With 2021 drawing to a close, it is natural to want to evaluate the year that has been, to learn from it, and to use that experience as one begins to plan for the year to come.
A conversation with managing member Kevin Dersley
One year ago, looking ahead to 2021, you spoke about two focus areas: Sharpening the emphasis on customer care and enhancing the skill set of your staff through training. You mentioned various training to be undertaken by engineers from Rockwell Automation, who often collaborate on offering risk assessments for companies to determine their safety performance and integrity levels, and run training programmes relating to the brand’s products.
Were you able to reach these goals in 2021?
At the start of the year, we organised for commercial engineers from Rockwell Automation to fly down to PE (Gqeberha). They gave both staff and customers specific training, beginning with a Smart safety workshop. Then the third wave of Covid-19 hit us, and, despite the travel restrictions that were imposed, we ensured that staff would not lose out on training. In-person training was no longer a viable option, but online courses were still offered by the Rockwell commercial engineers on topics such as drive training, motion control and installation practices, and visualisation products. In addition, peer learning was sparked with external sales reps, the account managers, preparing and giving training to the internal sales staff on various products.
Our goals might not have been reached in the way we hoped them to be, but we are satisfied that we were able to change and adapt to the situation that presented itself.
For the Supplier Development Initiative programme, Haslop & Mason has invested financially and through business mentoring in a supplier company called NextFour. How will Haslop & Mason continue to pay it forward in 2022?
Haslop & Mason has committed to continue supporting NextFour for the 2022 financial year as part of our supplier development initiative. We will continue to mentor them, offering our facilities and financial support. If anything, our relationship has got closer, and we find that we interact and work more and more together.
Paying it forward, we have identified various bursaries that we will make available. Some we have paid out already to non-staff members, and we have identified staff whom we will be sending on various training courses to facilitate the upliftment of their education.
We will always support local communities and charities in the Eastern Cape.
When Dewald le Roux was appointed from within the ranks to become the new Business Manager, he spoke of Haslop & Mason as a company that “encourages employee growth through education, training and resources”. Do you have plans for continued employee investment for 2022?
We do have plans for continued employee investment. As mentioned, some members are on an education programme to upskill them. We have selected two learners who will be absorbed into the company, and they will become fully-fledged employees of Haslop & Mason. Dimpho will provide support to the stores and logistics teams, while Angelo will be assisting in the Uitenhage office.
A business is about more than the bottom line. Haslop & Mason has, both as a company and as individuals, reached out to assist the Northwood Children’s Hospice, a relationship going back many years now. Do you have further plans to be involved with the Hospice in the year ahead?
We will continue to support Northwood Children’s Hospice and the kids in education. We will find projects and facilities through which to assist them. Much depends on what their current needs are, and we regularly check up to see how we can help. We do tend to support them educationally; that is our preferred method of care, but we are open to their pleas and assist them wherever we can.
Is there anything else you would like to say about Haslop & Mason and its plans for 2022?
While the focus this year has been on training and upskilling our staff, 2022 will focus on upskilling and training our customers, specifically on new product development; how the products they have in their plants can best suit them; how they can tap into the full potential of those products; making sure they are aware of all the features available for them; and making them more familiar with how their plant can be uplifted as a result of product training. This training will be done online or, if the customers choose, by attending classes that will be held in Port Elizabeth (Gqeberha), keeping all Covid protocols in place.