CCTV systems are not only essential for the security of your premises but it is also a very useful tool with regards to health and safety in any business or industry. This is why it is very important that your security/safety systems are maintained periodically to ensure that when required they are functioning correctly.
During a recent service visit to a new client by a Veriserv engineer, he noticed that the premises was suffering from a camera fail. Upon investigation, our engineer found that the camera had failed due to a severe water ingress issue. When designing and installing a CCTV system, it is very important that the location of each camera is sited in a position not only to provide the maximum amount of coverage, but also to take into account the surface or infrastructure of the building the camera shall be fixed upon.
External CCTV systems face the brunt of the British weather 365 days of the year. Although the IP (ingress protection) rating of a camera is designed by the manufacturer to keep the elements out; eventually over time if not maintained, the rubber seals and glands can perish. This causes water ingress, potentially taking out the PSU (power supply unit), which supplies the remaining cameras on site, which could result in a complete CCTV failure across the premises.
A failure of this size would be a significant security and safety issue to any business. Keeping your CCTV system serviced regularly, is as important as keeping any of your other security systems (such as your fire alarm) fully functioning.
When was your CCTV system last serviced? Veriserv engineers are very experienced in all aspects of CCTV, whether your premises is either an office complex, or an industrial factory. During a periodic service, we shall advise the client where any possible future failure may occur, and recommend any remedial works to ensure that your CCTV meets your needs.
Our mission is to provide every single customer with an outstanding service that is fit for purpose and delivered by experts to reduce risk. As you can see from our other faults of the week, regular visits from a professional can cut down the risk of electrical faults, fire and disrupted security, to you and your workplace.
So if you know you are due a service, or have some concerns about your premises, please call 01543 225306, or fill out one of our contact forms to arrange a free assessment of your premises, with one of our fully trained engineers.
Our “fault of the week” posts are published to show the sort of dangerous electrical faults that our Veriserv engineers are finding every day of the week whilst carrying out routine electrical inspection & testing at our customer’s premises. This light fitting had exposed live electrical parts. We hope that in posting examples like this, we will raise more awareness and hopefully this will lead to fewer electric shocks and electrical fires.
During a routine electrical inspection & test a Veriserv engineer found this light fitting with exposed live electrical parts.
At an initial glance a casual observer may think that the connecting terminals visible on this fluorescent light fitting are possibly for future use and are otherwise dormant. However, when investigated by the Veriserv engineer, a voltage measurement identified 230 Volts between the Line (Live) terminal and earth. The fittings were placed at around 8 feet high so in normal use it is unlikely that any person would come in to contact with them.
During maintenance however, such as changing a tube, the possibility of direct contact is very likely causing the inevitable electric shock that could be even more serious due to a likely fall from height!
To rectify the defect fully an “end cap” is required that will cover the terminals. The cap is not immediately available from a wholesaler therefore the Veiserv engineer made the fitting safe to enable the remaining lighting to be used and not affect the occupancy of the building.
preventing the heart beating properly preventing the person breathing properly cause severe muscle spasms cause electrical burns start an electrical fire
It’s a legal requirement for any property owner to provide a safe place of work for employees or for persons within a public accessible area. To satisfy this requirement suitable and proper inspection and maintenance must be carried out at regular intervals. Veriserv are specialists in the areas of Electrical Inspection & Testing and Fire Alarm Testing & Maintenance. We can take the worry from you by providing a no obligation survey and advising you on the most appropriate course of action. Feel free to contact us by phone or on line form.
Four times per year, Veriserv present an engineer and staff member with the quarterly GEM ‘Going the Extra Mile’ Award. This is in recognition of employees who have done something extra in their job role to help our clients or the company. Each winner receives £200 and has a framed certificate on our reception wall.
The staff award is based upon nominations by other staff members and the engineer award is drawn out of a hat containing all positive customer feedback that has been received in the previous three month period.
Over the past weeks Veriserv staff have been voting and giving their reasons why they think a certain member of staff should be presented with the GEM award and these nominations go to a panel of directors who choose a winner from the worthy candidates.
It can be a difficult choice, but not this time as Veriserv’s Customer Services team leader, Melanie Parish received the GEM Award for the 3rd quarter of 2015. Mel has gone above and beyond her job role as team leader by supporting her staff and contributing a great effort to important Veriserv company contracts in short and testing time scales.
Veriserv staff and directors all believe Mel fully deserves the GEM Award as she has ‘Gone the Extra Mile’ whilst carrying out her work duties.
Veriserv’s Fire & Security engineer, Chris Chetwyn was presented with the engineer GEM Award following a draw out of a hat which contains all customer positive feedback. Chris contributed to jobs where Veriservs’ customers had sent in positive feedback stating that they had received excellent service from Chris. A Greene King pub manager had stated;
“Your engineers carried out the work with minimal disruption and kept the work area clean and tidy so as not to effect my trading. A great job guys!”
Chris was one of the engineers on this particular job and his name was drawn out of the hat to win the GEM. So credit also goes to all our engineers who worked on this job.
All positive feedback from our clients is a great boost to all who work at Veriserv, reinforcing the level of service and commitment we strive provide to all our customers.
All engineers do a brilliant job and Veriserv receive numerous emails from clients communicating their gratitude towards Engineers and their hard work.
Veriserv Staff win the GEM award for going the extra mile in their work duties -Veriserv are extremely proud of all their Staff and Engineers. They work extremely hard and always express enthusiasm and show industrious workmanship throughout all tasks and works. This follows through to providing an excellent service to all our clients.
More and more often these days, you hear stories of how people can suddenly lose it. How a situation suddenly and unexpectedly escalates from disgruntled to angry, from complaint to arguing, and from threats to physical violence. Respect for shop workers just doesn’t seem to be there.
Even from those you would least expect it from, our “I want it and I want it now culture” is causing flash points for potential incidents. I can only imagine what the new law of 5p for a plastic carrier bag, has done to increase the potential of this at the checkout.
“Shocking research reveals that every minute of the working day another shop worker is verbally abused, threatened with violence or physically attacked.”USDAW (Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers website October 2015.
This year’s “Respect for shop workers week” has a theme of “Keep Your Cool”, to encourage the public to remember that despite the stresses of the Christmas shopping period, there is never an excuse for abuse or violence to members of staff.
So if you apply those percentages to the total number of those in a customer facing role, throughout the UK, that is an awful lot of people who are exposed to a real threat.
Other surveys online have stated, that the costs to businesses and individuals in these sectors is vast. For those staff living in fear of these type of incidents, which are especially prevalent within the retail and licensed businesses. Owners, managers and staff can have a fear of being confronted, which could be affecting their ability to work effectively, as well as causing stress and anxiety at work.
Although we should always respect and sympathise with anyone who is suffering from the effects of fear, or have been unfortunate enough to have suffered from such attacks, the cost to businesses isn’t always just emotional or physical strain on individuals. For businesses, the cost for loss of working hours, disruption and anything associated along with the healthcare & judiciary systems, all add up and affect us all.
There are guidelines and information readily available for business owners to ensure they are compliant with their duty of care to minimise the potential, provide support and manage incidents effectively.
Or this advice from HSE, who offer this guide on Violence at work, with tips on how to stay compliant, as well as effectively manage the threat of violence. They suggest speaking to your employees to find the true scale of the problem, by speaking to staff and keeping reports. Deciding what action to take, such as more training or perhaps a safer environment, by installing safety systems. Knowing yourself, and making your staff aware, on how you will take action following an incident, and finally, checking back to see if the measures you put into place are enough.
With Veriserv, we understand the dangers, and have clients in the licensed sector. So we know first-hand the potential for, and the steps required to protect those in vulnerable situations, and to help them feel safe in the workplace while deterring would be incidents.
Our VeriSafe solution is designed specifically for these type of environments and situations, where assistance and support is required at the first sign of a potential threat. With a police response and real time interaction, it is providing a duty of care, as well as helping staff feel safer at work.
We strive to keep people safe in their workplace, and to keep businesses compliant. So if you are responsible for, or believe that your workplace would benefit from an assessment, of how Veriserv are able to help, then please get in touch or mention the VeriSafe solution to your manager/director. You could even share this post, to get more awareness for “Respect for shop workers week” and how you can keep yourself, your colleagues and your whole team VeriSafe over this seasonal period.
For those of you who aren’t involved in working in a customer facing role, or perhaps those of you who forget what it is like to have been in that position, let’s be considerate of all those who are faced with uncomfortable situations. Those who have a duty, and have to abide by the laws within the sectors they work in, such as asking your age to sell certain products. Who themselves, are only human, with a job to do and a boss to answer to. Shop workers should always feel respected, and should always be able to feel VeriSafe.
Veriserv are very proud to announce, Ellie and Abbie star in BBC Children in Need event night on TV! Although the BBC receive applications from thousands of worthy charity campaigners, they have seen Ellie and Abbie’s event as something they would like to film for the actual BBC Children in Need night on television and have contacted the two young stars to book the filming.
Ellie and Abbie are the daughters of Jennie Knight who works within the operations team at Veriserv. They are twins, both 15 years of age and have been doing their bit to help raise money for Children in Need since they were 8 years old. The girls tireless efforts to date have raised an amazing £9,825.13 and hope that this year they will break through into £10,000. This year the girls really wanted it to be a challenge so they are going for a 1 Mile Swim, 3 Mile Bike Ride, 2 Mile Run (There own version of a Triathlon).
Ellie and Abbie’s Fundraising event will take place at the Friary Grange Leisure Centre on Saturday 24th October 2015 at 4:00pm. All spectators are welcome to watch and support the girls on their brave 6 mile journey.
Please don’t forget to support Ellie and Abbies BBC Children in Need Appeal 2015 head over to the girls JustGiving page to support these amazing, courageous and ambitious girls. JustGiving is a safe, easy and secure way of donating to such a great cause. Your details will be safe and you’ll never be hassled with unwanted emails when donating through JustGiving. Click the link to take you to Ellie and Abbie’s JustGiving page httpss://www.justgiving.com/Ellie-and-Abbie-Holloway3/
Here are a few photos of Ellie and Abbie’s incredible fundraising over the past 7 years.
At Veriserv we install a product designed to protect the safety of your staff and lone workers.
What support do you offer your workers in the event of them being faced with unwanted confrontation?
Do you offer protection for your workers? What would happen in the event of a robbery or medical emergency?
Veriserv are qualified and experienced installers of a unique product known as Starbox. This unique product will do all of the above and more!
At the push of a remote panic button a support team will assess the situation, distract the offender helping disrupt the focus of their intention and contact the Police or Paramedics before situations get out of hand.
Its works particularly well at public premises that deal with cash or drugs, such as pubs, betting shops and pharmacies.
Your current Health and Safety at work obligations place responsibility on companies to protect and support your staff where situations can arise which place them in danger or expose them to violence and intimidation.
Veriserv have found fitting Starbox’s have helped to reduce crime by up 30% in most cases. Also we can usually reduce the cost of your current monitoring services.
Please contact Veriserv, we will be pleased to offer you a free no obligation survey and a security consultation.
As a service company sometimes you can fall foul of similar problems faced by clients. Such as a little rodent rage, that may have cause an intermittent fault on a CCTV camera.
This intermittent fault on a CCTV camera was one that we (Veriserv) experienced in our own building. We had been struggling with an intermittent fault on the CCTV system fitted at the main office, until very recently when the camera concerned failed completely. An inspection quickly identified that the unit had lost power and that the camera was actually okay.
Entering into the roof void we found a power supply that had suffered significant damage, from being gnawed by a rodent. In this case most likely a mouse. All rodents need to chew on harder items to control the length of their teeth. This is usually fine until they choose to gnaw on something in your property!
Ensuring a functioning CCTV system for some businesses is crucial to monitoring processes or shop floor activity. In the case of Pubs & Clubs it is often a requirement of their licensing condition that a fully functioning CCTV system is maintained at all times.
During a routine service, Veriserv engineers will inspect the various parts of the security system and advise the client where possible future failure may occur, or if any little guests have been visiting you. Any recommended remedial action will also be advised and we will identify the most economical route to repair incorporating the latest technologies, all installed by a fully certified engineer.
Our mission is to provide every single customer with an outstanding service that is fit for purpose and delivered by experts to reduce risk. As you can see from our other faults of the week, regular visits from a professional can cut down the risk of electrical faults, fire and disrupted security, to you and your workplace.
So if you know you are due a service, or have some concerns about your premises, please call 01543 225306, or fill out one of our contact forms to arrange a free assessment of your premises, with one of our fully trained engineers.
Its that time of the year again, we are in our second quarter which means its time to announce our GEM Award winners of our staff that have been going the extra mile.
This quarter we are happy to reveal that Simon Roberts, one of Veriserv’s newest office staff members, has been awarded the GEM ‘Going the Extra Mile’ Award.
Although Simon is new to the office, he has in fact been working for Veriserv for the past 9 years, having joined in 2006 as a Portable appliance tester, and after 6 years was given the opportunity to move to the Fire and Security division as a Fire and Security Engineer. Simon spent 3 years as an F&S Engineer until he was offered a promotion to work in the office as Fire & Security Engineers Support. This role involves ordering stock and equipment, speaking with the engineers making sure all jobs are running smoothly and on time. Simon uses his technical expertise to help with any on site issues that engineers or clients may be faced with. It has been a big leap for Simon coming off the road and into the office, however all Veriserv staff believe he has ‘Gone the Extra Mile’ and adapted to his new job role with passion and focus, bringing new ideas into the business.
Veriserv’s Portable Appliance Tester, Darren Hunt was awarded this quarters Engineers GEM Award. The engineers award is drawn out of a hat, which includes all positive customer feedback that has been received in the three month period. We have received great response and feedback on Darren’s hard work and customer service skills from clients and customers.
Here are a few examples of what was said about Darren, and a few of our other Veriserv engineers.
‘Just to say that the 2 guys are really hard workers and a credit to your company – Thanks!’
‘can you pop Darren into the GEM Pot please. He has been running around all day, its paid off though x’
‘Can you put the engineer(s) names, who worked on Wolverhampton Civic Centre, in to the next GEM draw, the client was mightily impressed with their communication and reporting ability, along with the stealth mode in which they operated!’
How safe is your property? Are you sure work has been done correctly, and do you have your electrics tested regularly? Just a few loose cable connections could of meant serious danger for this person.
The attached photo shows burning and heat damage forming within a consumer unit. This fault was caused by a loose or poor cable connection and luckily was spotted by a Veriserv engineer, and was able to be repaired.
The power from the consumer unit was still live and working, so may not have seemed a problem for the customer, but you can clearly see the potential fire risk that can increase within a property without inspections. This is a problem that could have escalated extremely quickly, and would have been more than just an inconvenience, it could have been life threatening.
During periodic inspections, Veriserv engineers test and physically check for loose cable connections, as well as any other technical faults, which as you can see is a valuable service.
Our mission is to provide every single customer with an outstanding service that is fit for purpose and delivered by experts to reduce risk. As you can see from our other faults of the week, regular visits from a professional can cut down the risk of electrical faults, fire and disrupted security, to you and your workplace.
So if you know you are due a service, or have some concerns about your premises, please call 01543 225306, or fill out one of our contact forms to arrange a free assessment of your premises, with one of our fully trained engineers.
AC adapters & chargers are commonplace in every workplace nowadays, whether used for mobile phones or supplying certain IT equipment. So Faulty AC Adapters are beginning to become a problem.
This week, we have again identified a safety issue that can occur with some of these appliances. Most of these items are constructed from two halves of a molded casing which are glued & sometimes screwed together. Occasionally however this fixing can fail leading to the casing coming apart and causing a faulty AC adapters exposing live terminals at 230V potential.
Of the three photographs, the unit laid out in two pieces failed the first time the item was removed from the wall socket. This charger was actually a replacement for another unit that had failed in the same way!
Veriserv would recommend caution for any chargers or AC adapters used in the workplace that are not an original equipment manufacturer part, as they could be potentially harmful. We would advise staying with the manufacturers parts where possible, and taking care of your appliances.
Our mission is to provide every single customer with an outstanding service that is fit for purpose and delivered by experts to reduce risk. As you can see from our other faults of the week, regular visits from a professional can cut down the risk of electrical faults, fire and disrupted security, to you and your workplace.
So if you know you are due a service, or have some concerns about your premises, please call 01543 225306, or fill out one of our contact forms to arrange a free assessment of your premises, with one of our fully trained engineers.
Recent Comments