Safety starts with you

The Safety of our workforce has always been very high on our agenda and we firmly believe that the only acceptable Accident Frequency Rate (AFR) is zero.

While traditional methods such as improved procedures, training, safety management systems, and the introduction of safety advisers had helped bring down the AFR from 1.3 in 1996 to 0.38 in 2007, we found significant further improvement to our AFR were not being realised.

In the first instance, we called in a specialist safety training consultant to assess our safety performance on local authority, Highways Agency and Transport Scotland contracts. Generally the findings were positive in regards to commitment to safety, safety management systems, policies and improvements. The findings also suggested a tendency to doing ‘more of the same’, a fear of blame from the workforce when pointing out safety concerns, some inadequacy in the managers’ competences to discuss safety and coach. But above all, they made us realise that our workforce, driven by getting the job done, is sometimes tempted to take shortcuts, to work without the correct PPE, to use equipment they are not trained to handle etc. We realised that we were dealing with normal human beings problems and that changing people’s behaviour could improve safety. 

A Steering Group was appointed to deal with the findings and raise awareness of how changing people’s behaviour could lead to a safer working environment. 

‘Safety starts with you’ is not a panacea or a quick fix. Changing behaviour and instilling a culture of safety leadership is complex and there is no simple solution. But crucial to the success of the campaign are senior directors’ endorsement, buy-in from the workforce and constant two-way communications.

The message needed to be driven home that nothing at work was so important that the time could not be taken to do it safely. We devised simple positive messages that we consistently communicate to our employees:

• Lead by example
• Take personal responsibility for safety
• Look out for others
• Increase the awareness of near misses
• Open discussion on safety successes and failures
• Don’t walk by

From October 2007 to March 2008, our Management Board conducted a series of nationwide road shows, speaking directly to our 2,300 employees, to stimulate discussions about safety concerns, encourage the reporting of near-misses and promote safety leadership and teamwork.

Anyone with management or supervision responsibility is also attending a two-day workshop, designed with safety leadership in mind:

• To help our employees gain a sound knowledge of what drives people to behave as they do, in the context of safety.
• To equip our employees with the necessary leadership behaviours and skills to influence others to behave more safely, including coaching. 

We continue to promote positive behaviours in our company and contract newsletters to keep the awareness high and provide feedback on action following near-miss reporting and the various on-going initiatives.

The Steering Group is working hard to address all the issues highlighted during the initial assessment. A series of nationwide and local initiatives are on-going and include:

• Introducing an All Accident Frequency Rate – this would include all accidents which result in at least one day off work, not just those which are reportable under RIDDOR
• Discussing behavioural safety at staff inductions, and, even earlier in the recruitment process, assessing candidates on their attitude to safety at interview stage
• Including safety as part of employees’ annual performance reviews
• Extending the behavioural safety culture so that people keep the issues in mind at all times, and change their attitude towards safety at home.