First an apology for the lack of activity on this blog lately. We can see on Google analytics that we have a few people that follow it but as we mentioned in our last post we have been incredibly busy lately. The main intention of this blog is to inform. We want to keep you updated with changes in legislation, health and safety issues and provide information on mandatory training. But the blog is also ideal to keep you updated with company news and we’re happy to say that we’ve got a fair bit of that at the moment.

When Alpha first started it was just Paul and Lloyd working out of a single office in Orchard house in the centre of Swansea. It didn’t take that long to outgrow that facility and Alpha moved to new offices in Henley House Fforestfach. Initially we occupied a single office and two training rooms in the building, but again Alpha quickly outgrew this set up. Alpha now have four training rooms, three offices and a reception area in the building. Additionally we now have an office and training room in Cardiff bay. All this in the space of two years! The real growth however has been in the number of people the company employs. From just Paul and Lloyd two years ago the company now employs nine full time members of staff and keeps four freelancers busy with regular work.

The growth can be attributed to hard work and good business sense and an honest commitment to customer service. From initially offering just basic courses like first aid and food hygiene Alpha has grown organically in response to demand and now offers courses like the Site Managers Safety Training Scheme, NEBOSH General and Construction certificates and the Royal College of Surgeons First Person on Scene course. The trend in the economy at large and in the training industry in particular has been to downsize, however in some of the most difficult trading conditions in living memory Alpha have seen unprecedented growth.

We’ve mentioned our new Cardiff centre but recently we’ve also opened a health and safety consultancy business. This was set up in response to demand from existing customers who wanted to utilise our in house expertise and experience in managing health and safety. Alpha Safety Solutions has got off to a flying start. Conducting risk assessments, creating health and safety policies and developing management systems for companies. There is every indication that our sister company will eclipse the success of Alpha Safety Training.

In addition to the above, in the first half of 2012 we have successfully won tenders with two large public sector organisations to deliver first aid and health and safety training pan Wales. We have won a contract with an international blue chip company to deliver IOSH and NEBOSH courses to their staff members and we have progressively improved the results of our NEBOSH exams, hitting a 91% pass rate on our last set of results. Our results have seen attendance on our courses increase dramatically with our last course having 15 people on it and with our next Construction cohort in August already close to full!

So having had a successful first half in 2012 we are justifiably excited about the second half. We are nearing the end of the approval process to run the NEBOSH Environmental Certificate, Cardiff is living up to our expectations and we fully expect it to get much busier.

It’ll be back to normal on the blogs for a while but it’s always nice to blow ones trumpet occasionally and we hope that you don’t mind us sharing our success story. Its been a fantastic year for us so far and we have a great team working here now, hopefully in a few months time we’ll have more good news to report.