Page 14 - October 2019

demanding safety always

injuries and injuries to members of the
public were more likely. In 2017/18, we
developed Be Winter Safe, a campaign
that gets our safety messages across
in new and different ways, imitating
ways our colleague share information
themselves in their personal lives; short
gifs, animations and memes sent to
phones and by email that are designed to
remind our engineers to focus on safety.
Where the weather was concerned,
it was one of the toughest winters
for Wales & West Utilities. At the
end of February, 51cm of snow fell in
parts of South Wales while Cornwall
saw winds of almost 70mph. But our THE TEAM RECEIVES A ROSPA GOLD AWARD
campaign was successful. Despite
these challenges, we experienced no business. For utility companies like ours, colleagues is led from the top. Our
lost time injuries or any other safety it’s a significant challenge because of the leadership team has piloted mental
related issues. The success of our first demographic profile of our team. ‘Pale health awareness workshops, playing
year has made Be Winter Safe a staple and male’ is a rather uncharitable term their part in promoting a wellbeing
of our health and safety calendar. often applied to workforces like ours, but culture. We have recruited 36
Summer was traditionally one of it has a very real impact where mental mental health first aiders across our
the industry’s quieter times, with a health is concerned. Seventy-seven per network and promoted our assistance
reduction in work as gas demand fell. cent of men have suffered from anxiety programme – both points of contact for
Today, however, we take advantage of or stress, with work being the most those with mental health issues.
the summer period. We work on tens significant driver of that. And 36 per As well as new issues, we are working
of replacement schemes near schools cent of men say they don’t talk about to address more conventional ones.
and other challenging locations, taking their mental health because they “don’t Our geography is amongst the most
advantage of the reduction in traffic want to be a burden”. diverse of all networks. Our 35,000km
and longer daylight hours to keep Our own figures show that of pipe stretch through mountains and
disruption to the communities we occupational health referrals for mental valleys, across green fields, and from
serve to a minimum. health issues have more than doubled the rugged Welsh coast to the beautiful
With workload now more evenly in the last few years. Our action has beaches of Cornwall. The road network
spread through the year, and intense been direct and as targeted as it would that serves that area is just as varied.
activity in the summer to finish projects be for any other form of risk. Driving is a fundamental requirement
before the end of the school holidays, We started by changing our approach of our job, but is a significant business
we take additional action to remind to managing our colleague’s mental risk. We have over 1,000 operational
all colleagues of simple, but often health. Previously, we approached vehicles driven by colleagues during all
overlooked, things. These include the it reactively; we managed absence hours, seasons and weather. As perverse
importance of hydration, of finding and arranged support for those with as it sounds, it’s now one of the most
shade and rest in the heat and the symptoms or at risk of symptoms. dangerous things our engineers do.
need to ensure members of the public, Given that good mental and physical Some people say that it would be very
children and our most vulnerable health are both key, we now manage difficult for us to reduce the number of
customers remain safe. colleagues’ mental health actively – in driving incidents, it’s “just one of those
the same way that we do for physical things”. But naysayers used to say the
New challenges health. We know colleagues experience same about lost time injuries and cable
Not only is it important to get stress at home, but work stress can strikes, too. As an organisation, we’re
traditional health and safety right, it’s tip the balance. So we changed our playing our part; we have introduced
important to be aware of and prepared performance management processes, new driver risk assessments (which
for emerging challenges. Some of making sure they’re positive and give us more visibility of our driver
these are driven by the changing achievable, with support in place risk) and, from this year, we will only
demographics of our team and wider where intervention is necessary. And be buying operational vehicles with
societal issues, while others have our promotion of a wellbeing culture automatic emergency braking. Together,
surfaced as more significant issues now recognises the various things that can these will help us support our drivers.
that we have dramatically reduced site- impact mental health. Aligned with personal commitment
based physical injuries. Fatigue is also something that affects from our colleagues, this puts us in a
For us, the primary challenge is to the mental health of our colleagues, good position to keep them safe.
address the wellbeing of our colleagues and is something that we are working While driving and mental health
and manage their physical and mental hard to address. Running an emergency provide us with challenges, we’re
health in a holistic way. service means we have to be ready confident that by approaching them in
Mental health is of course a wider to respond around the clock, but we the same way that has seen us become
societal concern. We recognise our manage it like any other hazard or risk – the preeminent network for safety, we will
obligations to our people and we manage with management intervention allied to be able to address them. Our hardworking
this in the same way we manage other personal responsibility. engineers and the communities we serve
physical health issues across our Our focus on the wellbeing of our deserve nothing less.

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