The thinking was that if ten key behaviours could be corrected, a root cause of all accidents would be eliminated The sub-indicators change every year – Fernandez Gila calls them “living indicators”, explaining that she uses them “to implement our long-term strategy but also to achieve what we want to achieve on a year-by-year basis”. Actions management is based on comprehensive action plans drawn up by Fernandez Gila and the health and safety team, using the information gleaned from risk assessments, meetings with employee representatives, etc. The plans can encompass more than 1,000 actions per site, so they are prioritised according to a priority matrix that takes into account the level of risk and resources required to implement the action. Azucarera admits that none of this is particularly innovative but where it does set itself apart is in terms of the importance it places on getting the actions done. Williams says: “The team structure at Azucarera is very beautiful. It’s non-functional, so each area of the factory has its own autonomous team managing a factory within a factory. Within each team, they have all of the resources they need to do everything they need to do to manage that part of the factory. In addition to the support of the health and safety team, they have all of the skills, financial budgets and the authority to make decisions. “You cannot give teams the responsibility to do something if they do not have the resources to do it. So, if an action is allocated to be completed by a particular date, there are no excuses.” It is all part of the approach to focus on the presence of safety and praising the positive rather than reacting to the absence of it and focusing on failure. Positive reinforcement of correct behaviour encourages more correct behaviour – people want to be recognised for good work and therefore take pride in doing a job safely and well. Williams tells the story of the time one of the company’s directors asked one of its factory managers what happens if an action is not completed. “The manager looked at the director in confusion,” Williams laughs, “and said: ‘I don’t understand the question. All of the actions are completed on time!’”
Leading the way Another innovative approach adopted by Azucarera is the rotating safety promoter role. This gives every person responsibility for key safety tasks for a two-week period. They receive a list of simple tasks they
are required to do during their stint and, at the end of their two weeks, they have a meeting with the factory manager to discuss what they observed and come up with suggestions for corrective actions. “It’s not a voluntary role,” Fernandez Gila clarifies. “The objective of the programme is to increase awareness, so everybody should get involved. Originally, it was operated on a voluntary basis but as those doing it clearly enjoyed it, it was decided to ensure that everybody had the same experience. It means we can honestly say that every employee is actively involved in health and safety.” The company also took a different tack with its safety conversations programme. It began by looking historically at the root causes of accidents from a behavioural perspective; as a result it identified ten behaviours that were behind one or more of all of its previous accidents. The thinking was that if ten key behaviours could be corrected, a root cause of all accidents would be eliminated. “We did a huge analysis exercise with all of the factory managers to establish these behaviours and then implemented a huge communication plan to raise awareness of them,” says Fernandez Gila. Traditionally, safety conversation programmes have involved observing and intervening to talk about safe and unsafe behaviours, but such an approach is very personal and targeted at an individual or group of people at that particular moment. According to Williams, the Azucarera approach of focusing on ten key safe behaviours is “very non-personal and easy to understand. It is very easy to start a conversation with people about their awareness of the behaviours and which of them are relevant to the task they are doing.” Since the company changed its approach and started focusing on the presence of safety and involving everyone, it has seen a significant and continuous improvement in health and safety performance. Between 2016 and 2019, Azucarera factories recorded a 30% reduction in all accidents, three had no lost-time incidents (LTIs) at all in 2017 and one completed two years without an LTI in 2018. Risk notifications soared by 54% and the action completion rate stands at 85%. Ultimately, the company is striving for 100% safe factories and Fernandez Gila believes that this will soon be achieved. “But it depends on what you mean by it,” she clarifies. “To me, it means that the only way we want to work is safely. We don’t say it’s impossible to have injuries. We understand that there will be risks we cannot eliminate and that human error will occur, so we have to do our best with the resources we have and the environment in which we are working to mitigate the consequences.” Williams agrees: “The concept of 100% safe does not mean risk-free. We talk openly about the fact that it is not possible to create a risk-free environment in a sugar factory. It will always be inherently dangerous and we all have to recognise this. That is why knowledge, awareness and the behavioural side all have to be focused on with equal intensity as risk elimination.”
Images: iStock
Food & Drink Awards
40 JANUARY 2020
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18/12/2019 10:46