What to Expect When Working With LION

At this point, you may have spoken with us on the phone, got in touch via email or booked a call with a member of our Business Development team directly. Whichever ways you’ve interacted with us so far; this article is here to answer any initial questions you might have about working with us. 

If you’re worried about your PPE working group formats, this article will cover that. If you’re worried about cost, this article covers that. If you’re worried about ROI, you guessed it: this article covers that. 

This might be your first glimpse into what it will be like to work with LION. With that in mind, it is important for us to be transparent with you about what we can do for you and, perhaps more importantly, what we would require back from you to ensure success. What is the purpose of this article? This article was designed to inform. We believe that if you know exactly what our process is, you will be able to make an informed decision as to whether you want to proceed with LION.

What qualities do I need to be successful with LION?

Over 30+ years of supplying safety workwear PPE and safety equipment, we found that the clients who got the most out of our services, and who loved to work with us, had the below 5 qualities in common. We love to work with clients that we can delight with our services, and we want to do this every time. We’ve found that clients who don’t resonate with the below are less likely to get the best value out of our services. 

In order to ensure your success with LION, you will have these five qualities:

1. You are committed to earning the trust of the people who wear and use the kit. 

Today’s workers use safety workwear, equipment, and PPE to protect themselves as a last line of defence. They are sceptical of corporate agendas and self-serving ideals. To win over these team members, you must be willing to address their questions in the most truthful and unbiased way possible. This includes discussing things like cost, problems, and your previous misgivings about safety workwear and PPE.

2. Senior leadership is willing to make finding the best-fit safety workwear, equipment and PPE a top priority. 

Leadership must be willing to take the time to learn what successful PPE, workwear and safety equipment management looks like, and they must serve as vocal champions of the change to ensure complete buy-in, especially from the employees who will be wearing and using the kit.

3. Every stakeholder trusts the process. 

This includes senior leadership and anyone who will require the safety workwear, PPE or safety equipment. Everyone must show an eagerness to learn and try new things. They must do the work and follow the framework, accepting accountability at every step along the way.

4. You are willing to devote the necessary resources. 

You will need trusted employees whose full-time focus is to work together, to plan, decide and implement the best-fit workwear to protect your employees and build trust with both your wearers and the senior leadership team. Your team will need the right process to get the job done — as well as access to the correct information they need to make smart safety management and supply decisions. 

5. The Health and Safety, Operations and Supply teams work closely together. 

Because workers today require the kit to be comfortable as well as compliant, these teams need to work together to ensure that everyone’s views and experience are accounted for. Neither team can be successful without the help of the others. Having the right kit is pointless without an agreed, well-proven and understood delivery strategy.

What will working with LION look like?

Your work with LION will look very different from what you may have experienced with past suppliers. We’re not going to try to impress you with strategies, cheap deals, or unmanageable promises. Instead, we will give you the tools and knowledge to generate your success.

We will provide the strategy, the framework, and the guidance — you will provide the business knowledge and the execution.

A LION consultant will guide you and your team through our process of discovering, educating, goal setting, implementing and reporting.

Once a provisional agreement is in place, the LION Account Management team will meet with your teams to roll out the LION onboarding process. This is proven to massively reduce the time it takes for successful contract mobilisation typically down to a few days implementation.

We operate on a supply from core stock next-day delivery methodology. 

Your account manager

Your LION Account manager will facilitate and work with your teams directly to find the best-fit products for you, support in gaining internal buy-in and ensure your workers love their kit and get the maximum benefit and use from using it.

When working in partnership with LION, you will never need to rely on any other supplier for your safety workwear, equipment, and PPE success in the future.

Your programme

You will start with an in-depth discovery call that maps out your first steps and sets the foundation for your success. Working with the LION Directors, senior leadership team and customer onboarding team you’ll establish your PPE, workwear and safety equipment vision for the next 12-24 months. Then you will work together to identify the areas that need the most improvement and create a plan to get started.

Several times each week, your team will work directly with LION to implement the processes you need to accomplish the priorities you’ve set. Beyond the scheduled calls, you will have regular access to our business development manager and your account manager for questions and feedback and ongoing support.

Quarterly sessions will repeat every 90 days to confirm alignment, set goals for the next 90 days, and check in on team progress and results so far.

Your future

Step by step, your company will learn how to review workwear, PPE and safety equipment to get the best results. After 12, 18, and 24 months, you will have the internal know-how to ensure your organisation is using the correct products for the tasks on hand, know how to run effective PPE and safety equipment working groups and understand the levers to pull for optimal safety equipment consumption.

Can LION help me with my aggressive, short-term goals?

It depends on what you’re looking to accomplish. When you meet our technical business development manager, you’ll talk about the safety workwear and equipment goals you have for your business. Together, you will decide whether our methods are the best choice for what you’re looking to achieve.

Once your contract kicks off, LION starts working with your health and safety and operational team to start improving employee feedback and results. Most clients see better results within weeks.

That said, we know that short-term success doesn’t mean much if you can’t sustain it next quarter, next year, and beyond. Our framework is designed for both short and long-term growth.

Will LION’s services work for a company like mine?

If you’re willing to do what it takes to earn the trust of your employees, our framework will almost certainly work for you, regardless of what type of business you are or what industry you’re in. You could be a public sector organisation or a national infrastructure company. LION will help you drive more compliance with your workers by finding options that work for them.

Our model and framework have helped thousands of companies achieve incredible results from their collaboration and improved safety efforts.

We have worked with clients across a wide spectrum of sectors from telecoms to renewable energy to government bodies and more. Every industry is different, however the ongoing problems are not unique and can be solved with a strong plan.

Will I need to review our PPE working group format?

Most likely yes. The fact you are taking the time to read this suggests something isn’t working in your current PPE, workwear and safety equipment supply and decision-making process. If your current review process isn’t working for you, then you’ll likely need some help on this early on in the process. It could be the task to bring employees on board seems too daunting, too many opinions to consider, there is no consensus around the table so nothing moves forward, you are trying to implement strategy and people get caught up in too much detail and much more.

LION has a team of in-house subject matter experts that can help map out a PPE and Safety Equipment review group that delivers real-life, tangible results for the short and the long term. 

As clients narrow down their product catalogue and employee buy-in grows, many need improvements to their internal processes, or even an entire redesign of your reviewing model, to get the most out of their PPE working group programme and make sure everyone’s expectations from the workers through to the senior leadership team are met and everyone moves forward with a purpose, with their plan built by themselves.

Your account manager and business development manager will serve as your guides through this process. 

Why can’t I hire LION to just run our PPE working group for us?

Because that would be the easy way out. Culture needs to be changed from the inside out. If we run your PPE working group for you, you will always be reliant on us to do so. The problem with that is; nobody knows your company the way you and your workers do. What we can do is support you as you build and implement new working group processes and review plans that help you get tangible results.

We have seen, time and time again, that outsourcing your PPE review to a supplier or external agency is expensive and ineffective — and it rarely delivers the results your workers are looking for. 

Any agency you choose is going to need a lot of time to get to know your business, your workers, and their environments. And because they’re not living in it like you and your team are, they are never, ever going to understand your business and the risks as well as you do.

As a result, suppliers and third parties can miss the mark. Costly hours of back and forth contact quickly add up, everyone gets frustrated, and the outcome is disappointing. Many businesses find themselves paying each month for lacklustre results. They bounce around from supplier to supplier in search of one that can finally deliver on its promises. This means more wasted time and money.

We believe there is a better way.

Businesses should learn how to do great PPE and safety equipment reviews themselves so they never have to be dependent on anybody else ever again. Almost every company that’s doing their PPE reviews well are doing it in-house. 

In-house PPE and safety equipment reviews are less expensive and more efficient — and the results are significantly better.

With our guidance, you’ll find safety workwear and equipment that resonates with your workers. Then, we’ll teach you how to use this framework in the future to make buying PPE, workwear and safety equipment easier. 

How can LION help me with safety equipment consumption and sustainability?

From stock forecasting and stock holding to spend analysis and rationalisation, we can help your team get more out of your safety workwear, equipment and PPE investment.

We believe a critical part of your onboarding with LION, is that you join our online ordering portal. We educate and teach your team to be masters, guiding you with hands-on, customer-focussed service to get the best use of the system and help streamline costs and usage.

If you have online ordering or you’re looking to start using it at your company, LION can help you with any of the following:

· Setting up your Online Ordering Portal

· Cleaning up old products, lists, reports, and workflows

· Onboarding and training for your procurement teams on the Online Ordering Portal and Reporting Tools

· Building reports and dashboards to measure usage performance and spend analysis

· Completing custom or complex integrations i.e integrating via Punchout into your current ordering system.

What kind of results/ROI can I expect when working with LION?

If you follow our framework and our direction and work closely with LION, the PPE/Workwear category will cease to be a nightmare, causing significant disruption and waste of valuable time at management level. We help you take away the headache that the PPE, workwear and safety equipment category has been up until this point. Building the plan with you allows you to have a consistent and proven plan and framework to continue to work from for the future.

You can expect to see a decrease in outgoing costs, long-term increased profit by job, cost centre, site and more. 

Hundreds of businesses have used our framework to invoke significant change. 

How much does it cost to work with LION?

LION offers a range of services as part of our supply of safety workwear, equipment and PPE. Some factors put the price up, and some factors put the price down. 

Following our initial discovery meeting with you, we will have a stronger understanding of your problems and goals to price your specific product needs, delivery needs and operational needs. Our costs are designed to meet your budget and deliver real value. We like to understand your budget and work to meet it so there is a clear win-win. We want to see the results you get from better PPE, workwear and safety equipment management. 

Typically, smaller companies are spending £10-£50k per annum. Middle-sized companies are spending £250k plus and large multi-national corporates are spending £1-2million and more. Every company is different and our pricing model is tailored for your exact requirements.

What do I do next?

Now that you know you whether you want to move forward with us, you can ask yourself the following questions to ensure you are ready to do so:

1. Do I meet the 5 criteria listed above? 
2. What do I want out of my partnership with LION?
3. Am I happy with the indicative cost margins presented?

If you are able to answer all three of those questions, you are ready to move forward. From here, you can share this article with other decision-makers in the company and prepare them ahead of your meeting with the LION Business Development team.
We would recommend you do the following before this meeting:

• Read ‘How do I know if Lion Safety is the right fit for me?’
• Make a list of questions you have that are not answered in this article or in the one above.
• Start thinking about what this positive change would look like for your organisation.

When you’ve done those three steps, you’re ready for your Discovery Call.