Danone Nutricia Ireland Ltd says that it is overseeing a Health and Safety revolution at its factory on the south-east coast of Ireland. Frustrated with traditional methods and systems, Danone engaged the services of SeaChange Ltd, an Organisational Effectiveness company, to improve its Safety Culture at the factory, which manufactures an infant milk product.
SeaChange focuses on ‘people risk’ and develops positive cultures from the ground up through the use of practical tools and applications.
Through engagement with the staff on the Danone factory floor, SeaChange gathered valuable information to identify gaps in the systems and started to measure attitudes and behaviours.
To start with, SAFE-T Software was used to animate risk. Job Safety Awareness (JSA) posters were created as simple, yet powerful, visual communication tools to connect and train the workforce on hazards and risk levels.
“The JSA visuals improved the Safety Culture of the organisation as they brought a new dimension to risk assessment and training”, says Danone Nutricia Ireland. Employees were trained on the machines in their local areas through a visual means. The JSA posters consist of hazard boxes and photographs containing Danone Wexford employees and equipment/machines, and the involvement of employees in creating the posters themselves increased local ownership and further evolved the overall safety culture.
Safety Action Teams (SAT) boards were also introduced to prioritise risk. In smaller groups, the risks that resulted from the workshops were prioritised. Local SATs were set up to manage the risk priorities. The teams aligned with existing zones on site. Thus began the process of rebuilding Safety Culture from the ground upwards. The teams were set up to manage and own their priorities and activities as per the SAT routines. The teams were comprised of the Operators, the Team Leader and the area Front-Line Managers. All involved were engaged and had a part to play in the SAT.
SeaChange also worked with Danone Supervisors and Management and developed targeted Coaching sessions based around understanding personality style, motivations and behaviours. They also implemented on-going behavioural measurement systems which tracks progress.
SeaChange programmes have been proven to increase staff awareness and ownership on the factory floor, says Danone Nutricia Ireland. Performance-related results include reduced waste, accidents and absenteeism with increases in consistency across shifts, near-miss reporting, staff morale and productivity.
Ger Cummins, CEO SeaChange Ltd, said: “For us, sustainability is all about communication and how well people feel connected to the message. Yet a strange thing happens within organisations: tons of money and resource investment is given to the ‘what’ piece of the message – the system itself, while much less resource is invested in the ‘how’ piece – the way we do the communication across crews and shifts.”
Donal Dennehy, Industrial Director, Danone Nutricia Ireland, added: “The SeaChange system enables us to easily and quickly see risk, it helps us establish Safe Routines and organically keeps Health and Safety to the forefront of all our minds while we work.”
