HEALTH & SAFETY BARRO GROUP’S AWARD WINNING EXPERIENCE!

Rhonda Barro, Barro Group

On 28 October Barro Group was the recipient of the WorkSafe 2004 Award for “Best Strategies in Health and Safety Management”.

A couple of years ago Barro Group commenced a journey to best practice in OHS. Our project was about managing health and safety throughout our company, establishing integrated corporate responsibility at all representative levels of operations and management.

• Firstly we had a close look at current legislation to determine why the legislation was there and what was required for us to comply.
• Then we had an even closer look at our systems to determine how well we complied. This was done through a critical and in-depth audit of every workplace.
• Simultaneously, we communicated and consulted with our people across all levels to determine understanding of OHS and to reveal improvement opportunities.

All three steps were enlightening.

• Interpretation of legislation needs to be carefully undertaken and involve Management, H & S Representatives and, when necessary, specialist consultants, to make sure all issues are addressed or incorrect assumptions are not made.
• The in-depth audits told us that whilst we had systems in place, compliance to internal systems varied from site to site. We learnt that it’s not just about writing policies and procedures; it’s about providing the support and training to enact them and the follow up to ensure ongoing compliance.
• Our employees’ view of safety varied. Understanding of safety varied even more. We now knew what was ‘out there’ and gaps were identified. However, a clear message came through that the amount of untapped knowledge in the workplace and opportunities to improve safety by consulting with the ‘experts’ – our people, was unlimited.

Putting all this together, we came up with a plan, in fact, a Risk Control Plan, and our risk management process followed. We commenced the work of revisiting each site and undertaking the various risk assessments in consultation with operators, H&S Reps and managers.

These included thorough initial hazard/risk identification for plant, process, hazardous substances, manual handling, confined spaces, height
work, and others. Through employee consultation we identified the massive source of knowledge they held on which to build continuous improvement. This and the initial audits and gap analysis gave us sufficient knowledge to prioritise each and every site in terms of risk.

The Risk Control Plan is the cornerstone of our system. It identifies every risk and hazard and puts in place systems to eliminate or minimise risk. Clear monitoring controls and responsibilities for those controls are identified. A Year Planner is used as a reminder and organisational tool to prompt all actions outlined in the Plan.

The Plan also allows identification of any other hazards through incident investigation, safety and housekeeping checklists, audits and periodic review of risk assessments. The process is self perpetuating and can be transported to other businesses/sites.

We have a user-friendly and practical health and safety management system. Our initiative was about changing the culture of our organisation and the development of sustainable systems such that safety becomes part of every activity, every day and is continuously critiqued to seek improvement.

The open and encouraging consultative process has resulted in the implementation of many of our employees’ innovative ideas. It’s been a lot of hard work by everyone – the strategies and ideas were developed because our people worked together, by utilising experience and sharing
knowledge, to foster a work environment that encourages everyone’s contribution to safety management.

And the proof of the pudding?

Our stats speak for themselves:

• 66% reduction in working days lost
• Severity rate average of 4.25 days to 0.5 day lost per incident
• 50% reduction in the Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate
• Incidence rate from 4 per 100 employees to 1 per 100 employees (for all occurrences, not just lost time)

Each and every person at Barro Group is to be congratulated on their outstanding achievement.

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