LITE

For nearly 20 years, LITE (Lighting and Illumination Technology Experience) has been brightening up buildings. The Burnley-based business has lit up iconic landmarks including the Shard, Edinburgh Castle, the Royal Liver Building, even South Africa's Sun City resort - and also works with around 100 councils to provide Christmas displays and illuminations.

LITE has been using Mentor's services for a number of years, particularly its health and safety advice and guidance, but has especially benefited from its support through the various challenges brought about by the pandemic. 

Moving with the times

“Like everyone else, we've seen a downturn,” says LITE finance director Nick Graham. “Even from early in the year, when our reps would normally be out selling our festive packages, they were sitting twiddling their thumbs because our clients had either temporarily shut their doors, or the people we'd normally speak to were working from home, or on furlough.” 

“Tendering processes weren't happening, so some organisations were sticking with firms they'd used last year and there wasn't the opportunity to pitch for new business. We couldn't fulfil our architectural lighting contracts because sites were shut down, and even now, it's clear many town centres won't be holding their normal Christmas lights switch-on. It's been a challenging time.”

But LITE is a resourceful business, and made up some of the shortfall by pivoting to supply companies with large protective screens - polycarbonate barrier systems - to safeguard their staff and customers from coronavirus.

Managing risk remotely

Reducing risk has, of course, been a theme for many companies through the pandemic, and Mentor was able to fulfil a request from LITE to help it with an innovative way of providing staff safety training.

“Mentor offers an in-house IOSH [Institution of Occupational Safety and Health] Managing Safely course, which we had booked for nine of our project management staff,” says Nick. “Because of Covid, this had of course been put back several times, but we were extremely keen for our team to undertake the training. So we spoke to our Mentor adviser, Phil Black, to see whether the training could be provided via Zoom, and Mentor were quick to help us achieve this.

“The Zoom safety training worked brilliantly for so many reasons. We could keep everyone safe by working remotely, it saved the cost of bringing everyone together to one conference centre, with all the travel and accommodation expenses, and it also meant it was less intensive.” 

“By doing six half-days spread out over two weeks, rather than one three-day block, not only did our managers come fresh to every session, but they could also instantly take away what they'd learned from every session, and have time to process and apply it in their jobs before the next session.”

He adds that Mentor is not just an advice service. “Mentor has such a huge scope to support every part of your business decision-making,” he says. “They really are part of our team, visiting regularly and always available on email or video chat or on the phone. They've helped us with a fire-risk assessment, they've got HR facilities in case we ever need to call on them. But the remote training they were able to facilitate shows how much they listen to your requests and concerns and work with you, giving you advice and support that fits the requirements of your business.”