WET News

4 WET NEWS MAY 2019 | wwtonline.co.uk IN FOCUS HEALTH, SAFETY & WELLBEING Perfect fit • Having introduced an array of creative solutions to improve health, safety and wellbeing, Lanes Group is showing the breadth of benefits that can be delivered when a business devotes its energies to improving workers' lives A cross the industry, many companies are making efforts to not only cut down on health and safety incidents but to improve the overall wellbeing and mental health of their staff. Beyond the obvious human advantages, bringing about improvements in these areas can reap far-reaching rewards: a happy, healthy workforce is far more likely to be a focused, productive and loyal workforce. As part of its AMP6 wastewater network maintenance framework contract with Thames Water, independent drainage and utility specialist Lanes Group has introduced a host of new innovations that are now driving remarkable improvements throughout the business. ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT Health, safety and wellbeing has long been a focus for Lanes Group and its efforts have attracted plenty of attention in recent years. In 2014, Lanes won two awards for its Essential Standards workplace guide and training tool, which involved taking dry, lengthy operational manuals and putting them into a more easily digestible pictorial form with cartoons and icons. It also launched a Shout About Safety newsletter, distributed within the group every month and featuring advice, news, success stories and seasonal safety warnings. The following year, the company won an award for a PoWRA (point of work risk assessment) app that asks field workers a series of questions to determine the safety of their working environment – whether there are any overhead cables that may present a risk, for example – and requests images at each stage of the process, which is all collated into a centralised record that can be viewed online instantly. These are just some of the early initiatives Lanes had implemented in its work with Thames Water, but the reduction in incidents was failing to match expectations. Over the course of 2016, the team had five RIDDOR incidents, where workers were away from work, or unable to perform their normal work duties, for more than seven consecutive days as the result of their injury. There was also a lost-time incidents (LTIs) in which someone was off work injured for a shorter period. The introduction of a wellbeing app opened a Pandora's box In the autumn of that year, Lanes Group technical director Andy Brierley and the leadership team gathered at the Customer Solutions Centre that Lanes shares with Thames Water in Berkshire to search for solutions. "On a dark Thursday night, all the senior managers gathered in this room and set out to work out where the issue was," Brierley says. "We had a new induction, the best PPE, the best kit, the best managers, the best mindset, but something was still going wrong because we were still having incidents. "The LTI rate peaked at 0.47 in February 2016, which is pretty good but not where we set our aspirations to be." At the meeting, the team opted to implement two new initiatives. One was to enhance the system for site audits. The team introduced a new card system to rate success, with green cards awarded to those who pass with flying colours, yellow cards for those with room for improvement, and red cards for significant issues that prompt work to be stopped. "Green cards quickly became coveted," Brierley says. "They're for sites set up just how we want and expect Workers are awarded green cards if they pass site audits with flying colours Lanes regional manager Craig May leads an Essential Standards session

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