Barclays - Making a Sound Investment in its Employees

System Concepts has been providing ergonomics, health, safety and disability services to Barclays Bank since 1991.

Operating in over 60 countries with a workforce of more than 76,200, Barclays is one of the largest financial services groups in the world and invests substantially in a wide-ranging health and safety policy to safeguard one of its greatest assets - its employees.

We have worked on a wide range of projects including: 

• branch and counter design
• health and safety audits and assessments
• assistance with furniture procurement.
• ergonomics, health, safety and accessibility evaluation, for people with visual and motor disabilities, of prototype self-service telephone and enquiry point equipment
• kinetic lifting and manual handling assessor courses in branches where high volumes of coin are handled
• risk assessment of a scanner intended for use in one of Barclays London buildings
• workstation assessments for Barclays home and office workers who use portable computers
• a review of low level counters designed for easy access for people with disabilities. 

Barclays chooses to work with us due to our expertise and the quality of support we provide as Jacquie Hill, group health and wellbeing manager explains:

Barclays recognises the influence and importance of health, safety and ergonomics on the well being of its staff, and by taking an ergonomics approach, the organisation also gains many productivity benefits when designing jobs and setting up workplaces for its staff.

The quality and consistency of System Concepts’ work means that we can have complete confidence in their support and advice.  The team works with individuals within specific branches, as well as operating as a key part of project groups working on nationwide initiatives, but on any level, the consultants work seamlessly with our operation and are always prepared to put in extra time and effort.  System Concepts’ pedigree and ongoing work with high profile organisations such as the Health and Safety Executive also underlines the credibility of their work.

New Equipment Evaluation

We are involved in most of Barclays’ procurement and branch redesign projects.  Barclays adopts best practice by piloting many of its prototype solutions within a small sample of branches.  System Concepts assists in these projects by conducting ergonomics and health and safety evaluations of the designs and working environment using a range of techniques including:

• administering questionnaires to Barclays staff
• making ergonomics observations of people using prototype equipment
• discussing the usability of the designs with staff using equipment
• assessing the requirements of people with disabilities.

System Concepts’ findings and recommendations help Barclays to identify and avoid equipment and designs that are less suitable for its staff and their tasks, and to choose those which provide a comfortable and safe environment for their employees.  This:

• increases productivity
• reduces sickness and absenteeism rates
• increases awareness and morale amongst staff.

One large example of equipment evaluation was an ergonomics and health and safety evaluation of seven prospective schemes for workstation furniture systems and IT equipment to be used in Barclays’ new headquarters in Canary Wharf, London.  To ensure that the equipment was evaluated in ‘real life’ conditions, an entire floor of an office building was taken over in order for the suppliers to construct examples of proposed workstations. 

We checked every aspect of the equipment from the health and safety implications for employees to ease of maintenance for IT staff and made a series of recommendations for consideration during the procurement process.

What does the client say?

System Concepts’ assessments and reports deliver good, practical recommendations that bring tangible benefits and add value across the organisation.  Moreover, our working partnership with the consultancy ensures that we are achieving compliance with best practice in ergonomics, health and safety legislation and standards.

Jacquie Hill, Group Health and Wellbeing Manager, Barclays

Whilst I've always been keen to get a 'tick in the box' with regards ergonomics, I believe that System Concepts has added value throughout the project lifecycle. This has led to an improved solution that will ultimately benefit cashiers in the network.

Gareth Brown, DIR Solution Architect, Barclays