Sarah Smith, Head of Quality, Health, Safety and Environment (QHSE) at Mitie Total Security Management discusses what makes QHSE “good”. Sarah writes: “In my last blog I discussed how safety culture comes from engagement and leadership from the top. But it’s important to address what we mean by safety culture?
“Surely we mean the business has the right values and culture to operate successfully, which means safety is built into everything that everyone does. Security should not be a nice to have, but a fully integrated service.
“We put the security and wellbeing of our Mitie staff at the centre of everything we do, and continually look for ways to improve our performance in health and safety. Over the last few years we have done this through an initiative called Work Safe Home Safe! (WSHS!)
“WSHS! is vital to every person working at Mitie – wherever they work and whatever they do. The scheme encourages employees to focus on three behaviours while at work, including looking out for other, getting involved and thinking safely.
“Being in the health and safety profession, I have been privileged to meet and listen to individuals who have spoken about how work related incidents have impacted on their lives.
“Not only do injuries and incidents at work cause upset, but consequences such as financial instability often effect family, friends and colleagues. Our people make us the company we are, and getting everyone through the day safely is key to a motivated and happy workforce.
“The current phase of the WSHS! employee engagement programme returns to the core theme – working safely to go home safely. We’ve called it: “one lapse can last a lifetime”. The one lapse programme is based on three short but insightful films which all pose the question: what would you do in a tricky situation.
“The programme has been designed to help everyone to think about consequences and to always do the right thing at work and home, enabling every Mitie person to enjoy life to the full outside of work, and highlights the huge effect it can have on individual’s lives. Research carried out as part of the scheme into work behaviour has shown that distraction, even for a split second, can have serious consequences.
“The same is true for poor decisions, even if they are made for what is thought to be the right reasons at the time.”
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