UK firm seeks training partners in US

Developed by Cheshire-based SOG, Deal With It is a highly effective and well-established training programme which aims to influence staff attitudes to health and safety, encouraging a change or re-evaluation of culture in the workplace and at home. 

It has proved an international success with SOG recently breaking into the US market. Now a new partnership with Circle Safety & Health Consultants who are based in Richmond, Virginia, offers the opportunity to introduce Deal With It to more businesses in the US.

SOG aims to forge partnerships with other American safety training organisations to roll out Deal With It across the United States and wants interested bodies to contact them.

John Lewis, MD of SOG Group, said: “Due to our continued growth in delivering cultural safety training programmes in various countries on different continents and particularly in North America, we have reached agreement with Circle Safety for them to partner with us in marketing and delivering our courses in the US.

“Circle Safety have a highly experienced team of consultants and trainers serving general industry, construction and the public sector on the Eastern Seaboard of the US. We have commenced a programme to train their staff who have already delivered a broad range of safety training to some of their clients in Virginia.” 

Mr Lewis added: “Deal With It has become established as an excellent vehicle to promote positive changes in safety culture to help make the workplace environment safer for all employees. We have made some significant breakthroughs in the US where we have identified a huge potential market for Deal With It but to date we have been limited by conducting the training sessions through our UK-based trainers. 

“This partnership, where Circle Safety will now deliver Deal With It courses under license from SOG, marks an exciting new era for Deal With It and means our programme can be introduced to more US businesses faster. This is a major new initiative for us and we are keen to speak to other training organisations in the US, and indeed other countries, who may wish to market and deliver our programmes to their business communities to speed up the transformation of Deal With It into a truly global product which does make a difference.” 

Anna Jolly, managing director of Circle Safety, said: “Safety culture change is the next giant step for employee safety in the U.S. Deal With It is the best vehicle we have seen for making real changes in how employees and ultimately whole organisations make decisions about how safely work is carried out. The approach is not from the top down nor from the bottom up, but is across all levels at the same time.”

Deal With It has already been successfully deployed by one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies, Merck & Co Inc, for 600 workers at a plant in Cleveland, Tennessee. A training programme for 5,000 employees of Shell involved delivering sessions at some of the oil company’s US centres.

Deal With It in the UK has been used by numerous leading businesses including Imperial Tobacco, Johnson Matthey, Fujifilm, Premier Foods, Cadbury’s, Warburton’s and Meggitt Polymers. To enable its use internationally parts of the programme have been translated into more than 20 different languages. 

SOG Group has also showcased its Deal With It programme to leading trades unions in the UK and the US who have been impressed by the innovative approach to engaging with staff to make workplaces safer.

Helen Schoelzel, SOG’s safety health and environment manager, said: “From our customer feedback, Deal With It results are impressive. Our courses focus on safety culture and encouraging staff to think about what they do and what the implications of their actions might be – both to themselves and to their colleagues.  Changing perceptions about safety culture are key to Deal With It which really does make a positive difference. Companies have reported improved safety performance, reduced injury costs, higher staff morale and greater profitability."