Nationwide Hire (renamed in 2021 to ‘WowNow Hire’), is the UK’s leading provider in powered access hire; keeping businesses moving by taking responsibility for solving (and avoiding) plant, equipment and service problems. With a network of thousands of suppliers accessing millions of products, the company turns frustrated operational buyers into happy customers. Their mantra is: ‘whatever the challenge, we get it sorted‘
During an unplanned conversation, it became apparent that Nationwide Hire also required help sourcing furniture for the new space. Without possessing expertise in this area, Nationwide Hire’s HR & talent manager understandably found this a difficult task; he simply didn’t have time to walk around ware houses to identify an appropriate selection of second-hand furniture.
So, when this came up in passing, we took the weight off his shoulders. We sourced all the furniture in 10 days (36 bench desks including 3 sit-stand, pedestals, 4 meeting tables, touchdown table with bench seats, 8 flip-top meeting tables, 97 task chairs, 2 door cupboards and 9 banks of lockers). It was delivered and installed a week before the move, saving the client approximately £25k on purchasing new products.
At 6pm on Friday, the office relocation began and continued through Saturday – by late afternoon the job was done, leaving Sunday to recommission the IT infrastructure. We provided a server engineer to decommission, remove patching and switches at the loading address, and recommission contents of the communications room at the new address. The desktop IT was decommissioned, packed, moved and unpacked. Existing desks had to be dismantled, reconfigured and rebuilt with monitor arms. The server room was also relocated, as were all other workplace contents.
The smooth and swift relocation of Nationwide Hire to its Fareham premises meant that neither employees nor customers noticed that the move was in progress. What they have discovered since, however, is a better work environment – one that contributes to improved engagement, morale, health and wellbeing.
That’s not all – although it wasn’t included in the original brief, we also advised an appropriate layout that would allow Nationwide Hire to make the most of the floor space its teams had. The result is a new workplace design that enables cross-team collaboration and there is also a distinct culture in the new office, which has resulted in as stronger sense of community and social cohesion.
We are pleased to say that Nationwide were delighted with the works we performed, commenting:
“If you don’t want any of the pressures, hassles or doubts in your mind as to whether the project will go right, go to Active straight away. From the very first site visit, you’ll know you’re with the right company.”
Jonathan Holley, MD, Nationwide Hire
“Everything they did was perfect. By 6pm, the phones were down. Bang on schedule. The Active team brought and packed crates – more than needed, just to be safe – and as soon as the Active guys came in, they worked really quickly. All of the desks and personal items had been packed up into a truck and driven off in the first couple of hours. When it was time to go home on Friday night, the team didn’t seem phased by what was left. And, true to form, by 8am on the Saturday they had everything else ready to go. They didn’t lose a thing – not one bolt, not one screw. They were super speedy and efficient. Nothing was too much trouble for them, either.”
Lee Fisher, HR & Talent Manager, Nationwide Hire
