Holcim Eastern Europe finds successful approach to health and safety

Holcim Group employs 85 000 people worldwide and is a global supplier of cement, aggregates (gravel and sand), concrete and construction-related services. With operations in 70 countries, Holcim prides itself on being a progressive company – for instance it is supporting groundbreaking research into harnessing solar energy in cement manufacture. It wanted to apply its forward-looking approach to health and safety. 

Building standards
In 2006 Holcim Eastern Europe kicked off a project to improve the safety records of the company’s Eastern European plants under the lead of Dacian Cândea as Regional OH&S Manager. Based in Austria, Croatia, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic, the cement plants and all the rest of business segments are all ISO Certified, but analysis suggested they were all operating to different standards:

“Even though all of the operations are in the EU they were treating and talking about health and safety differently. We had fatalities and our injury level was too high.

“We could see that some people were not following the rules and in the case of others, there just weren’t the rules in place to follow. Often this was a cultural thing, but we couldn’t let this continue. We needed to ensure that everyone working with us worked to a standard that we set – and that our culture of health and safety was clear, strong and consistent,” adds Dacian.

Holcim didn’t just have its workforce to think of. The company has literally thousands of employees from third parties, such as suppliers and transport companies, coming onto its sites. This, combined with the nature of the company’s business, meant the potential for accidents was considerable. 

So the progressive company decided to take the lead on this issue and embarked on an Eastern European-wide shift in its approach. To do this it was decided that 36 key employees – safety officers or coordinators from each of the territories – needed to be put through the NEBOSH International Certificate. Colleagues from Russia and Azerbaijan also joined this team.

Internationally-recognised training
“We went for NEBOSH because it’s an internationally recognised, rigorous and high standard certification. When you are applying something right across the organisation it has to be good,” says Dacian.

“Once we knew we were going the NEBOSH route, RRC was our absolute first choice to deliver the training, they’re the clear leader in this field.”

RRC’s team consulted closely with Dacian before devising a bespoke course for staff.  This involved three face-to-face training programmes held at one of Holcim’s Romanian plants – two in 2007 and the third in 2008.

RRC’s team arranged everything – the tailored training materials, the logistics and the trainers. Being based on-site ensured that the sessions included lots of real world situations that Holcim’s staff encounter every day, rather than theoretical scenarios. The course also addressed the issues most relevant to Holcim’s plants – installation lockout, working at heights, working in confined spaces, and transportation fleet health and safety issues.

“All my colleagues commented that it was the best occupational health and safety training they have ever had. Even though we were dealing in multiple languages the sessions worked well, and by the end of the course all of the guys had really progressed brilliantly,” adds Dacian.

Real results
Thanks to the training there has been a real culture shift. Reporting levels in the Eastern European plants have improved, personnel are identifying more situations, sharing their knowledge and importantly helping the business and its suppliers improve processes and procedures.

But the most impressive thing is the tangible impact this cultural shift has had within the business. Since the project was kicked off in 2006 there has been a massive 20% reduction in injuries, each and every year.

“When we decided to take the lead in health and safety we hoped there would be some shift in our accident and fatality levels but this has exceeded all our expectations – undoubtedly RRC, with their training, has played a real part in that success.”

Gary Fallaize, Managing Director, RRC Training

Read the article online at: https://www.worldcement.com/europe-cis/18052010/holcim_eastern_europe%E2%80%99s_approach_to_health_and_safety/