11 minute read
business matters
Creating a safer, more sustainable world at Gunnebo’s Lavis Plant
Global player in security solutions, Gunnebo Group, showcases its leadership in sustainability within its flagship Lavis Plant in Italy.
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Gunnebo Group is a global leader in digitally transforming security through the continuous development of smart entrance and secure storage solutions. The company ethos is to ‘create a safer world.’ Naturally, environmental sustainability plays a fundamental role in Gunnebo’s efforts to build toward a safer future.
Maintaining innovative operational leadership is crucial to the firm’s success in meeting its environmentally-friendly goals of becoming resource, climate, and energy efficient by 2024. Already the company has reduced its energy usage by 20% in one of its headquarters. Business Edge spoke to Paolo Compagno, Technical Health and Safety Manager of Gunnebo Group’s Lavis Plant, to get his take on what makes outstanding leadership in sustainability initiatives.
Expand sustainability leadership far and wide
“One of the fundamental things is to work with all employees in achieving your sustainability goals – not just the teams that actively work towards sustainability initiatives in the workplace,” he said.
Since taking a lead role in managing the security firm’s sustainability improvements in 2018, Paolo has collaborated closely with Gunnebo’s Q&E manager in team with the other company managers. Together, they have eliminated 70% of hazardous chemical usage in their operations, developed product packaging customisations using sustainable materials, and set up awareness campaigns targeting staff and suppliers.
These are all great achievements, both from an environmental perspective and a cost and business efficiency perspective. For instance, replacing OSB panels with cardboard panels in their packaging reduced the time it takes for warehouse workers to pack one item by 50%.
Put people at the centre of your environmentally-friendly goals
Paolo notes that, like many industries, the pandemic posed significant execution challenges to Gunnebo Group’s sustainability agenda. “The last two years put everybody and every activity under huge pressure.”
However, protecting people’s health and business operations remain paramount. Therefore, it was important for Gunnebo to allow for a certain degree of flexibility in its plans as the company dealt with the strain of disruptive restrictions.
At the start of this year, company leaders created a small team to re-assess sustainability goals in light of public health concerns. This pivot in strategy was both an ethical and advantageous move for the security brand. It helped them assure accomplishments in the following areas of sustainability management:
Tracking successes in sustainability management
Establishing a sustainability KPI reporting framework, as required by Gunnebo Group. The assessment process uses Worldfavor as its reporting tool. It is used to track sustainability measures, such as reduction of energy consumption, throughout the organisation.
Conducting supplier sustainability audits on Gunnebo’s most critical suppliers by the end of this year (2022).
Communications teams produce sustainability updates, posted to all staff quarterly, keeping them in the loop of ecofriendly developments.
Designers received Solidworks Sustainability training, promoting environmental creative problem-solving skills in Gunnebo’s workforce. Internal training schemes helped the company better monitor and reduce the amount of garbage generated across the organisation by around 25%.
Simple changes like reducing air conditioning running time from 10 am- 5 pm, altering coffee dispensers and water outlets to draw from the mains water supply, and eliminating disposable tableware cost little. However, these measures also help to establish an environmentally-friendly company culture. As a result of these measures thus far, Gunnebo Group’s Lavis plant has reduced its energy consumption by 20%.
By the end of the year, the Lavis plant hopes to switch 100% of its light fixtures to LED bulbs. Currently, LED bulbs cover 70% of the Lavis plant premises.
Success in sustainability is a team effort
“My advice for companies looking to promote outstanding leadership in environmentally sustainable planning is to use a reliable assessment model to monitor evolving business needs.
But, once this is done, it is fundamental to work as a team with all employees and inform them about your policies, assessment criteria, and progress. Always work all together to reach your goals. And finally, don’t forget to celebrate your sustainable achievements as you go,” adds Paolo.
Find out more about Gunnebo Group’s sustainability approach on their website,
gunnebo.com/sustainability
Sussex-based digital security firm, Zunoma has released a whitepaper in partnership with the Post Office on ‘the innovative technology behind financial inclusion in the UK’ to highlight what ground-breaking financial technologies and support is available to the general population following the pandemic.
Phil Ouzman
Managing Director Zunoma
Approximately 93% of the UK adult population have access to financial services, meaning almost five million UK residents are excluded from financial support or the associated benefits that come with having a bank account. Recognising the need for inclusive financial services, and as the cost-of-living crisis worsens, Zunoma worked with the Post Office to develop the cash dispensary services, Payout and Payout NOW!
Zunoma’s whitepaper details the services, gives examples of the services in practice, and ultimately demonstrates the positive impact a fully comprehensive cash dispensary solution can have for organisations looking to support customers without access to financial services.
Zunoma has identified that the Payout and Payout NOW! services, in partnership with the Post Office, has helped 120 businesses across the UK to provide financial relief services to 18.3 million individuals. Additionally, the scheme awarded over 100 asylum seekers with emergency cash within the first two weeks of the government granting asylum protection. The white paper also outlines additional funds available to the UK population, such as the Household Support Fund and council tax rebate.
Phil Ouzman, Managing Director at Zunoma, said: “The Payout and Payout NOW! services are ideal solutions for local government, suppliers and charities to issue payments to vulnerable individuals that may not have access to a bank account and offer some relief from financial strain. “We are incredibly proud to have worked in partnership with The Post Office to ensure that such a service is now in place.”
Download the full whitepaper here: zunoma.
com/payout-whitepaper
What are the benefits of outsourcing?
You may be thinking that cost and hassle outweighs the benefits of outsourcing, but read on, because you may be surprised!
Sarah Davies
Commercial Director The Letting Partnership
The last few years have seen a significant number of changes within the business world. The question is, how can outsourcing help achieve this?
Capacity for Growth
Everyday owners and senior managers are so busy ‘firefighting’ that they have no time for planning and innovation. Outsourcing allows you to achieve long lasting and significant efficiencies, build in flexibility, and provide a robust platform to allow you to grow and develop your business. All this can be achieved without having the worry about additional staff, training or that day to day service standards could slip.
Continuity and Consistency
One of the biggest benefits of outsourcing as a business owner is that, if you choose the right outsourcing partner, you have a 100% guarantee that your business will continue to offer excellent service without the biggest headache of staff absences, holiday cover and resignations is eliminated.
Transparency and Security
Outsourcing, using client accounting as an example, enables your business to demonstrate an entirely transparent approach, providing clients with the confidence that accuracy, security, will be provided when their money is processed.
thelettingpartnership.co.uk
Knowledge and experience
Continuing to use client accounting as an example -mistakes can lead to financial and reputational damage to your business and more importantly loss of clients.
Outsourcing presents the possibility to hire a team of professionals with a higher level of expertise at an affordable price. To stay competitive in the market, outsourcing providers have a duty to invest in their staff’s continual training and to improve their skills and qualifications.
Much depends on choosing the right outsourcing provider of course, ensure you do your research and choose a regulated company.
Leading teams – it’s a new team when the team leader changes
George Kunnath
Director of Executive Education Roffey Park Institute
Leading a team is no easy task. For a leader it is a commitment to give everything within their capabilities to encourage team growth and see positive results. For the team members it is a commitment to apply themselves as much as possible to the goals and ambitions set by said leader. However, no matter how successful a team may be, once its leader moves on there are usually problems. The problem can often be traced to one issue, a clear understanding that when the team leader is replaced, IT’S A NEW TEAM. It is common for a high performing team leader to move on. If they are good at what they do, they would be in demand for promotion, new opportunities or even be headhunted. This is only to be expected. When they move on the remaining leadership within organisations often take the approach – it’s a good team, we need a replacement manager to keep it stable and improve it. Which on the surface looks like a simple role requirement but in fact within that thinking lies the root of the problem. When a member of a team leaves and is replaced by another, that new member joins the team by entering an existing team social contract with set norms. He or she has to FIT in with the team. Often if they can’t fit in, they tend to move on to another team or leave. It’s different with a new leader. The organisation’s expectation may be that the new leader fits in with the existing team, but this is wrong. The moment the team has a new leader it is a new team.
The not so popular answer to the interview question of how you will work with the team you are about to inherit would be to make it clear that as the head of the team has changed, it is a brand new team, and your role is to honour the past, but focus the team on the future and being better than the past. There are a few things you can do in this regard to make this transition in leading teams a success.
Be clear that it is a new team
Don’t beat about the bush. Be direct that with a new head it’s a new team and they have a unique opportunity to shape the new team. People have not changed roles, positions or even desks, but psychologically by getting a new leader, it’s a new team and they need to make that mental shift in their thinking. As a new team you are going to have to go through Tuckman’s stages of team development namely: Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing.
Honour the past
Don’t be disrespectful or disparaging about the person you are replacing. Even if you have been appointed to fix a mess. One way to honour the past is to use Appreciative Inquiry. Focus on what was good about the past and the best of the past that they would like to carry forward into the future. Appreciative Inquiry recognises that in everything there is some good that is worth preserving. Give the team space to remanence and acknowledge their success and close the book on the past in a respectful way that enables them to move forward.
Create a positive collective vision of the future
Help the team to develop an image of the collective future they want to achieve as a new team. Get the team to agree on their common results. Art and creativity tends to be a good way to get the team to give expression to this thinking and in the same process it a good way to do some team bonding.
Build trust
The foundation for any new team must be trust. Therefore, the most important investment a new leader can make is establishing trust. This will require the new leader to show vulnerability and be open with the team. It about having an honest discussion about what builds trust and destroys trust in the team. It’s then important to model the behaviours that build trust.
roffeypark.ac.uk/open-programmes/ leadership-and-management-courses
Celebrating Future Leaders
Recent events have possibly served to remind us that leadership is about responsibility, authenticity and duty rather than privilege and position. In that context, the democratisation and digitisation of information, with an exponential increase in the speed at which ‘news’ travels, has impacted positively. Future leaders need to understand how to harness fast communication, responding rapidly to problems, mistakes, opportunities and news. Smarter leaders will recognise that fake news is ultimately and often quickly, counterproductive. It is just as easy to fact-check a story as it is to start one. The most successful business cultures will, perhaps, be those that pursue openness, vulnerability and transparency. These are qualities that require courage, the courage of conviction, the courage to do the right thing and the courage to confront hard issues.
These are my ‘11 C’s’ of leadership which continue to develop as I keep learning from the great (and some not so great) examples I see globally and locally: Clarity (of purpose/goals/individual contribution)
Context (why/what’s the bigger picture) Communication (almost everything, all the time – anxiety loves a vacuum) Caring and Commitment (to the cause/goals/team) Consistency (of behaviour) Control (of self and of the controllables)
Conscience and Consequences (within our individual ethical framework)
Courage and Conviction (to stay the course and do the right thing) For business, leadership succession is not always smooth and it is often not easy to identify future leaders. In the current market it is tough to recruit and keep great people and training can be seen as a risky investment, but it remains vital to business growth. Sussex Chamber of Commerce provides a wide range of high quality training which might help unlock leadership talent already in your business.
Rob Clare
Chairman, Sussex Chamber of Commerce
