ritchie Hart & Co in Northern Ireland: Shared on Facebook – another fantastic looking installation!

“Marwin was over the moon with her new #handicare 950+ with slate grey upholstery powered swivel seat & powered footplate.

The grey looks amazing with the ultra modern wallpaper!

Beautiful decor!”

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A happy stairlift customer makes a happy engineer! Here you see Enna from Sicily who is really pleased with her new 1100 straight stairlift and Alessandro from one of our trusted partners Katel, happy helping another customer.

Mobility Scotland’s new wheels! Our Handicare 1100 stairlift photography looks great on the side of our partner’s van!

Look how little space this stairlift takes up on this beautiful marble staircase! Our special thanks to our Italian partner Giglio Tirrenica Montascale for installing the stairlift and sharing the pictures.

One of our engineers found himself an unexpected “apprentice” on a weekend installation in November! Mike Eccles’s van content provided a tasty treat for a local “resident”! Now that’s not what we mean when we say our packaging is recyclable!

One of our team in Leeds, Josie Westmorland received an unexpected gift in the post from a grateful customer. A guardian angel necklace to help keep her safe. All together now… aaawwww!

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A day in the life... of the HR Team Our brilliant HR team is responsible for a huge range of services, ranging from providing advice and support to Associates on topics such as maternity and paternity, to managing recruitment and the all-important payroll. All the team work with every level within the business, from directors and managers to temporary workers, so they get to know everyone pretty well.

We may all know how HR have helped each one of us in the past, but what does a typical day look like? Well, according to Nikki Thompson, Rachel Fisher and Carolyn Kilburn… there’s no such thing as a typical day in HR! In fact, no two days are ever the same! Here’s a list of some of the things Nikki and Rachel in Kingswinford, and Carolyn in Leeds get up to during their very busy working week…

Rachel • Fleet queries and emails •A rranging collection and delivery of company vehicles • Process payroll and pension • Offer paperwork for new starters • Inductions • Sending out birthday cards & long service awards • CHRISTMAS!

Carolyn • Giving advice on absence management process, including COVID-19 related issues • Updating Cezanne • Offer paperwork for new starters • Supporting the recruitment process • General office management • Advice and guidance on company policies • CHRISTMAS!

Nikki • Recruitment, student placements, apprentice programmes etc.

•E mployee change of terms •S upporting managers with absence management & rehabilitation procedures & complex HR issues • Oversee payroll • HAC committee facilitation • Manage and maintain headcount reporting for group • Insurance claims • CHRISTMAS!

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Christmas Countdown

The HR team have been doing their best to ensure the days and weeks leading up to the traditional Christmas festivities are as normal as possible for our #OneFamily. Associates will be enjoying some of the

Handicare traditions we have come to expect and which help to create a special atmosphere in all our workplaces. We’ll all be socially-distanced at our Christmas lunches this year, but it won’t stop us from having fun!

Helping Morrison’s with Community Donations We think Morrison’s Pick Up Bags are a great way to make it easy to donate to food banks in the run-up to Christmas. We love anything that helps to make life easier!

We sent some of our team in Leeds and Kingswinford to their local stores to pick up some food and toys to fill more bags for community projects! Thanks to Carolyn, Adam and Macey in Leeds and Nikki and Rachel in Kingswinford for helping with the donations!

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Tips for Healthy Home Working This year, many of us have been working from home perhaps at the kitchen table, or even the sofa. That might be fine for a while, but it can lead to aches and pains in shoulders and necks. Here are a few tips for healthy home working: • Find a work station with the window behind or next to you.

It’s tiring for your eyes to look directly into the daylight.

• If you have an office chair, adjust the armrests for good relaxed support, raise the seat so that the armrests are the same height as the table top, and your feet are flat on the floor with your knees in line with your hips.

• If you don’t have an office chair, aim to rest your forearms on the table without shrugging your shoulders.

• Position the keyboard so that your arms can rest on the table, and sit with a straight back.

• To help your neck stay relaxed and in a neutral position, your monitor should be directly in front of you, a few inches above eye level.

• Stand up and do some exercise every half hour: walk around (e.g. while on the phone) or do some stretching exercises.

• If you’re on the phone a lot, use earphones, headphones or the speaker function.

Keep in touch using Teams!

Microsoft Teams is a very user-friendly program that allows you to talk to several people at the same time and also see each other through your webcam. Nowadays many meetings are held using Teams, but you can also use it if you’d like to speak to a colleague instead of using the phone.

In the search bar at the top, type the name of your colleague and then click on the icon of the phone call. If you prefer, you can easily turn off your camera.

Teams can be used from your laptop or computer, but also from your mobile phone, once you have downloaded the program.

Just give it a try!

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A NEAR MISS TODAY COULD BE AN ACCIDENT TOMORROW… Reporting a near miss is the first step to preventing incidents and accidents from happening in the future.

AN WIN NE 7 IPHO

We all have the ability to help improve the health and safety of our workplace. By completing a “Risk Report Card” when a near miss is identified we can all help to adapt processes to improve safety on site and in the field.

We’ll enter every card received into the prize draw which we will draw in December to win a brand new iPhone 7. Every report will count as a single entry – so the more you report, the greater your chance of winning!

You can post your card in any of the blue boxes that are located in KWF PRODUCTION (BY THE DRINKS M/C) B81 Reception B82 Despatch office B82 office entrance (by car park) B84 R&D (BY DRINKS M/C) or email details to neil.tart@handicare.com with the subject Near Miss

If you see a RISK or a NEAR MISS wherever you are, please REPORT IT!

Remember you could be in with the chance of WINNING AN IPHONE 7!

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2020: Best year ever!

Our teams have been breaking records around the world! Here’s a round-up of all the amazing things you’ve achieved in one of the toughest years we’ve ever had as a result of the pandemic.

Together we’re helping to make life easier for even more customers and making a difference that matters even more during these difficult times.

•A phenomenal 23% ahead of target for the UK Trade team •A nother consistent performance by the German team where orders continue to increase, plus an unexpected spike in NL Local Authority orders (Meet the German team on p10) •A record-breaking week of 618 Freecurve drawings completed by the NL Applications team

Stand-out successes this quarter include: • A record week for orders by the Age UK team (20% ahead)

Thanks to everyone for doing such a terrific job in what are challenging circumstances.

Let’s keep it going!

UK Breakdown Targets Smashed!

In 2020, our engineers have attended urgent breakdowns within 16 hours (target 24 hours) and customers trapped on stairlifts within 2 hours (target 4 hours)!

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Who cares?

Your Associate Committee do!

Some of the world’s most successful businesses are the ones which listen to and act upon what their customers and their people say about them. Feedback helps us all to perform better.

Many businesses use employee forums to improve communication between management and staff.

Our Associate Committee exists to give all our people a voice and the chance to share concerns, suggest ways for doing things differently, or simply ask for more or clearer information.

This year, the regular meetings of the committee have been held via Teams with representatives from around the business raising issues ranging from COVID-19 to recycling.

HR’s Nikki Thompson organises and chairs the meetings which take place six times a year.

“There have been some fantastic suggestions which have led to the introduction of electronic payslips, recycling bins, and the Near Miss health and safety campaign. We’ve also changed the way we advertise vacancies for internal positions such as First Aider and Fire Marshal as a direct result of the work of the committee,” says Nikki.

“Understandably this year there have been a lot of conversations relating to the corona virus and how we deal with it in the workplace. We’ve done our best to respond quickly and to make sure people understand what we can and can’t say, at the same time reassuring them that we’re doing all we can to keep everyone safe while they’re at work.”

There have been two new members on the committee this year: Andrew Whitehouse, from the factory, and Andrew England, Field Service Engineer (Midlands).

If you would like to get involved in 2021, please contact Nikki nikki.thompson@handicare.com Your Committee: Trudy Chrimes, Ian Docherty, Clare Brophy, Richard Whitehouse, Rosie Gall, George Court, Augustin Nae, Lucy Leadbeatter, Yasmin Davies, Nikki Thompson, Andrew Whitehouse, Andrew England.

A Mile in their Shoes: Richard Whitehouse A HAC initiative Managers swap their familiar environment with someone else’s to get to know another part of the business better. Richard Whitehouse, Director of Operations – UK, spent time in the Applications Team to find out about the processes and people responsible for stairlift drawings.

Commenting, Richard said: “I sat with the team once to look at how they produced new drawings and secondly how they deal with re-works, which are where a customer has asked for changes to the original. The systems they were working with made both time-consuming, and exposed many areas for improvement. There was already a project planned and in development and I can certainly see how critical that improvement project is.”

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Sustainability Matters This year’s COVID-19 pandemic has affected businesses and individuals globally.

Many now believe it is even more important to grow businesses in a responsible and sustainable way – an opportunity to re-evaluate and prioritise our sustainability strategies and goals.

Selecting Sustainable Development Goals

“The current crisis is an opportunity for a profound, systemic shift to a more sustainable economy that works for both people and the planet.”

United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

Handicare’s mission is to improve the quality of life for people with disabilities that affect their mobility, so we focus on the United Nations’ SDGs where we can have direct impact:

SDG 3 Good Health and Wellbeing through ensuring access to safe, usable and affordable products and solutions which enable them to live independently at home for longer, and which enables carers to work effectively and safely in healthcare environments.

We also want to contribute to SDGs relevant to the way we source, produce, operate and sell our products and solutions.

SDG 12 Responsible Consumption & Production

SDG 8 Decent Work and Economic Growth

In October, we carried out a Sustainability Survey asking Associates, partners, customers and suppliers worldwide what they think are the issues and challenges we should be focusing on.

SDG 5 Gender Equality

SDG 13 Climate Action

The responses revealed that our priorities, set in 2017 following the last survey, continue to be the areas our stakeholders think we should focus on beyond 2020.

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Top 3 Sustainability Issues for Handicare (according to Associates)

75%

60% Using sustainable materials in our products

Offering safe and high-quality products

49% Enabling recycling of our products

73%

Over 8 % of you think it is important or very important that the company you work for is pursuing sustainability.

of you believe our customers care about social and environmental issues, such as the environmental impact of our products or the working conditions in our value chain, when they buy our products

“My customers are the local authorities in The Netherlands and for them is “green buying” a hot topic and a big focus in the tenders.”

“I think the end customer/user don’t really care any more.

They just want to go up and down the stairs.

They never been issued with this issues. But our dealer should care about it.”

“These issues have been highlighted a lot in public media last years.

Majority of people are aware and do not accept bad working conditions or bad environmental impact.”

94% of you believe sustainability is strategically important to Handicare

“Elderly people are influenced by their grandsons who are very sensitive to sustainability”

“As we produce a lot of material each day, we have our responsibility to the world to make every day life easy. But not only this day but also for the next!”

Please let us know your thoughts and ideas about Handicare’s sustainability work now and in the future…

“Would be good to have more visible sustainability information onsite for those who work on the shopfloor, and for those in the field.”

“I would like to be better informed of what we are doing so this can be passed on to the customer.”

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Next year, we will include regular updates in Together on our Sustainability priorities and actions to address them.

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SDG 5 Gender Equality: How we’re doing The gender pay gap is a measure of the difference between the average earnings of men and women across an organisation. Typically, there are fewer women in the upper pay quartile which means the average pay for women is lower than for men. In organisations such as Handicare with a large field-based workforce, women can be under-represented, especially in higher paid management roles, and they also have fewer women in the technical roles, which also pay more.

Our 2019 mean pay gap is 7.62% (up from 6.9% in 2018).

National average gap between what men and women are paid is 12.8% (up from 11.9% in 2018).

Since we reported in 2018, we have achieved a more even gender distribution in our business.

We have increased the percentage of females in higher paid positions, and the median pay gap has reduced for the third consecutive year.

Proportion of males and females by pay quartile This section divides the workforce into four equally sized groups based on their hourly pay rate, with Band A including the lowest paid 25% of employees (the lower quartile) and Band D covering the highest paid 25% of employees (the upper quartile).

Band A

Band B

Band C

75.9%

77.3%

69.3%

58.6%

66.2% 2018

69.2% 2018

87% 2018

80.5% 2018

24.1%

22.7%

30.7%

41.4%

33.8% 2018

30.8% 2018

13% 2018

19.5% 2018

(lowest paid)

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Band D

(highest paid)

Males

Females

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Cleaning Kit Our business is all about making everyday life easier for our customers.

It’s what motivates everything we do – from our products to the way customers do business with us.

With that in mind, and as a result of this year’s increase in hygiene and cleaning due to the corona virus, we have introduced a new Premium Stairlift Care Kit designed for use on all our straight and curved stairlifts; the rail, the seat, the armrests, the switch/ joystick and the remote control units.

Every part of our stairlift which is regularly touched can be cared for and disinfected to keep it in pristine condition and free from any marks or unseen nasties.

The Care Kit is perfect for customers who want to easily keep their new stairlift in the best condition in terms of how it looks and how clean it is – especially if it’s being used regularly (average is 14 times a day) and possibly by more than one person.

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Every issue we’ll be taking a virtual trip to meet one of Handicare’s teams in another part of the world…

Meet the team: Germany Thanks to Maria Geiginger, Marketing, for taking part in our Q&A. • Anke van Ameide / Commercial Director • Andreas Schaefer / Key Account Manager • Carola Juhnke / Management Assistant / Administration • Christian Tuerschen / Technical Support Coordinator • Daniela Heinze / Team Manager Sales • Drasko Pavlovic / Key Account Manager • Frank Junker / Technical Support Manager • Frank Voss / Key Account Manager • Louisa Strohmeier / Academy Support • Merle Fiebig / Technical Support • Stefanie Behning / Academy & Marketing Coordinator

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Where are you based?

At the end of 2014 we moved from our Minden office to something bigger with more space for Academy training in Porta Westfalica in the province Nordrhein Westfalen.

Account managers are based in their home cities, with the rest of the team working in the office. In 2019 we again needed more space for the Academy and so the warehouse was transformed into a new, more modern space in 2020. With the new facilities we will continue to build on our recent success.

Do you sell direct as well as through dealers?

We cover practically all regions with a widespread network of authorised dealers trained by the German team, so as not to leave areas uncovered or without assistance. It is our dealers who take care of sales, delivery, installation and service. They are a fundamental part of our business.

Do you manufacture stairlifts?

The stairlifts we sell are manufactured in England and Holland and, depending on the configuration, delivery times can vary from 1 to 4 weeks.

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Happy 5th Anniversary!

Handicare Accessibility (Xiamen) was founded in October 2015 when the former Handicare Mobility business was carved out and merged with Sunrise Medical. Since then the dedicated, but small team has taken on more and more work, adding real value to Handicare.

In celebration of the 5th Anniversary of Xiamen, the team had a celebration party at Hilton Hotel (Haicang), with 40 employees attending the event.

To appreciate their great efforts and loyal service, Amy Xie (Managing Director, Handicare Xiamen) awarded “5 Years’ Long Service” to 12 employees (many of whom worked with us before the separation from Mobility): • Yaming Wei_ Production leader 8.5 years • Huilan Wang_ Operator 8.5 years • Jack Wang_ Quality Engineer 7.5 years • Henry Cai_ Supplier quality manager 7 years • Rainy Wang_ Buyer 6 years • Amy Xie_ Managing Director 6 years • Yangzhong Peng_ Sr. R&D engineer 6 years • Xiangmei Wu_Inspector 6 years • Huayan Peng_Operator 6 years • Weihuang Chen_ Inspector 6 years

• Fang Wang_ Operation manager 5 years • Miaoyun Li_ Operator 5 years In the past five years, the team has been a fantastic success story and become a great part of Handicare.

We insourced the 950 fitting kit, Style seat, 950 pack, 1100 seat and 1100 fitting kit to Xiamen, enhanced quality, improved efficiency and saved significant cost.

We’re also now using Xiamen as a base for enhanced technical support and sales activity in the Asia-Pacific region, and are moving more assembly work in-house.

The Xiamen story is as yet, unfinished, and to be continued……

Heerhugowaard: Project Transformer Work has started on introducing a fourth robot to our factory in Holland. The plan is to have the new welding robot running before the end of this year, with additional modifications to the rest of the “team” so that production is not affected. As part of the project, welding activities have been relocated next to the rail production department which has already resulted in improved efficiency.

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Champagne Moment!

Duncan Walker, Quality Engineer, was nominated for a Champagne Moment by Production Supervisor, Natalie Potter.

When a part shortage was highlighted by Natalie, Duncan responded at pace with a concession to modify another part, ensuring production could continue. This prevented a number of non-shipments and avoided customer disappointment.

Well done and thank you to Duncan for going the extra mile!

Andrew Williams Quality Manager

Welcome…

Congratulations to our Field Service Engineer Sean Hodgson and his family who celebrated the arrival of twins Ashton Sean and Esmée Sue in October. Aren’t they adorable!!

Congratulations to all those celebrating long service awards!

Marianne McHenry

Justin Jones

Contract & Service Support Supervisor 5 years

Field Service Engineer (South West)

Richard Forrest

Steven Sloan

Field Service Engineer (Scotland)

Algis Kolinas Production Assembler

5 years 5 years

Warehouse Operative

Sarah Worrall Surveyor Liaison Manager

5 years 5 years 5 years

The next issue of Together Magazine will be published in March. If you’d like to send us a story idea or photo please send an email to sarah.ferguson@handicare.com before Friday 28th February.

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