“Communicate the positives
at every opportunity
and to every level in the
organisation and build
trust”
what went well, not just what went wrong. The result is
an output of Validated Causes and Corrective Actions.
The investigations are then shared with every other site
within the organisation. This allows the receiving site to
treat the incident that occurred elsewhere as a Near Miss
on their site, while checking both the Validated Causes
and Corrective actions, to ensure that all issues are
implemented on site.
“We have found this to be an extremely powerful tool in
moving the safety standards forward quickly on all sites as
it becomes an issue of pride. Every step is being taken to
ensure that nothing similar can happen on your site!”
For Hugh, the bottom line is that safety is always
about people. Whatever the company achieves
successfully is only possible with the involvement of all
of their colleagues. Maintaining this positive momentum
means the involvement of teams throughout the
business in contributing to solutions and therefore their
own safety.
T
hree years ago, CHEP UK Ltd was certified as a
European Network to the internationally accepted
OHSAS 18001 safety standard. Hugh and his
colleagues believed that as an organisation, their safety
performance was good, but they wanted to gain further
external validation for what they were doing.
As a member of RoSPA, Hugh was aware of the awards
for Safety Management Performance available each year
and recommended that the company put themselves
forward for the awards by submitting an entry.
“The first year we entered, we achieved the Silver
Award, then the following year in 2013, we achieved our
first Gold Award, followed by our second Gold Award this
year. Not only has this brought further external validation
of the positive steps we are taking, but also huge prestige
and pride in our performance amongst our employees.”
Hugh does not find the online submission process to be an
onerous one, but he was keen to stress that it is far from easy.
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