Safety Stand Down Day 2026

This year’s Safety Stand Down Day was held at Holne Park at River Dart Country Park. As always, we took the whole team off-site and off the tools for a day to talk about safety, quality and how everyone is doing.

Starting with each other

Managing Director Greg Clark opened the day by telling the team his own story. As we have expanded, there are more new faces than ever, so Greg took the time to introduce himself properly and share how it all began. He started his story at 16 years old, line marking and working weekends, with one thing that always stuck with him: asking ‘how can I make it better?’ It’s what he wanted to bring to QMS when he founded the company with his father 25 years ago, and it was the message that ran through the whole day.

There was a moment where we did something that doesn’t come naturally to most people, but it lightened the room straight away. Greg asked the team to turn to the person next to them and spend 30 seconds saying what they like about them, before swapping over. The point is that if you start your day like that, it will lift your mood for the hours ahead, which makes a huge difference to how you work and how you treat the people around you.

Everyone gets a say

Speaking up in front of a room with nearly 50 people is not easy. Social phobia is one of the most widespread phobias in the world, alongside the fear of spiders and fear of heights. We understand this, so we use Menti, which allows staff to ask questions anonymously throughout the day. It didn’t slow down the questions and discussion from the floor, but it gave everyone another way to ask.

Making safety information easier to take in

People take things in in different ways, and some understand far more from seeing something than from reading it. Going back to the theme of “how can we make it better?”, we have started putting more of our safety information into short videos. The health and safety stand down was the best opportunity to show everyone how they worked and give them the opportunity to tell us how we can make it better for them, because at the end of the day they are the ones who will be using them.

Risk assessments, method statements and toolbox talks are now starting to come as videos alongside the written versions. The examples we showed included site-specific risk assessments using the site notes and imagery, so crews see the job they’re about to do and not a generic example.

It is important to us to understand how different people learn and to support our staff in different ways. It’s equally important to get their feedback, so we know we’re delivering the right thing to the best of our ability.

Evening BBQ

We finished with an evening BBQ, and a large number of staff came along with their families and friends. The food was great, and the venue’s staff looked after us well. Our industry is tough, and the long hours and time away from home affect the people at home as well. Inviting families was our way of saying thank you, and a nice way to mark 25 years of QMS.

Looking after our people is a huge part of how we work, and days like this are one way we do it. The question, “How can we make it better?, is one we’ll keep asking as we head into the next 25 years.