As the coronavirus pandemic continues to disrupt business operations worldwide, Bureau Veritas is advising businesses to combine compliance inspections where possible, so that one assessor can inspect multiple-sites in accordance with COVID-secure guidelines.
It comes as recent research shows over half of UK companies expect the coronavirus pandemic to lead to an increase in their risk profile, with health and safety posing the greatest threat. What’s more, reputational risk and ethical stance were cited by firms as a bigger driver than fear of regulatory fines.
Vicky Shah, Retail and Hospitality Lead at Bureau Veritas said, “in the current climate health and safety has never been more important and although many inspections will have been delayed or cancelled altogether, the reality is firms are still liable for demonstrating that all premises have the correct documentation when it comes to compliance.
“To achieve this, firms should consider using combined inspection services where one assessor can cover multiple disciplines, minimising the number of people on-site and meeting COVID-secure guidelines.”
In line with this demand, Bureau Veritas recently upgraded its Comply in One solution, a combined inspection service that covers core health and safety areas as well as water quality, asbestos and fire safety. The service, which has been proven to cut the cost of compliance by 30 per cent, now includes an electrical safety offering that covers electric vehicle charger testing, hazardous areas (ATEX) and thermographic surveys.
Comply in One is designed to streamline compliance inspections and alongside Building in One, Bureau Veritas’s web-based system for simple, step-by-step property portfolio compliance, it has been shown to achieve savings for organisations with multi-site property portfolios.
Vicky added, “using a solution like Comply in One, alongside Building in One is worth its weight in gold. It means there’s no need to send multiple assessors to multiple-sites but more importantly, it ensures that compliance data is collected and available on a platform that can be accessed remotely.
“Recognising the need for a holistic and flexible approach at this crucial time, we’ve added fundamental electrical safety inspections to our hugely popular Comply in One solution, which in sectors such as banking and retail has been proven to achieve cost savings of up to a third compared to standalone inspections. It’s a game-changer for the compliance sector and we would actively encourage all new and existing customers to take advantage of this fantastic service today.”
