December 2009 Safety Message

Safety "Strategy"

We all know the target of our “Zero Harm” philosophy means we expect every single one of our employees, sub contractors and associates to be able to return home safe from work every day and engage in their normal activities with their family and friends. In order to reach our target we need to have a strong safety strategy in place that is centred on themes and is exercised in every single safety tool we use at work. These include Leading where every leader in this company commits to zero harm and inspires their people to make it their priority. Simplifying safety and making sure our systems and process help our people achieve zero harm. Re-thinking every time we perform a task, routine or not and therefore challenging ourselves to outperform the past. Involving everyone who works with us to ensure they are engaged and therefore making safety personal. Learning from others by seeking out and sharing what works well and adapting it to our own work environment. Tracking will help us identify where we can improve and enable us to close the gap and recognizing when we have achieved success in our safety performance.

To achieve our goal of zero harm we must have standards that are expected from every one of us. These include Care making sure we respect, support and continuous consideration for each other. Commitment from every single person to ensure we invest our time, effort and concentration for safety and health every day. Compliance by setting and achieving high safety expectations based on personal commitments. And Communication to encourage an open and honest culture throughout the organization by transferring knowledge and create understanding amongst our work force. These four standards must be integrated into our everyday business practice and we need to ensure everyone works to these standards.

With a strong safety strategy in place and working to a core of safety standards we can all have a part in making safety personal. We can all contribute and lead by example and ensuring your own behaviour is safe and acknowledging safe behaviour by letting others know when you see them work safely and speaking up when you see unsafe behaviours by offering feedback and finally be receptive when someone offers feedback.

A strong safety strategy and standards will help us achieve our goal of Zero Harm.