Water & Wastewater Treatment Magazine
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/1055150
22 | DECEMBER 2018 | WWT | www.wwtonline.co.uk The Knowledge Health and Safety 1 LEADERSHIP Organisations tend to do whatever the leaders of organisations highlight as their key priorities. So for health and safety to be seen as important, it must be led from the very top of the organisation and promoted as a core value. Karl Simons explained: "To bring about cultural change in an organisation you have to start with leadership. Setting the right tone at board and executive level is paramount. We have a very proactive board and executive team and their understanding of health, safety and employee well- being has shi ed enormously over the past fi ve years since our organisational framework was altered; the health and safety lead was appointed directly to the Chief Executive. This move sent a very clear message that the role was as important as the Finance Director, the Operations Directors and any others in the business. The company has a clear vision and strategy around health and safety that has led to investment, waves of initiatives and high level Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)." Simons added: "There has been a radical shi in attitude at Thames Water, from a point where health and safety was seen as a blocker to getting work done and overly bureaucratic, to being an enabler of work and good for business. Through this shi in leadership approach, we have also seen greater senior management visibility and engagement the entire organisation, but also supports decision-making around appropriate levels of investment in risk control. He commented: "Put on the table the risks that you hold, with risk driving budget, not budget driving risk. By that I mean inspection is the catalyst for all investment and maintenance within an organisation, so to have good governance and oversight you need to have eff ective risk visualisation, so any large asset based organisation should have their statutory and Chrisp based inspection programmes visible centrally for their organisations. "So understand your assets, understand your people, understand the risk areas and make sure those inspections are being undertaken. That will generate the actions out of the back-end, which will drive your investment programme." 4 SUPPLY CHAIN ENGAGEMENT The water and waste water industry employs a signifi cant proportion of sub-contractors and suppliers. Inconsistency in attitude and beliefs around health, safety and well-being within the supply chain can be detrimental to both culture and performance. Thames Water has recognised this by extending its engagement strategy to its supply chain partners. On a practical level, for example, this has meant that Thames Water, as a course provider, off ers the NEBOSH General Certifi cate course to its contractors. Karl explained: "We have a capital framework alliance which includes many large contractor organisations, and we're delighted to have seen more and more of their representatives attending the course over the past few years. "Supply chain is crucial to the success of your organisation," advises Karl. "Don't alienate your supply chain, work in partnership with them because everything that is important to you must be important to your supply chain." with the workforce to help reinforce safety culture. In 2011 there were only 15 senior management visits, now this annual fi gure is more than 800." 2 COMPETENCE "Organisations must have an active engagement strategy based around competence and education for all," said Simons. "Whether it is an employee, manager or senior manager, everybody needs to have the right level of education around health and safety." For Thames Water, this has meant developing a training programme designed to bring all of its frontline managers up to a recognised level of knowledge and capability. Since 2013, more than 600 managers at Thames Water have taken and passed the NEBOSH National General Certifi cate in Occupational Health and Safety. Karl Simons told me this upskilling has had a "powerful impact" on culture and safety performance. "We've seen a dramatic increase in people's willingness to challenge unsafe acts or conditions without fear of reprisal. So the blame culture has been altered to one of respect, which in turn has driven more openness and transparency across the company." 3 RISK VISUALISATION Risks are o en examined in isolation. For example, risk assessments may be carried out only with specifi c tasks, departments and locations in mind, without fully understanding the implications for broader areas of the business, such as strategy, brand reputation, compliance, governance and fi nancial performance. Risk visualisation is an approach which looks at the bigger picture rather than simply building a risk register that lacks interconnectivity. According to Simons, risk visualisation not only makes the management of health and safety more relevant across In 2013, Thames Water kickstarted an ambitious training programme with the aim of upskilling all of its managers in health and safety. The thinking behind the programme was simple. Thames Water's Chief Ex- ecutive at the time, Martin Baggs wanted to embed a culture of safety and health across the entire organisation. To achieve this he believed all managers, as well as their executive team, needed to have a far greater level of knowledge and under- standing to competently manage health and safety issues. To achieve their goal, Thames Water turned to NEBOSH. Not only did the company specify the NEBOSH National General Certifi cate in Occupation- al Health and Safety as its desired management- level qualifi cation, but it also applied to become accredited to deliver the NEBOSH course in-house. The Operations Managing Director for the company at the time led the way by being sat on the very fi rst course, and as Carol Moore, Thames Water's Health, Safety and Train- ing Manager explained, a fl ood of managers then applied to do follow suit. "We began running courses every single month, with at least 12 people on each. Demand exceeded all expecta- tions and we ended up doing around 18 courses in the fi rst year, achiev- ing an overall 94% pass rate. Now, here we are fi ve years later and more than 600 managers have been through the programme and I have to say it's made a huge diff erence." CASE STUDY: THAMES WATER and locations in mind, without fully understanding the implications for broader areas of the business, such as strategy, brand reputation, compliance, governance and fi nancial performance. Risk visualisation is an approach which looks at the bigger picture rather than simply building a risk register that lacks interconnectivity. risk visualisation not only makes the management of health and safety more relevant across Karl Simons, Thames Water