Laing O'Rourke Case Study

How our training re-energised a team and helped transform an organisation's approach to health and safety

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

To re-motivate the team to own 'Next Gear'
To uncover the areas which were not working for the team and for them to create strategies to resolve these (encouraging planning and ownership)
To train in some of the areas that have been identified as development areas within the Acre Framework
To encourage team cohesion by encouraging some fun activities (though Andy Sneddon was very keen we didn’t do “organised fun!”)

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.