Halliday considers this move is an evolutionary step for the company. He now feels that the company needs the drive of a younger person to build on the strong foundations that have been laid. His daughter Carly joined the business in May 2008, he has seen at first-hand her drive, firmness and professionalism.
Halliday commented: "I haven't grown this business on my own. I've been the glue in the organisation and I have been surrounded by a fantastic team. Carly fills me with an overwhelming level of trust but I see a strength and passion for the business in her.
"She is the best person for the job and is fully committed to the FSL way of doing things. She will steer the company for the coming decades and beyond, and I have no doubt that she will build on the high growth the company has experienced in recent years."
Prickett added: "I'm very fortunate; I love my job. This is an extremely well-run company and there are no grand plans to change direction. However this is a time of change so I'll be carefully managing the transition.
"I just want to get on with driving the business forward and focusing on continuous improvement to ensure we provide our clients with an even better level of service."
Prickett joined FSL as client services manager, worked as purchasing and administration manager and then took over responsibility for HR having completed a diploma in HR and became an associate member of the CIPD.
Her main interest is in people development, she claims. The company always conducted biannual appraisals, but she built on this by driving the process to create company values, which all staff now carry with them in the form of a credit card-type aide memoir.
From this she developed a skills matrix where all the skills of every employee are recorded, even those not directly relevant to their current jobs. This enables the company to draw on these skills in the future. Carly has also developed a company training plan.
An internal improvement team, called Team Jigsaw, has been set up to investigate areas of improvement within the business. The team was created from volunteers from each department as a continuation of a Business Improvement NVQ they completed in 2014.
The primary aim was to improve right first time (RFT) orders to meet a target of 99.5%. The team is using the lean tools learnt from the NVQ to identify any gaps in any process and can then implement the necessary improvements.
Prickett intends to develop relationships with existing clients and to introduce new ones with whom the company can build long-term partnerships.
Over the past three years she has also pushed new systems and processes for managing the supply chain. She has put structures in place which have focused minds on the top 25 suppliers, which account for 80% of the company's spend in a typical Pareto fashion. These are monitored on a number of criteria, including on time in full (OTIF) and RFT orders.
Each of these 25 suppliers has a biannual visit and they are judged according to an FSL supplier rating system on their communication and delivery. They're rated bronze, silver or gold and the team creates risk registers and succession planning. Prickett's focus is now on continuing to build stronger collaborative relationships going forward and she is investing a lot of time in evolving supplier development plans.
