In its drive to reduce fatalities and disabling injuries,
diversified group Murray & Roberts has allocated some
R20-million over the next three years to a health and safety
campaign known as ‘Stop-Think’.
This amount, according to CEO Brian Bruce, represents only a small
fraction of the group’s salary and wages bill over the same
period.
“Overall, the group’s safety record is in line with
local benchmarks and is even better in some
operations.” But Bruce is quick to highlight that too
many people suffer disabling injury and the group’s fatality
count stood at seven already this year, compared with 12 last year
and seven in 2004.
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But this was before the recent boat disaster in Bahrain, where 58
people (including ten from Murray & Roberts) lost their
lives.
Experiential marketing and communications company Unplugged’s
executive producer, Sue Melvill, says “the prime objective of
the campaign is to raise safety awareness among all employees of
Murray & Roberts and its subcontractors in order to achieve the
group’s zero-harm aspiration”.
Melvill explains that Unplugged’s role in the campaign was to
come up with a creative campaign, with a view to sensitising all
employees about the importance of health and safety in the
workplace. “We workshopped a hand-signal language to be
used on all Murray & Roberts worksites.” Melvill says
that the company used a multi- media solution that involved
industrial theatre, developed an induction video, with
reinforcement of the sporting metaphor by previous national rugby
coach Nick Mallett and captain Gary Teichman and presentations by
Bruce himself. This process will be followed in the field by a
roadshow that will roll out to the South African component of the
company’s 24 000 employees over a two-year period. “We
are using the metaphor of the changeroom, which communicates the
message that, in the changeroom, employees should change their
clothes, mindsets and attitude towards safety procedures before
they enter the field of work,” says Melvill, adding that the
same metaphor was used with middle management, as they are the
captains of their teams and have a bigger role to play in
performance management in the field.
“The campaign was initially launched to more than 700 middle
and senior managers and is being followed by the appointment and
training of indunas (safety officers) on each site.
“If all employees understand the importance to Stop-Think of
the safety situation they are in or about to enter, we will have
achieved our goal towards zero fatalities and zero disabling
injury,” concludes Bruce.