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Staff take lead on safety

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Health and safety professionals face a number of challenges on a daily basis. Ask which one of these is the biggest and the majority will explain that achieving the buy-in from staff is perhaps the most difficult part of their job.

There is a fine balance between death-by-PowerPoint, enforcing rules and handing over responsibility completely, and too much or too little of any of these could result in disastrous consequences. However, the right blend of different techniques can help achieve positive results, both in-house and in a company’s product and the service it delivers to its clients.

By stepping away from the traditional methods of teaching QHSE to adapting an almost “softly, softly”, approach involving all members of the workforce, an acceptance and interest in all health and safety matters can be nurtured, allowing it to become an integral part of the working day rather than simply an afterthought.

Engaging an insular workforce can bring many benefits to a company, especially to those who provide fully integrated services to its clients. Workers are guardians for a business and maintaining a high level of service is vital to building on existing working relationships and for forging new ones.

One such company which has recently revitalised its workforce’s attitudes and opinions to quality, health, safety and environmental matters is Fisher Offshore. The specialist in lifting, deck machinery, subsea tooling and subsea excavation has enhanced its commonsense approach to QHSE matters by concentrating on the development of two key areas; its in-house IOSH (Institution of Occupational Safety and Health) team and the formation of a new health, safety and environment training pack.

Leading these changes was the company’s QHSE adviser Ruth Pirie, who used her previous studies in internal communications to shape her view of how she saw these areas progressing. Ruth’s vision for the company was recently recognised when she was awarded with the most promising individual accolade at the recent Oil and Gas UK Safety Awards.

She said: “When I joined Fisher Offshore, I wanted to help build on the processes they already had in place in an effort to continue the support from the workforce on health and safety matters. To do this, we wanted to hand more responsibility to the staff, giving people a platform to voice both concerns and ideas.

“Instead of the QHSE team carrying out the weekly audits, we handed this responsibility over to the staff who circulated information on our behalf including changes to legislation and how to implement these.

“We also developed a new health, safety and environment training pack that covered 22 topics in bite-size chunks. At the end of each section, employees have to complete a couple of short questions to demonstrate that they fully understood that area. The booklet is animated with a number of cartoons and pictures, again helping to make health and safety issues as appealing as possible.

“We’ve found that these subtle changes have helped to drastically increase the visibility of the entire QHSE team at Fisher Offshore and to external clients, allowing for a more concentrated focus to be placed upon all aspects of the company’s health and safety.”