HS&E Manager: Establish proactive approach to safety
Mon, 10/31/2016 - 12:00am
Our goal must be to promote the highest standards, ensure that throughout the CARILEC grouping, that safety doesn’t fall by the wayside; that it elevates from even being a priority to being a value. So that all of us who come to work in this Caribbean Utility Group – can leave home, safe in the knowledge that we will return home to our families
Safety does not happen by accident.
According to Manager of Health Safety and Environment at the Barbados Light and Power Company Ltd, Brian Reece, it is diligence, persistence, consistency and constantly improving actions that create safety.
“The design, strategies, processes and the products are what all make safety exist. With such a complex and ever-changing goal to be achieved, safety at utilities requires a systems approach to achieve great results,” he told the 2016 Caribbean Electric Utility Services Corporation (CARILEC) Occupational Health and Safety Seminar “Safety: A Value not a Priority”, held at the Hilton Resort, recently.
“None is better than the proactive approach to safety. The problem is not bad people. The system has to be made safer to ensure persons operating within the system are encouraged to exhibit those safe behaviours. The system has to be made safer, to ensure that the technology used is designed and operated in the safest way possible. These can all best be achieved through a proactive approach to safety.”
He explained that establishing a proactive approach to safety management means safety moves from being a priority to becoming a value. Furthermore, to maintain safety as a value, Reece stressed that first and foremost it must receive the support of top management, as well as buy-in from the line staff.
“In achieving this universal involvement and engagement, we sometimes focus on specific and individual tasks that have worked in other organisations. The real key though is to put more focus on developing major safety processes and milestones towards the ultimate organisational safety culture.”
“Putting focus on these milestones allows you to then adjust using varying safety techniques to achieve that ultimate goal. Some techniques will work, some will not, but the ultimate milestones will always remain the same,” he said.
Managing Director of EMERA, Peter Williams expressed that since being a part of the EMERA Group his understanding and elevation of safety has been quite significant.
He also shared that one of the most life changing experiences for him was actually being part of CARILEC, which is an association of electric utilities, suppliers, manufacturers and other stakeholders operating in the electricity industry in the Caribbean.
“About five years ago I was chairman of CARILEC for two years and within those two years, seven of my colleagues with Caribbean Utilities lost their lives. That is within a 35 member utility grouping in CARILEC – in different areas such as linesmen, power generation, and people working on excavations… It was not a pleasant experience,” he recalled.
“I am very happy to see that on the agenda is a discussion on the Caribbean Position Paper on Health and Safety because CARILEC needs to make sure that as not just individual utilities, but as a member grouping, that we have that responsibility for all of our Caribbean colleagues who work in this industry.”
“Our goal must be to promote the highest standards, ensure that throughout the CARILEC grouping, that safety doesn’t fall by the wayside; that it elevates from even being a priority to being a value. So that all of us who come to work in this Caribbean Utility Group – can leave home, safe in the knowledge that we will return home to our families,” Williams added. (TL)