A leading engineering, procurement and construction company has undertaken a serious commitment towards an environment of Zero Harm on all its projects.

This follows the introduction of a number of incident reduction strategies in 2013, which have reduced the frequency of incident rates by more than 70% over the last two years.

WorleyParsons RSA accredits this outstanding achievement to its Serious About Zero campaign and associated programmes, such as the Safety Leadership Programme and Good to Go (G2G), which are designed to encourage managers to start conversations on all levels that reinforce safe behaviours, discuss the inclusion of safety in the design of work assets, systems and processes, and challenge personnel and contractors on unsafe acts or conditions.

These programmes are unique to WorleyParsons and were developed and tested by the company in Australia, before being rolled out in South Africa and subsequently the rest of Africa.

Committed to keeping safe

Deployment of projects such as the Safety Leadership Programme and G2G, among others, has resulted in better risk management, better quality and cost management and has provided for broader contractor acceptance as well as providing improved results for contractors.

These successful outcomes have reinforced WorleyParsons RSA’s commitment to meeting its legal and moral obligations of keeping its people and the environment safe and creating and fostering a positive HSE culture.

“Every person that is not injured is a win,” says Luc Herwin, HSE manager for WorleyParsons RSA.
“Our Safety Leadership Programme is about much more than just safety. It also gives leaders the tools to deal with all the different angles of safety.”

Herwin adds that the knock-on effect of the Safety Leadership Programme is the narrowing of the disconnect between senior managers and the operating conditions on site, allowing management to better understand the challenging conditions that on-site personnel are faced with.

The programme operates on a point system, encouraging leaders to build up their points and to actively engage in on-site safety.

“There is no proprietorship on safety,” concludes Herwin, adding that WorleyParsons RSA will continue to set a strong expectation around behaving safely, including recognition of, and intervention against, unsafe acts and unsafe conditions that will help the company to achieve its goal of ‘Zero Harm’.