Celebrating 25 years of Accreditation: An interview with Wendy Green

We obtained our very first management accreditation 25 years ago with Wendy Green at the helm. Wendy Green is SYSTRA Safety, Health, Environment and Compliance (SHE&C) Manager, and shared with us her experience of working at SYSTRA and the importance of accreditation and operating within regulated standards.

Can you share your history of working with SYSTRA?
I joined the Quality Department as a Quality Administrator in 1991, before taking on a dual role with Training and Development. I was able to progress and soon became the Quality and Training Manager, which was later expanded into to encompass the role of Health and Safety Manager and for being responsible for all of SYSTRA Business Management Systems.

During my time with the company, we also ran our own external railway safety training business, which provided great training for those in the railway industry. Other standout moments include being one of the first rail companies gaining the PASS 99 integrated management standards (around 2008).

Throughout my time here, my team has excelled at maintaining excellent accident records, maintaining our Network Rail principal contractor license and external accreditation; and enjoys being involved in all the diverse activities that the business undertakes.

Can you define what compliance is within SYSTRA?
Compliance is the act of making sure that we fulfil and achieve our agreed business processes in all areas of our activities. Compliance to these stated processes, ensures that we will meet requirements defined by external standards and legislation; client/industry requirements; project requirements; and those required for business governance. Our management system processes strive to ensure effective and efficient processes whilst also ensuring continual development and improvement are achieved.

Why are external accreditation’s and being compliant important for SYSTRA?
Being accredited shows our clients that we meet the requirements of the defined standards and that we are focused on meeting customer expectations and delivering customer satisfaction so that ultimately we can focus on continuing to deliver to our clients. These accreditation’s help to demonstrate our business excellence and make us stand out against other competitors.

What’s the consequence of being non-compliant?
If we aren’t compliant there’s a number of risks, including potential legal action, safety risks, fines and most importantly not being able to deliver work to our clients. It costs the business money with inefficient processes and rework involved.

What has going through accreditation helped us learn?
The key areas are:

• It’s helped to continuously evaluate and strengthen our processes
• Improve consistency of our operations
• Improve efficiency, reduce waste and save money
• Focuses management and employees
• Provides a professional culture and environment to work in
• It gives people external to our business the assurance that we can meet the required standards