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Laing O'Rourke

Health & Safety Bespoke Training

Laing O’Rourke (LoR), led by John Green, was embracing a new approach to safety known as ‘Safety Differently’ – termed ‘Next Gear’ at LoR. The approach proposes that:

Three senior leaders were employed to progress the new approach, and Acre Frameworks to measure the behavioural competencies of the team. The conclusion from Frameworks was that, the 80-strong health and safety team, was highly competent in the traditional aspects of a health and safety professionals’ role. In order to launch ‘Next Gear’ the areas of development were:

Development of a Two-day Offsite Programme

Heather Beach spent two mornings with the senior management team to understand their objectives. She then developed a Two-day programme, together with psychologist and neuroscientist Tony Hall, and theatre director Paul Jamieson.

Objectives

The workshop was then organised into two days.

Further Resources

Follow up article published in SHP magazine. Example of one of the videos.

Case Studies Day One: Elephants In The Room
  • Issues stopping the delivery of Next Gear were identified and prioritised by participants and stuck as post it notes on “Elephants”
  • Participants were invited to solve the issues by:
    • Agreeing to do something themselves
    • Making a time-bound request of someone present who could accept, decline or counter offer the outputs collected provided a concrete plan with time frames
Day Two: Skills Training
  • Creative exercise – what are the characteristics of a health and safety professional doing ‘Next Gear’?
  • Listening skills exercise – critical to development of “people are the solution”
  • Creating a vision for safety and sharing those to camera – teams were coached to “find their voice” beforehand. The aim of this was also to encourage risk taking and develop confidence

Thank you for the workshop, it was really worthwhile. I felt we were able to get some of the challenges we are facing out on the table and agree some ways to overcome these and support our function in making ‘Next Gear’ a success. It was great to see and feel the motivation and commitment from the function to lead ‘Next Gear’ and really make a difference.

West Midland Trains

Mental Health First Aid

The following is an extract taken from the blog ‘Suitable and Sufficient’. Written by Nicola Baillie, Safety and Environment Business Partner (Standards and Assurance) at West Midlands Trains.

What To Do If You Come Across A Person In Crisis

The training we opted for, as just one part of our strategy – which was to train people at the sharp end – was the Mental Health First Aider course. This course that has been recognised nationally, even garnering approval from ministers who want the program rolled out through UK schools. Our strategy for this training has been in two stages:

  1. The initial training was delivered to senior managers with the intent not only to create competency across the different business functions, but also to help this group (who were largely members of our Mental Health Steering Group) gain a stronger knowledge base to better advocate for both our strategy and the ongoing work on destigmatising speaking about mental health.
  2. The most recent group was more about maximising accessibility. We have been incredibly lucky in having such a huge interest from a great number of people from across the business who are for their own reasons highly motivated to do something about mental health in their local workplace. We were therefore able to pick those people that are closer to the frontline and covering as much space geographically.

The balance of practical advice and background information had a number of positive effects that I didn’t initially expect but we are certainly reaping the benefits of: going FAR beyond simply furnishing attendees with a ‘how-to’ guide for what to do with someone in crisis. From the responses and experiences of people who have took the course, four key threads emerged:

  1. A lot of people have had what can only be described as a ‘Road to Damascus’ moment, leaving with a better understanding of their own experiences, not only a better understanding of the people around them
  2. Similarly, a lot of people realised a lot of preconceptions and judgements we all have been socialised into and carry around with us – even in a group that have self-selected as advocates for supporting the mental health strategy in the business, myself included!
  3. Knowing more about what mental health and mental ILL health is, makes for a better manager – it boosts confidence and has made people less afraid or awkward to ask the difficult, but relevant, questions

A massive thank you to the wonderful Heather Beach and Lauren Applebey from The Healthy Work Company. This is a great next step in our Mental Health Strategy as we’re gearing up our industry-leading work in managing Mental Health.

What the result of all this has been is not just giving people some skills to take away, but has instead turned at least some of the people that have attended into not just supporters but advocates.

Givaudan Case Study

Train The Trainer

The Challenge

Givaudan needed to quickly meet the needs of thousands of employees adapting to extended home office work. Over 6 weeks, Healthy Work Company implemented the Train the Trainer Programme.

Healthy Work Company helped us to train 25 internal trainers and sold us the rights to the programme so we could be completely flexible on delivery. As well as providing practical ideas, the training created
an interactive experience that helped people to connect with each other and to stay engaged with the company. It has been a tremendous success and is a fabulous model for delivering future training.

John Pares, Head of EHS Field Organisation