All the entries for the Inspiring Safety Awards 2013 reached a very high standard and it was a tough job to narrow the field. However, they have now been through the preliminary judging process and have been whittled down to the best of the best.

The winners will be selected from this shortlist and announced at The SHE Show North East at Newcastle Marriott Gosforth Park on 26 November 2013.


Category: most inspiring individual

 

Lisa Marie Hagan

Administrator / Health and Safety Champion

Carillion Enterprise

Lisa is one of those people who goes the extra mile. Although her main job is in admin, she is driven to come up with ideas that improve safety at Carillion’s offices in Anglesey.

“She is passionate about keeping people safe,” says Peter Green, MD of Carillion, “and has taken it upon herself to get involved and develop her own skills in health and safety.”

It is for her ideas within the company’s Behaving Safely programme that she is most valued, coming up with Hazard Awareness Workshops and driving a scheme called Don’t Walk By. She also runs an office safety improvement group. She works with supplier and client companies as well as with Carillion staff and was made the company’s Health and Safety Champion in 2010.

An her passion extends to developing her own skills: she completed CIEH L2 and the IOSH Managing Safety course and is now working on the NEBOSH General Certificate.

Lisa’s ideas have contributed to a positive safety culture, she believes. But importantly, she is still looking for ways to improve.

Gary Piper

ESH Technician

Wrigley Company

When the HSE’s Estates Excellence Programme reached Plymouth, Gary spotted an excellent way for his company to support its local community. And he got involved with gusto.

The HSE programme encourages safety experts from large companies to help smaller organisations and commercial landlords. Gary lead a team which visits other businesses around Plymouth and helps them assess their health and safety. They look at COSHH, manual handling, fire and noise and suggest practical and cost-effective ways to improve.

Gary also provides free training where people are struggling and offers advice and procedures based on his health and safety experience.

Joy Jones of the HSE says of Gary: “Wrigley’s involvement gave huge credibility to the programme and his personal enthusiam, commitment and confidence was inspirational.”

Recently, Gary extended the initiative, offering the same sort of help to the charities Wrigley works with.

 

Stephen Race

Health, Safety & Training Manager

Seymour (Civil Engineering Contractors) Ltd

Stephen is changing the way people think about health and safety. He sees his own role as far more than meeting regulations or covering the company’s back. He wants to protect people from coming to harm.

Seymour undertakes big construction projects like main drainage or harbour protection and it is all too easy for workers to see health and safety as something that gets in the way. But Stephen has instilled the trust needed for the workforce to commit to safety and to get involved.

Stephen’s secret is that he listens. That way people come to see that their opinions count and managers will act on their suggestions. Stephen put in place open discussions and suggestion schemes that give people a real sense of ownership.

“Without his involvement, I believe heath and safety would be seen as a hindrance,” says Dan Athley, Stephen’s boss. “His personalised approach has really allowed operatives  to get involved and want to think and act safely.”

Category: most inspiring team or organisation

 

Blueberry Foods

 There’s many a health and safety manager would give their eye teeth to see an injury incident rate chart like Blueberry Foods’. A cliff-edge drop culminating, from September 2012, in a steady zero.

The company, which makes chilled desserts, introduced a health and safety strategy aimed at engaging its 250 employees and 150 agency workers. Training safety reps and improving communications were key to this. But they also improved the way they did risk assessments and standardised procedures.

Management buy-in was vital, and health and safety is now a business priority for the company. The policy is zero tolerance of incidents and learning from mistakes to prevent recurrence.

Historically, Blueberry foods had a monthly incident injury rate between 1000 and 1600. That dropped sharply as the strategy came into effect, and in the space of a year had fallen to zero.

GE Power and Water Irl, Whitegate Power Station

Whitegate Power Station in County Cork, Ireland is all about the numbers. It has a zero injury rate over the last four years. That period includes the time 400 people were employed building it.

How they’re achieving this safety record is also down to numbers: 27 risk-reduction projects in 2012, another 42 by the summer of 2013. But the numbers tell the story of an extraordinary commitment by the people at the plant. There are weekly safety meetings where everyone is encouraged to get involved. Hazard hunts reward improvements in safety and trigger the risk-reduction projects. Above all, there is a commitment to ensure everyone goes home safe every day.

One risk-reduction project made sure vehicles were ready for winter. But it didn’t stop at company and contractor vehicles, it was also applied to employees’ own cars. This made site traffic safer but also reduces the chance of an accident when people are on their way to work.

The site is planning OHSAS18001 audits by the beginning of 2014.

McVities, Carlisle

This world-famous biscuit maker decided to formalise its commitment to safety by implementing the OHSAS18001 safety management system at its Carlisle plant. The key was to get all 850 staff involved. The first stage was a due diligence process to see how they were doing.

One day each month is given over to reviewing safety management en route to OHSAS18001. This includes checking weekly inspections, risk assessments and near-miss reporting. Although designed to catch any weaknesses, a big part of this review process has been spotting where people have been doing well. Highlighting and thanking employees where their approach to safety has been good is helping renew the company’s commitment to improving safety management.

McVities believes safety is the responsibility of everyone and the company aims to involve all its employees is health and safety activities. They have trained people from all areas of the company in a process called safe working observation procedure. These people have a target of using the process to discuss safety with others at least twice a month.

Category: most inspiring initiative or campaign

 

Babcock Marine and Technology (for IIF – Home Safe Every Day)

There is no if in IIF for Babcock Marine and Technology. The Incident and Injury Free – Home Safe Every Day project is a joint initiative between Babcock, the MoD and the Royal Navy at HM Naval Base at Faslane on the River Clyde. It is a full scale behavioural safety programme which motivates people to improve their own safety and that of everyone around them. The aim is improve the safety culture across the whole naval base.

The top-down programme started with workshops for the most senior managers and worked its way down to line supervisors. Each month, board directors visit various parts of the site to discuss safety issues and demonstrate their commitment. A reward and recognition scheme reinforces positive safety behaviour. This year, for the first time, the programme included a safety conference with the theme everyone has a role to encourage team-working and improvement across the site.

In five years, the number of RIDDOR reportable accidents has decreased by 58% and the total of injury accidents is down by 33%. In the same period, near-miss reporting went up by over 1000%.

 

Crossrail Ltd (for Crossrail Gateway)

Crossrail Gateway is a scheme to evaluate the standards of contractors for leadership and behavioural safety. By measuring and recognising excellence, it helps them become (and remain) world class in health and safety.

Europe’s largest construction project, Crossrail will provide a 100km link between East and West London, including 42km of new tunnels. More than 10,000 people work across 40 sites. Work on the project peaks between now and 2015.

Ensuring consistently high safety standards across a network of contractors and partner companies is a major challenge and Gateway has been central to that. But it aims to do more than simply check safety standards. It creates a healthy competition among suppliers to maintain their zero injuries goal. It allows them to benchmark their performance against each other and share best practice.

This mixture of assessment, competition and reward is encouraging companies in the scheme to explore better ways to achieve safety and adopt innovative solutions.

Shepherd Engineering Services Ltd (for Going Live)

People who work on a construction site face a whole new hazard when electrical systems begin to be switched on. The risk can be high and, because it is a technically complex area, many who work on site feel a little unsure.

Shepherd Engineering Services’ Going Live initiative solves the problem by telling everyone who works in this phase of construction about the electrical installation process and how it relates to their project. It gives them confidence about how to do their own job safely and it gives them a point of contact if they have questions about electrical safety.

Shepherd tailors its presentations, so people get more than a generic safety talk. They understand how electrical safety best practice applies to the project they are actually working on.

One construction manager who, prior to the electrical installations being energised had put  all his site foremen, supervisors managers, subcontractors and facilities managers through the Going Live presentation comments: “The sessions where delivered in a professional, structured manner with specific reference to this project. The end result was zero related incidents.”

 

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