The team here at Ai Solutions hope you have all settled into 2024 nicely as we now step into the shortest month of the year. Christmas seems like a lifetime ago, and we will soon be able to say goodbye to Winter as we approach the Spring. Love is most definitely in the air!

Bearing this in mind, perhaps it is a good opportunity to be showing our colleagues and staff a little more consideration in the workplace. According to HSF (Health and Safety Matters Magazine), 'the cost-of-living crisis is having an impact on our health and wellbeing in the workplace.'

The latest figures show that three in five Britons report a negative impact on their mental health within their workplace. We must do something to alter this. Perhaps a change in attitude to our co-workers is required, be a little more considerate to their personal situations? Remember, you do not necessarily know what others are going though. Part of being a good leader / manager is understanding our staff and their needs; this has to include their health, wellbeing, and mental health.

'The most important thing is to try and inspire people so that they can be great in whatever they want to do' – Kobe Bryant

On the other side of the coin, if you are a worker who is struggling with mental health in the workplace, then you need to make your line manager aware of the situation. Healing takes time and asking for help is a courageous step.

Remember, it is okay not to be okay.

What's happening at Ai Solutions?

After a very busy start to the year, Ai Solutions are one step closer to moving our customers over to CDM ToolKit CS Cloud. We have already had an unprecedented amount of interest in the new and improved Cloud Platform this year, and would like to take the chance to thank you in supporting us on this exciting journey!

If you would like to know more about CDM ToolKit CS Cloud, then please give a member of the team a call on 01525 850080 to arrange a session with them.

Health & Safety News

HSE

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) have published their annual Health & Safety at Work summary statistics for Great Britain. It is very upsetting to see that construction is the highest contributing sector for the number of workers killed in fatalities in 2022/23. The most common cause of fatalities in the workplace are Falls from a height with a shocking 40 deaths being recorded during 2022/23. Around a quarter of these deaths were in workers aged 60+. Read more about this on the HSE Website.

Sustainability

Research conducted in early 2023 found that sustainability is more important to organisations in 2023 than it was two years ago! IOSH has said that business leaders at every level of the supply chain should act now to improve the social sustainability and long term prosperity of their own business as well as helping to build stronger, more sustainable communities around the world.

Electric Shock

A scaffolding company have been fined £50,000 along with the director of the firm receiving a suspended prison sentence after a scaffolder suffered an 11,000-volt electric shock. The 36-year old father of one was working alongside a team of scaffolders in Crawley when he struck a live 11kV power line whilst lifting a six-meter scaffold tube. After suffering the shock, Mr Gilmore fell over 5 meters to the ground suffering a badly broken leg as well as life changing electrical burns. The HSE found that Canterbury City Scaffolding Ltd as well as it's director failed to properly Risk Assess the site. For more on this visit the HSE Website.

Keeping Young Workers Safe

According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), there are 541 million young workers around the world, using the United Nations' definition of 'youth' as anyone aged between 15 and 24. This would mean they account for 15 percent of the world's labour force. In the UK however, young workers are defined as anyone under 18. Whichever way we look at it, what we do know is there are many health and safety risks which are specific to 'young workers' and it is crucial these are managed to ensure they bring that value to business and most importantly - they don't come to harm. Refer to The Health and Safety Matters Magazine (HSM) Issue: Dec/Jan 2024.

Severe Flat Fire

According to the FPA (Fire Protection Association), The London Fire Brigade issued a massive emergency response on 29th January 2024 after reports of a severe flat fire in Wembley. It was soon established that unsafe cladding played a huge factor in the disaster.

Customer Comment

Each month we ask one of our customer representatives to share their experiences with our software, services or training with our readers. This month's offering comes from Lauren Secker at UK Power Networks.

"Here at UK Power Networks we utilise the ToolKit CS System by Ai Solutions to aid in our Construction(Design and Management) Regulations 2015 (CDM) Compliance. It makes managing CDM much easier and is great for simplifying and improving the processes.

I have worked with the team at Ai Solutions for a number of years now and they are always available to provide comprehensive training, support and strive to continuously improve their interface. Early in 2024 ToolKit CS is moving to the Cloud, which we are very excited for.

The team is very friendly and knowledgeable. They are very passionate about providing this service and it shows.

I would highly recommend the ToolKit CS System."