Environmental Monitoring Solutions provides environmental monitoring equipment, consultancy and training to a wide range of clients in the industrial and municipal sectors. Its expertise enables clients whose operations impact on natural systems like air and water quality to comply with all relevant environmental legislation and regulations.
Established in 2002, the business has seen exceptional growth in recent years, with a doubling of turnover and staff. During 2017 staff numbers grew to 28 to underpin the company’s continued 20% year-on-year growth.
It became apparent that the company’s internal HR systems and procedures required improvement to cope with the expansion, and were taking up a disproportionate amount of management time.
The EMS management team worked with Sheffield City Region Growth Hubs’ Business Growth Specialist Antony Davies to address its HR challenges and realise its growth ambitions. Antony was able to help the company access a £3,000 Enhancement Project grant to cover 50% of the costs of bringing in a specialist HR consultant. The Enhancement Project is financed by the European Regional Development Fund as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020.
The company identified potential providers before working with the expert of their choice to design and implement a new practical HR management system. The benefits are already visible with the streamlining and alignment of policies and procedures providing much greater clarity for staff, and a reduction in the amount of management time devoted to dealing with HR issues.
Greater focus can now be placed on growing the business in new markets, and staff development through a more strategic approach to training. Through the Skills Bank, another Growth Hub initiative, EMS has also been supported to save over £10,000 on its training budget.
Professor Pete Skipworth, MD of Environmental Monitoring Solutions, said: “The support that we’ve received from Sheffield City Region Growth Hub has been extremely beneficial, as we don’t have the internal expertise to carry out this piece of work, and we would have just kept putting it off. The Growth Hub team have been really helpful and we’ll continue to use their support at every opportunity.”
The Sheffield City Region Growth Hub Enhancement Project is receiving up to £2.7m of funding from the England European Regional Development Fund as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020. Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government’ (and in London the intermediate body Greater London Authority) is the Managing Authority for the European Regional Development Fund. Established by the European Union, the European Regional Development Fund helps local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support innovation, business, create jobs and local community regeneration’s. For more information visit www.gov.uk/european-growth-funding.