World Day for Health and Safety at Work is held annual on the 28th April to raise awareness about the prevention of occupational accidents and ill health globally.
We believe that a safe and healthy working environment is a fundamental right. Ensuring that our employees come to a safe working environment each day and go home safe each night is our number one priority.
As part of our effort to ensure employee safety, we provide training days and safety events each year to all employees. Our most recent training day was our “Stop for Safety” event at Hillington where employees enjoyed a mixture of classroom presentations and practical demonstrations on defibrillator awareness, transport risks and fire extinguisher operation.
Speaking about the aim of the event, Head of Health and Safey, Craig Welsh, said:
“The aim of the day was to improve our management of Health and Safety at Hillington. We were asking staff to stop when they come across a potential hazard (hence Stop for Safety) and assess what action is required. Something minor such as a broken pallet can likely be removed and disposed of immediately, but something with more potential for harm such as faulty equipment, may need quarantined and raised with a line manager.
Ignoring the hazard and leaving it for someone else to action is not an option. The “Stop for Safety” event was the first of its kind at Hillington and an opportunity to brief our staff on the importance of our attitudes towards Health and Safety and not accepting poor standards.”
The day started off with a defibrillator awareness session which included a demonstration on how to use a defibrillator and the science behind CPR. Through a mixture of videos and demonstrations, the seminar highlighted the importance of acting quickly in an emergency.
Up next was a session on transport risks and blind spots led by Driver Assessor and Trainer Scott Johnston and Jade Grant who works in Transport Compliance and Health and Safety.
After learning about the significance of drivers following the BLACK safety procedure (Brakes-Legs-Airlines-Clip and Kingpin) and watching a video which illustrated a HGV driver’s blind spots, employees were then invited to sit in the driver's seat of an HGV to get a better understanding for what drivers can see from their seat. The aim of the activity was to demonstrate HGV blind spots and promote heightened awareness of HGVs among employees while on the road.
Speaking about the session and overall success of the day, Jade Grant said, “safety is important in all aspects of the business, it’s good to give employees a refresher and engage with some practical exercises. The aim of the day was to give the office and warehouse staff an insight to various safety aspects. I feel it was a great day!”
During the final session of the day, Ian Robertson from Caledonian Fire Safety Solutions Ltd presented a seminar on the causes of fires and methods for extinguishing various fire types.
This was followed with a demonstration on how to use fire extinguishers with staff being given the opportunity to use different types of fire extinguishers so that they would be comfortable using them in case of an emergency.
Commenting on the success of the day attendee Peter Atley our Warehouse Production Planner noted, “The Stop for Safety event was interesting and informative. The three sessions were well planned and delivered by Craig, Jade, Scott, and Ian.”
As well as hosting these types of events throughout the year across our sites, we encourage all staff to “Stop for Safety” every day through our Safety, Health, and Environmental Portal (SHE Portal).
Our SHE Portal provides our workers with a voice to report any accidents, incidents and near miss events directly to Site Management, the Safety Team, Business Unit Heads and the CEO.
Acting quickly to accidents, incidents and near miss events creates a positive Health and Safety culture within the Group and so we have QR codes to quickly access the SHE Portal darted across our sites.