Good practice in safety across all sectors of the energy industry is of paramount importance. It is generally accepted that engagement with the workforce can lead to safer workplaces as staff become more aware of and involved in mitigating health and safety issues.

With good workforce involvement (WFI), staff, including contractors, are encouraged to take part in the decision making process about managing health and safety in the workplace, however, achieving good WFI requires planned and sustained effort. To support safety managers and leaders in their efforts to implement effective WFI programmes, the Energy Institute (EI) has developed a series of posters to encourage colleagues to contribute to safety in the workplace.

This new poster pack can be used as part of a wider WFI campaign and these resources are supported by Guidance on running a WFI campaign and using the WFI poster pack to help in proactive health and safety management. The posters tackle a number of themes, such as: What stops you from communicating safety issues? What if you are the only person in your team who sees the risk? and What ideas do you have to improve safety? The posters are designed to challenge general perceptions and provoke discussion amongst workers. To support the sharing of ideas, the series also includes space to capture comments to contribute to WFI schemes.

The UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) was involved in EI’s Human and Organisational Factors Committee (HOFCOM) which developed these new resources. Commenting on the posters, Rob Miles, Head of Human and Organisational Factors, Offshore Division, HSE, says, ‘HSE believes that effective involvement of the workforce in how work is planned and executed is a fundamental part of achieving safety goals. The workforce are closest to the risks and have so much valuable experience to contribute on how tasks can be done safely. This is particularly true on some older installations where the operators and management may have changed several times and some unique operational experience can only be found through workforce involvement. We also know that engagement of the workforce through effective involvement underpins the creation and maintenance of a good safety culture.’

Tags: Energy Institute