Protek Intertek’s end-to-end health, safety and wellbeing assurance programme

Audits, training, inspection, verification and certification solutions for organisations worldwide

As the world changes, operating safely, sustainably and delivering quality and safe products becomes more difficult. Through Intertek’s Total Quality Assurance (TQA) offering, we make the world a better, safer, more sustainable place through the work we do for our customers across assurance, testing, inspection and certification.

Covid-19 has for clear reasons magnified the focus from all stakeholders in workplaces and public spaces on health, safety and hygiene. As a result, Intertek launched Protek - the world’s first industry-agnostic, end-to-end health, safety and wellbeing assurance programme for people, workplaces and public spaces and offers audits, training, inspection, verification and certification solutions to organisations worldwide.

As the world adjusts to a ‘new normal’, many newly adopted hygiene measures will become generally adopted standards as people fundamentally re-think their approach to everyday health, safety and wellbeing. As companies prepare for a return to work, employees are increasingly concerned about their health and safety and as customers think about returning to visit public spaces (whether shopping, eating out or using public transport) they are now also looking to brands to provide trust, visible reassurance and peace of mind. Never before has risk management and wellbeing been so prominent or vital to every aspect of our lives.

Based on Intertek’s unique approach to total quality, Protek is a comprehensive system of safeguards for People, Systems & Processes, Facilities, Materials & Surfaces, and Products. Through our global network of facilities, we provide support across all sectors, from manufacturing to retail sites to public places; turnkey solutions related to preventing the spread of infection and covering all aspects of health and safety.

People Assurance

Protek provides end-to-end learning and certification solutions, from Covid-19 related training programmes to specific modules on how to use face masks, gloves and other PPE. In addition, courses on hygiene, cleaning and prevention of the spread of infectious diseases help to assure the health, safety and wellbeing of employees and customers alike.

Operating Systems & Processes

These solutions provide confidence that operating procedures are functioning properly, helping to identify and mitigate intrinsic risk in operations, supply chains and business processes. These technology-driven solutions deliver supply chain risk transparency and visibility that can improve business and deliver more cost-effective processes.

Facilities

Protek Facilities Assurance is a suite of health & safety solutions that identify and minimise environmental health risks to employees and customers across manufacturing, hotels, schools, restaurants, transport hubs, retail, and more; including facility health assessments, programme development, cleaning and disinfectant process oversight, post-cleaning verification (including COVID-19 surface swabbing) and compliance reporting and certification.

Materials & Surfaces

These solutions provide the testing and inspection services needed to ensure materials and surfaces used are sanitised and safe for employees, customers, and the planet. From cleanliness and sanitation to waste management, Protek provides the assurance needed in today’s environment.

Products

Our Product solutions deliver the assurance to clients that a product was made with quality, safety, and sustainability in mind. We cover products through the entire lifecycle, starting from raw materials, components, to transportation and the finished product’s use, disposal, recovery and re-use.

Global reach, local expertise

With over 1,000 sites and laboratories in over one hundred countries, Intertek is uniquely placed to give businesses the reassurance of a global solution with unrivalled local knowledge and expertise. No other company has the network, tools and processes to deliver Total Health, Safety and Wellbeing solutions to help people feel safe to return to work, to travel, to eat out and to adjust to the new normal.

While we support our customers to reduce the risks and support them with health, safety and wellbeing solutions, it is important to realise that our colleagues, friends and family members are facing unprecedented challenges in both their professional and personal lives. Everyone is feeling the disruption and the subsequent toll that it can take on our health, both physical and mental. If we’re lucky it has meant that we now work from home, or in workplaces with social distancing, PPE and other measures. For many it has meant time spent on furlough, separated from friends, family, colleagues and a normal routine. Unfortunately for others it has meant redundancy.

While risk management, health, safety and wellbeing are core to what we do at Intertek, moving beyond to focusing on the personal relationships with our colleagues has been key during this time, to ensure that we look out for each other by taking into account the mental and physical health of those around us. It’s an approach we share across our business and would remind others to remember - every organisation has people at the heart of it, so it’s important we take care of them.

Read the latest issue of the OGV Energy magazine HERE.