Tools to enhance safety at Apcotex

The safety culture of an organization is a product of individual and group values, attitudes, perceptions, competencies, and patterns of behavior that determine the commitment to, and the style and proficiency of, an organisation's health and safety management. In simpler terms, safety culture can primarily be referred to as the way things are done in our workplace. Changing the safety culture of an organization can be difficult and is not a simple task. However, safety culture stands as a pillar in our overall health and safety programme and is vital for the success of all health and safety related achievements.To do so, the following steps were put in place to alter the attitudes, behaviors and norms of our organization's employees.

Commitment and Communication:

Both are key aspects to a successful and positive safety culture in the workplace. Firstly, commitment is an essential element that requires an organization's top management to commit to safe operations. Our top management shows constant commitment to ensure ZERO harm within all operations. Communication across all levels aid the transition to a safer workplace culture. We hold regular talks on topics which are relevant to the safety requirement in our industry. Explaining real-life examples of the consequence of poor safety culture catch the attention of employees. Making the company safety policy readily available to our employees will help in the implementation of best practices for safely conducting the work.

Lead by Example:

It is paramount that we lead by example; following all safety policies will engage our employees and encourage them to do the same. If the management is willing to commit to safety, employees will follow suit.  

Organisations with strong safety cultures understand that emergencies and incidents could occur at any time and have robust systems in place to immediately deal with them. We have effective methods of communicating those incidents internally and have the methodologies and the know-how to investigate and understand their root causes. Most importantly, our employees lead by example by learning from these incidents and ensuring it never happens again.

Develop and Implement a Positive Reporting Process:

Develop a positive association with reporting health and safety issues our organizations safety culture is very important. A positive safety culture will be much easier to build and maintain when employees feel comfortable reporting concerns and believe that the reporting process is positive. Facilitating employees to engage in good catch or near miss reporting can prevent serious incidents occurring.

Provide Training:

Investment in employee's safety training and correct techniques is one of our commitment to toward safety. Effective safety cultures require strong health and safety competencies. This begin immediately when the employee joins the organisation, and again during refresher training and updating skills. Trained employees also embrace safety culture more readily because they are aware of hazards and the effect that they can have on maintaining workplace safety.

Involve Employees:

Building and maintaining safety culture should starts from the ground level. In Apcotex we have established a safety committee with employees from all areas of our organization and we ensure that different opinions and issues are raised and discussed. The group decisions from health and safety committees have a big influence on the overall direction of the organization when it comes to safety initiatives.

Contribution of individuals are noted, and action items are designated to individuals within the committee itself for follow ups