Drivetech’s commitment has always been to road and people safety. This year, Drivetech has decided to refresh its branding style, most notably with changes to its positioning and mission statement: Drivetech – from the AA. Driven to keep people safe.
This new positioning celebrates a strong and collaborative association with the AA plc. Being part of a broad motoring service provider with a quality and respected customer ethos aligns to its own Customer First strategy.
Whilst driver safety has been the predominant focus of Drivetech, this new positioning – driven to keep people safe – is to allow a more open-minded view of where Drivetech might be able to add value in the people safety arena into the future – not necessarily just for drivers.
With the current Covid-19 crisis, its new mission statement became relevant very quickly. Like all other companies, its ‘business as usual’ has changed over the past few weeks. For Drivetech, many of its employees had never worked from home before. Employees needed to quickly adapt to new ways of working, and in some cases juggle work alongside home-schooling.
Drivetech recognised this could be a challenging time for employees so they’ve launched a Drop-In Clinic – dedicated to help all staff through remote working conditions during the Covid-19 lockdown. The clinic includes a chat forum, contact details for their mental health first aider and a live weekly broadcast headed up by their very own Dr Col, otherwise known as Colin Paterson, Head of Marketing. Part of the fun and engagement of this group is the fact that Dr Col isn’t really a medical practitioner and they make this clear – his overview is one of tongue-in-cheek and an irreverent parody in the face of a very serious health-threatening pandemic.
They need to keep their own people safe, so they can in turn keep their customers’ safe.
Pictured from left to right: Colin Paterson (aka Dr Col), Steve Appleby, Louise Appleby & Leanne Hayes
Before each live weekly broadcast, Dr Col encourages employees to share their lockdown stories. Three heart-warming stories were too good not to share:
Steve Appleby (Regional Fleet Training Manager) and his wife Louise Appleby (Drivetech Trainer) are both volunteering for a project called ‘Labmask’. A business local to their village, Labman, who specialise in producing automation and robotic applications for industry. This project called “Labmask” aims to design and manufacture full face protection masks at no cost to the NHS and other organisations that have a requirement for them. They did their first shift on the production line on Friday 17th April – they even met their daily target of 6,000 masks per day with about 50 mins left on the shift.
Leanne Hayes, Marketing Manager, joined the NHS Volunteer Responder scheme as a Check-in and Chat Volunteer, providing telephone support to individuals who are at risk of loneliness. Leanne commented: “As soon as the lockdown started, I made sure my elderly neighbour had my phone number. We chat at least once a week on the phone and wave at each other through the window. When the government asked for volunteers, I didn’t think twice – I signed up straight away – being available for a chat is the least I could do in these current circumstances. Plus, I don’t have the added stress of 24/7 childcare alongside work!!”
Dave Dando-Moore, MI Developer, needed support for his elderly father in South Wales. Dave posted on Facebook asking if anyone knew of a group local to his father. Within a few minutes the wife of someone he used to know 30 years ago had replied and signed him up to a support group. 30 minutes later he had an email from someone who is part of the Welsh Assembly and she had already got hold of a volunteer that was visiting his father an hour later. This volunteer now goes to his father’s house every few days to check on him and buy him his essential groceries, which we hear includes Jaffa Cakes.
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