One of the UK’s leading motivational speaking companies has invested over £50,000 into launching a new virtual offering aimed at manufacturers keen to improve their safety, health and wellbeing cultures.

Lincoln-based Proud2bSafe (P2BS — www.p2bs.org), which is run by father and daughter team Jason Anker and Abbi Taylor, has reacted to the impact of Covid-19 by taking its hugely popular presentations on-line and has already secured its first contract with ASCO, a global specialist in materials and equipment management.

The company says that the move to on-line delivery will help firms maximise their training budget and address social distancing restrictions during these difficult times by delivering expertise to more people than was previously possible, with up to 2,500 individuals able to access each live inspirational story and an option for others to catch-up with ‘playback’ presentations. It also promises to have a positive impact on the environment, as thousands of journeys will be replaced by virtual learning.

Mr Anker, who is regarded as the UK’s No1 behavioural safety speaker, is joined by James Howard of Red Orchid and Matt Hazelton from Four Friends, who both have personal experience of fatal workplace accidents.

The trio share a passion for promoting the importance of positive occupational health, safety and wellbeing culture and work across all business sectors, including construction, manufacturing, nuclear, retail, rail and utilities.

Abbi Taylor, P2BS managing director, said: “Our network of speakers has delivered presentations to thousands of companies all over the world since we began in 2011, including some major names such as Babcock, Bombardier, Network Rail and Xylem.

“We had a full pipeline of talks booked before Covid-19 struck and then, pretty much overnight, all were cancelled or postponed until further notice. Health, safety and well-being have never been more important for companies to consider, yet we had no way of delivering our insights unless we pivoted the business model.”

She continued: “Our existing clients were very positive when we trialed the idea of moving on-line so we have invested in the latest audio visual and IT technology to deliver high quality, interactive production content to enhance the audience experience.

“They also really liked the idea of being able to present to 2,500 people per event, with the additional capability of giving 100 of those the chance to interact with the speaker. There is even the opportunity to have the talks scheduled to suit day or night shifts and also different time zones.

“Although it has only been live for a few days, we have already had organisations sign-up to an annual package, with lots of interesting discussions taking place to deliver this on a global scale.”

Proud2bSafe is offering three different tiers of subscription, starting at premium then moving up to premium-plus and bespoke. These include a minimum of 52 live presentations over the course of the year, with the enhanced packages offering additional talks by hand-picked speakers from around the world and interactive break-out chats with the speakers.

Mr Anker, who was paralysed from the waist down after a falling from height accident in 1993, said: “Our talks are completely different in that we look at the human impact of what each of us have been through and how you deal with this, whether it was my accident and what led to it, how James managed the response to one of the UK’s deadliest workplace accidents or Matt’s recovery from being front and centre of a family business tragedy.

“Working virtually with P2BS is a win-win for manufacturers. They still get the same depth of insight and personal experience for a fraction of the cost and, better still, we can get the message across to far more people.

“It offers clients the opportunity to maximise the return on their training investment at a time when there might be some pressure on budgets and they can even strengthen cultural alignment by trickling down our live interactive experiences and recordings with on-site supply chain partners.”

He concluded: “Covid-19 has accelerated our move to on-line delivery, but this could well be the ‘new normal’ for the business motivational speaking circuit.”