Lee & Karen Brown from Absolute HFS
"It's changed our lives. We used to work 12 hour days. Now, write ups take half the time.
We have a life after five o'clock again."
Some of the best fire safety businesses are built around a kitchen table as much as a spreadsheet. That's certainly true for Lee and Karen, the husband-and-wife team behind Absolute Health & Safety. Lee runs the fire risk assessments; Karen runs everything else. Together they've built an independent consultancy that's now doing more work than ever — but, for the first time in years, they're getting their evenings and weekends back thanks to FireCheckr.
I caught them at the end of a hectic day for a quick chat about their journey and how FireCheckr changed the way they work.
Meet the team
Lee, tell us how you got into fire safety.
"I spent 27 years in the fire service. I came out in 2016 and retrained to move into fire consultancy — went down to the Fire Service College at Moreton-in-Marsh, put the time in, and picked up the qualifications as I went. I've got my NEBOSH in Health & Safety and my NEBOSH Fire Safety Management, a diploma in fire risk assessments, and I'm a third-party accredited fire door inspector."
"I started out subcontracting for a range of firms before going fully independent three or four years ago."
Karen, what was your background before you started working with Lee?
"I was a field service engineer, believe it or not. I travelled all over the country fitting hand dryers, soap dispensers, a bit of plumbing, a bit of electrics — a bit of everything. It was a heavy job, honestly a bit of a boy's club. So once Lee was busy enough, I threw myself into the business full-time. I was ready for the change."
That change meant learning a whole new trade — the admin side.
"I'd never done business administration before. When I started, everything used to be typed in capitals because I couldn't really type! I've had to teach myself everything as I've gone. I do all of Lee's inquiries now, all his planning so he knows exactly where he's going, and all his invoicing. And now, I handle it all in FireCheckr's bookings system so come Monday morning all his jobs are ready in the system for him."
Life before FireCheckr
What did a typical week look like before?
"Long hours. That was the biggest challenge. When it was all Word documents, I'd record everything on a dictaphone and type it up afterwards. It was hugely time-consuming. We're talking 12 hour days — and weekends too."
"I'd come home, get the laptop out, start uploading all my photos and keep going until 10 or 11 o'clock at night. We have someone in our team, Simon, who reviews my findings so more time would be taken up if we need to make changes back and forth. Now the work that Simon and I do on the same report is much easier and faster inside FireCheckr."
What changed
So what does the process look like now?
"It's changed tremendously. Now I just take the photographs and record the findings I come across by speaking into the app. That gets written up inside FireCheckr automatically and Simon reviews it. What used to take us two hours a report now takes us about one. It's half the time."
The knock-on effect at home has been just as dramatic — if a little disorienting at first. Karen laughs: "He's lost! He doesn't know what to do with himself."
Lee admits it's true. "It's like I should be doing something. After working that hard for that long, it's a welcome shock, really."
What's it meant for the two of you?
Karen says "It's lovely. I look after the house and the garden, Lee does the cooking, and now we've got time to do those things together — and actually talk about things that aren't work. It's just more time for us. It's nice to have a life after five o'clock."
Would they recommend it?
"Oh, absolutely," says Karen without hesitation. "It's changed his life. We were doubtful at the beginning — when you get to our age it's not easy to change your ways, and technology isn't either of our strong points. But you supported us and the app is very easy to use on site."
For Lee, it also comes down to how the finished product looks. He'd tried other apps before, "and they just looked so unprofessional. Yours is different — it's exactly what you want it to be."
High praise from a couple who took some convincing. And with the reports off his plate, Lee's now got the one thing this job never used to allow: time. Karen's already got big plans for Lee in the garden. Whether Lee also fills the evenings with three-course dinners remains to be seen.
Want to see what FireCheckr could do for your consultancy? Get in touch — we'd love to show you.
