At the start of the pandemic the impact on businesses in the UK was unknown. Staff employed by PSH and other solar O&M companies were classified as Key Workers meaning that we could continue to do our work throughout lockdown, however, to protect our people, their families and stop the spread of the virus- we understood that we should carry out critical duties only.
We have O&M agreements in place with all customers, the principles in these agreements are mostly the same. We wanted to ensure that all our customers were treated equally so we proposed a solution, known to us and our customers as ‘Most Favoured Nations’ (MFN).
The MFN name was actually suggested by one of our clients; the MFN principle is well known in trading industries such as agriculture and textiles but can be applied to almost every business with multiple clients; this is where concessions, privileges, or immunities granted to one apply to all.
The MFN agreement limited the PSH scope to essential works only including work that was required to keep the plants safe, keep the plants generating and maintain equipment warranties.
To give our customers visibility of our operations we created a live dashboard including staff numbers, details of work that could not be completed including repair works that were not possible due to close proximity of people needed – everything was accounted for. It provided a transparent view of all our activities and gave everyone the comfort they needed to ensure fair treatment to all.
In addition to this, we created robust Covid-19 procedures for our own team and our subcontractors (download our full COVID policy here), we carried out multiple employee surveys, followed government guidelines and once lockdown measures began to ease, we consulted our team on the new normal working procedures and managed to resume business as usual operations during the first week of August.
Our clients applauded our approach and reported that we were the most proactive and effective solar O&M organisation that they worked with during this period. We were also commended on our transparency and processes and customers liked that we were not limited by corporate bureaucracy. These are some of the reasons that make PSH such a dynamic and efficient O&M business.
Despite the challenging situation COVID created, PSH has still managed to grow in line with expectations we set last year and we are on target to not only achieve these targets but also exceed them and become one of the largest Solar O&M supplies in the UK.
