HAE EHA Hire Convention 2016 – Aim


Report by Peter Brett There is nothing like ambition to inspire people, and members of the HAE attending the annual Convention were met with the words Smarter, Safer, Stronger in metre high letters by the door of the conference venue – so there was no doubting the ambitions or the purposes of the 2016 get together, and its efforts to build on the foundations laid in 2015.


The


Holywell Park Conference Centre at Loughborough University is a great venue because of its position in the middle of a connecting motorway network and


nearby airport. The facilities in the venue ensure that visitors can get tea, coffee and biscuits on demand, and the lunches are much appreciated too. I am sure that there was much thanks owed to this year’s sponsors, Birchwood Price Tools. Apart from the informal networking amongst members, the Convention also


offers opportunities to meet with various trade partners and attend some of the talks and lectures offered in the seminar programme that stretched over the two days. I attended several of the talks and was impressed by how well the HAE team


tried to keep the timings spot on as well as allowing as much flexibility as was needed for follow up question and answer sessions. James Sutton from Raleigh International made an interesting and calmly


impassioned plea for businesses to become involved in its volunteer programmes. He argued that if young volunteers from hire companies became involved with Raleigh International projects, the spin offs for the businesses would be many. Not only would the business be able to be seen as socially responsible, but the staff members who volunteered would return with a range of soft and hard skills that would hugely increase their value as employees. The volunteers themselves seem to gain a huge amount too, growing in confidence and with increased abilities for solving problems and working under difficult conditions. For some members the plea may not be a solution to recruitment in the short term, but it may be a good answer for retention and skill building for existing staff. Sat Dhaiwal, the CEO of A-Plant gave a very laid back tour through his own


James Sutton


career in the hire industry – starting off at the age of 16 as one of the Thatcher generation’s YTS newbies and ending up currently as CEO of a major UK hire company, and his career is not over yet! His argument was very much, that if he could do it, then anyone with similar


drive and ambition could do the same. In order to help recruitment and retention, newly recruited people should be aware of the career paths and the other possibilities that the hire industry could offer. It seems that many apprentices still do not fully appreciate that the hire industry is not a series of dead-end jobs, and that the training that hire offers can lead to well paid and responsible careers. It seemed to me that


Sat was making the powerful point that the Zero-hours contract way of employing people was not suitable for the hire industry and this tied in very well with Raleigh International’s call for businesses to be globally responsible. Another innovation


for this year was the “Questions to the Board” slot. To my mind a brilliant


20 ToolBUSINESS+HIRE www.toolbusiness.co.uk


idea because members, suppliers and other interested parties were able to attend and ask frank questions of the assembled Board. Predictably, some of the questions addressed some of the “in-house” issues, but the bits that interested me were when employees, for example, were given some scope to talk about how the Safe Hire Initiative had helped them and influenced their views. There was a bit of an open-ended discussion of Brexit – with most delegates


and Board members giving the message that we still had to wait and see how things would turn out. Clearly the result in June had been a shock for many in the hire business specifically, but behind the concern is a real will to see that the Brexit is not a disaster for business in the medium and longer term. Theft and Fraud in


the Hire Industry seemed to be very high on the agenda this year. I heard numerous tales of how thieves and fraudsters can adopt


ingenious and sometimes


devilishly simple tactics in order to steal plant and tools. One example I was told about is the low loader that turns up on a big site with “orders” to remove an excavator for servicing. Of course, there is the promise that the replacement excavator is “on its way” and the site manager only becomes aware of the theft when he follows up on the excavator, only to be told by the hire company that no service was due on the machine. Also creeping in as


it were, are Hire to Steal schemes where thieves hire and cross- hire big machines and plant in what seems like a legitimate operation. The scam is discovered sometimes only when the machines are due to be returned. Tracking and security company, CanTrack, had a significant success in tracking several machines across Europe this year because of


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