HSE practitioners: Educate your organisation from the CEO down

Best practice should be set to lead to the desired result, which is saving lives that can only be driven through educating the workforce — from the CEO down to all departments of the organisation. “Techniques or methodology must be based on experience and research to accomplish the desired outcome — a safer workplace.” Occupational Health and Safety, he said, must be more than companies following specific guidelines like ISO standard, adding that organisations must devise strategies to fit their practices and circumstances rather than blindly following guidelines that may not be suited to their environment.

Al Qaiwani noted that the duty of an organisation is to enlighten all workers with safer work practices. “Do not try to sell safety; educate workers.” By starting at the CEO level, best practice has a much better chance of reaching the whole organisation, he noted.

Organised by Alain Charles Managed Events, the event was held at Habtoor Grand Beach Resort & Spa in Dubai today and was opened by Waddah Ghanem Al Hashemi, executive director, EHSQ and corporate affairs, Emirates National Oil Company (ENOC). Mr Al Hashemi told the conference, “For the successful implementation of HSE policies, it is necessary for practitioners to communicate effectively using explainations to get buy-in. The trick is to explain why HSE policies are implemented without being too complicated.”

Day One of the two-day session highlighted the concerns revolving around the health and security aspects of personnel in the region across various industries. It comprised of two panel discussions, the first of which discussed ‘HSE Leadership: Why Health, Safety and Environment is a CEO Issue’.

Moderating the panel, Al Hashemi laid down the points as to why it was imperative for the CEO to play an important role. “In recent years, compliance to HSE has become more prominent because an increasing number of disasters have financially crippled large companies.” Only creating a strong HSE culture in a company can combat this risk, he added.

Elaine Harbour, head of liaison-Middle East, Health & Safety Executive, UAE, stated that accountability starts at the top. Citing the UK as an example, she added that regulation changes have been brought about with regard to health and safety in the country, moving from prescriptive laws to goal-oriented legislation. She said that it is all about the leadership qualities at an organisation that drives HSE policies. “Today, HSE needs to be integral to a company, not just an add-on.”

Saleh Ali Albalooshi, TECOM HSE director noted, “Compliance to safety is very important to UAE.” He cited the example of O&G industries in the country and added while the UAE has good track record, not all companies share the same values in terms of safety aspects of their workers. He believes that poor HSE culture often stems from the CEOs who do not involve themselves in safety matters.

Raed Al Marzooqi, head of Occupational Health and Safety, Dubai Municipality, also pointed out that with many nationalities working in the UAE embedding a good HSE culture is more challenging, “CEOs must be committed to safety compliance in their organisations”, adding that there is a scope for further regulations to drive senior management responsibility for a safer work environment.

The second panel discussion titled ‘Implementing health and safety strategy in a complex work environment’ included noted panellists like Ahmed El Hadidi, chair, IOSH; Benjamin Legg, HSE director, Mace International, UAE; Mathew Cox, chairman, IIRSM ME, UAE; and Michael Anderson, Abu Dhabi Terminals, UAE.

Legg believed that the HSE practitioners on the ground should be engaged in the process of developing the policy in the first place and be competent. El Hadidi reinforced the point that the most important aspect is to educate the workers who play the most important role in operating plants and projects.

In order to understand and prevent disasters, it is imperative for companies to report incidents so that the root cause can be assessed. Karim P Pachiyannakis from AlMansoori raised this concern and said that most accidents can be prevented if only we know the reasons as to why they occur. “That is why an open and honest reporting culture must be at the heart of all good HSE practice.” Rejoy Shamsudeen, corporate QHSE manager at Oman’s MB Petroleum, also mirrored the opinion that it is necessary to have good data management in place to be able to make informed decisions on the HSE information that an organisation collects. “It is only by analysing honest and open data on HSE incidents, such as lost time injuries (LTIs) or near misses, that a company can really learn. Then educating the workforce can be much better focused on mitigating the real day-to-day risks that they are facing,” Shamsudeen added.

The day also included six notable workshops that addressed issues from developing business critical safety processes to embedding a world-class safety culture to emergency response planning.

For a more detailed round up of the event, please see the next edition of Health, Safety & Security Review magazine.