Putting safety first

SISK GROUP:IRELAND'S BEST-KNOWN construction firm John Sisk Son has committed itself to achieving zero incidents and zero accidents on all future projects. This would have been thought inconceivable and unattainable in the industry before now, but Sisk believes that it can be achieved and that the company, its staff and its clients will all benefit as a result.

“The construction sector has made a lot of progress on health and safety over the past 13 years and has gone from one incident every 60,000 working hours to one every 630,000 hours,” explains Sisk Group health and safety manager Tony Sheridan.

“However, we believe that it is possible to reduce incidents and injuries to zero. This will require the industry to sustain and build on those health and safety achievements of recent years as well as undertaking a fundamental shift of focus. We need to focus on the people in the process rather than the process in isolation.”

This belief has led Sisk to embark on its own “Zero” project.

“In mid-2010 a working group was set up in Sisk which was tasked with critiquing our approach to how we managed health and safety,” says Sheridan. “And that was it. We weren’t in the zone. We had to be open and honest in our approach and willing to take criticism for what we were doing and weren’t doing.”

What the group found was that while the company had an exemplary track record when it came to health and safety it was very much process- and protocol-oriented in its approach.

“If the book said to do A, B and C we did it but we weren’t really engaged on a personal level. That’s when we started to develop our new approach to health, safety and the environment and set our goal to achieve zero incidents and zero injuries.”

The first task was to convince the staff in the company at all levels that this was achievable. “We had excellent buy-in from the very top and from senior management from the very beginning and this was a huge help”, he points out.

The “Zero” project is being led from the very top management levels of the Sisk Group. Chief executive Liam Nagle is committed to the target. “I am blessed to have three children,” he says, “and like any parent we spend seven days of every week ensuring they are safe and not exposed to any risk. Everyone is someone’s child; all of our employees and those who work with us is someone’s child. It is unacceptable that we put other people’s children at risk. The only acceptable conclusion you can come to is that we must provide a work environment that delivers zero injuries, zero incidents”.

“We have worked before, during and after the boom on small, medium and massive construction projects and many of them would have achieved the zero target,” Sheridan notes.

“This showed that it was achievable. We carried out a survey among our staff on their beliefs, attitudes and understanding of health and safety and the zero target. The overwhelming response was that it was achievable but that we had to be more people-centred in our approach to it.”

This was followed up with further activity by the working group. “We looked at the way we talked about health and safety on site and how we engaged with others on the subject and we found that it was probably all one-way traffic. We decided that the key to the future success of the project was to ensure that everyone in the company is confident and competent to talk about the Zero project whether it is in the canteen, to a client or on a site.

“During February, March and April 2011 we convened seven seminars for our staff in Tullamore, Co Offaly where we had established the site of a new school we were building as the pilot site for the Zero project. These seminars covered everything from our approach to the set-up of the site, its cleanliness, and treating our neighbours with respect.”

One immediate benefit of the increased attention to detail around sites was its influence on behaviour generally. “We have found that well set-up and maintained sites foster good behaviour on the part of everyone on them, not just our own staff. It’s a bit like visiting somebody’s home. If the hallway is spotless you will be careful not to dirty it; if it is a complete mess you won’t really care. The Zero project is all about building a culture of good behaviour. It’s quite expensive but it’s certainly worth it.

“It’s a total quality management approach and it has benefits for the whole organisation. We recognise that it is not a silver bullet and that it’s a journey which doesn’t end.

“Our major focus is on our massive supply chain and how to convince all those people to join us on the journey. We are also hoping to convince the Construction Industry Federation to work with us to implement a change in the approach to safety management by the whole industry.”