The location of D Morgan Plc's head office sits on
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Chester Road, Great Sutton. in Cheshire. The one-acre site backs onto a housing estate, and was once home to a 60-plus fleet, drivers and a workshop.
The place would have been easy to spot. what with all the trucks coming and going. However, today, with the trucks and workshop now located three miles down the road in Hooton, to the first-time visitor, the HQ is easy to miss.
What's the point of telling us this, you ask? Well, that's the main problem for it — strangers not being able to find the company is one of the driving forces behind the change in publicity and marketing policy for MD Denis Morgan.
It was the recession and subsequent decimation of construction over the past 24 months that forced this change.
Started 60 years ago by Denis's father, with the same name (see the panel 'How it all began' on page 36), the firm traded on i1 reputation and relationships with customers. Morgan says: -Our reputation is OK if we are dealing with the same companies all the time. but if these companies are failing, and the employees are going elsewhere, we haven't got that relationship.
'Plus the fact that we were 60 years old in January, it made us look at what we should do to flag up 60 years' achievement, and how we were going to cope with the recession."
He continues: "Putting the two things together, we decided to have a website for the first time."
In this day and age, not having a website is, well, unthinkable, but Morgan reveals that the company had never needed to advertise before.
Shout it Loud
Morgan says: next contract was based on how we were on the last one, but there are so many companies going out of business. We now have to grasp the fact we have to tell people how good we are."
This has meant that in addition to developing the website, putting distinct livery on the vehicles and plant in the shape of a large the company's business focuset on land remediation, recycling, earthworks. civil engineering, demolition. plant and truck hire, road building, and fleet maintenance, to name but a few areas
About more than reputation
Morgan also understands that his company's reputation is only as Rood as those working for the organisation.
He says: "They have to be reputable. so we make sure our workforce can deliver a service. You need a track record of competence in terms of the company being accredited by national bodies.
"The letterhead has nine accreditations on it," Morgan says. "For some of those bodies, you are checked out with previous customers in order to assess their satisfaction levels.
"`lbey take account of real work situations, so you do have to have a competent workforce."
Basic training for staff is the NVQ. "This is now widely accepted in most industries as a way of showing workforce competence. We have gone down that route quickly." says Morgan.
Workshop manager Graham Bailey agrees. He says: "All our lorry drivers have an NVQ for driving the truck: the qualifications are job specific. We also have NVQ training for the mechanics and all the staff in the office have taken an NVQ in customer service."
Career progression Morgan sees NVQ as the base for further training. "It is a national scheme, and we want all our staff to know they are at least qualified at NVQ level for their job.
-We do a lot of bespoke training to mentor people in the company, and help them find out how they can take
on different types of responsibility and grow into their careers:111e easiest thing to change is their job title, but it does not give them the capability of doing the job "l hate job titles they don't progress careers. What progresses careers is employees wanting to engage more with other people, which is why mentoring takes place, so they can learn off other people," Morgan says. •