Award Nomination:
In conjunction with SRS, HPUK has designed and is delivering a safety coaching programme for front line supervisors staring with our operational colleagues.
This programme is designed to create a safe space with a third party provider where they can develop their existing skills, ask questions and direct the discussion to the topics that they are least confident about.
The programme consists of individual cohorts of 8 delegates who engage in 4 x 2 hour face to face sessions with the coach.
Prior to the start of the programme there is a required reading list and between session delegates are expected to complete exercises that help embed knowledge and increase their confidence to understand and deal with health and safety issues.
Each delegate will undertake at least one site visit with the coach where they visit their work area to discuss all of the issues that have arisen during the sessions.
The programme is wide ranging and starts with HPUK’s strategy, plan and policy and carrying on through accident investigation, risk assessment, safety tours and assessment.
It also helps to embed the HPUK vision for safety leadership, helping delegates to develop the skills to be effective leaders who can set a good example, maintain high standards in their areas and challenge poor practice when they encounter it.
Finally, the delegates get help with the health and safety systems that we use such as Evotix Assure and our Safety Management System.
Additional Information:
Over the last 10 years HPUK has enjoyed some reasonable success in reducing both injury accidents and RIDDOR reportable incidents, however much of the success was gained at the beginning of the period and of late safety performance has plateaued.
During this period safety culture and leadership have also improved but further impetus was needed to help improve accident performance and deliver our leading indicator KPIs.
Having considered several options including further workshops and training, we decided that a more individual and targeted approach was needed and we set out to create a flexible one-to-one coaching programme to enhance and develop the abilities of our front line leaders.
To make this effective we have created a safe and confidential space where delegates can discuss any safety topic they wish and can flex the discussion on the core topics to suit their own needs.
If any urgent safety issues arise during the discussions, these are fed back to the safety department in a total anonymous way.
As well as providing a forum to talk about practical safety and the associated documents and systems the programme also covers softer skills like being an effective communicator, being an effective and fair leader and how to influence and help develop a positive safety culture. We have our own bespoke version of the IOSH Managing Safely course which is IOSH accredited. We also have our own internal Leadership Guide and this programme links directly to the knowledge that delegates would have gained from these sources.
The programme is designed to run over about 2 years and is, by its nature slower than other traditional tools, but we have had very good feedback from delegates who are pleased that the company is investing time and effort in their development.
They often express surprise about the things that they didn’t know and this is proving to be a much more effective means of delivery than classroom sessions.
It has been a challenge to create the time and space for delegates to undertake both the pre-course work and the coaching sessions themselves and its fair to reflect that this has worked better for some delegates than others but as the course has progressed we have been able to do this better.
We have also been able to develop and enhance the course based on the feedback we have received so far.
To date the majority of delegates have come away from the programme with positive things to say about their attendance. Feedback has been collated and presented to the Board who have endorsed the programme and agreed that we should continue.
Front line supervisors and managers play a pivotal role in the delivery of high safety standards and whilst the nature of this programme means that it is time consuming the positive feedback we have received means it is well worth the effort.
To ensure that delegates get the maximum benefit we have created a forum for them to stay in touch with the coach after their formal sessions have ended.
The development of this programme has relied strong support from the HPUK Board as well as great support from SRS to work with us to develop a completely bespoke package.
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