Wigan health and safety firm boss speaks of decade of change for women in business

Dawn has run RADCaT, based off Woodhouse Lane, since 2011 when she took over operations from her father and business founder David Kenyon.

The firm has had an eventful 12 months during the Covid-19 pandemic as it has been busy advising companies on how to keep their employees safe from the novel coronavirus.

The upheaval has also meant the company has had to find new ways of doing some of its work.

Dawn, from Poolstock, said: “Site visits have been few and far between and we’ve had to adapt. We had to get our heads around Zoom and audits without being on site very quickly.

“We’ve had to come up with some quite innovative ways of doing our job.

“Being a health and safety firm has been an advantage. I feel very lucky.

“We’ve been able to help businesses have a look at their premisesand work out how to be Covid safe, maintaining social distancing in factories and offices.

“It has been like doing a degree a week. Every time the Government comes out with something else we’ve had to really look into it and make sure we’re giving the best advice.”

RADCaT has been dealing with around 50 per cent extra business on top of its pre-coronavirus level as firms have scrambled to make their premises compliant with the new rafts of regulations.

Dawn runs a five-strong team at the business as well as working with the company’s trusted associates and gave her thoughts on women as business leaders and how much progress has been made in the last 10 years.

She said; “I think I’ve noticed a little change. I was in business with my dad and then I was known as ‘Dave’s daughter’, so I didn’t even get a name for quite some time.

“Whether that was because my dad was really well known or because I was a woman I couldn’t say. I think there is a lot more respect for women in business than there used to be and there are a lot more women coming into the sector.

“I’m also a dangerous goods safety advisor and there were hardly any women doing that when I started. That seems to be changing with more and more ladies coming on board, which is nice to see.

“I think women in business are very good networkers. We help each other and refer people to others. We’ve never done much advertising, we’ve relied on word of mouth, and I’m very proud of that. I would like to think that is what we’re good at.”

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