A panel at EHS Congress on frontline safety leadership covered mental health, work-permits and bureaucracy.
Image Credit: Markus Spiske/Unsplash
On day two of EHS Congress 2022, taking place in Berlin, a panel including the former Director of Human Performance at BP Diane Chadwick-Jones; Hans-Peter Neumann former Head of Corporate Governance EHSQ at BASG; Hennie Pouwels, Director EHS at ASML; and Marco Workel, Director HSSE at Tata Steel convened to debate frontline safety leadership.
Those on the frontline of the workforce are often the most vulnerable in the workforce, “these are the people that are putting their lives at risk,” said Diane Chadwick-Jones, “but we are setting them up for success.”
Chadwick-Jones lamented the impact of procedure following procedure which erodes engagement and suggested a more positive response is needed when things don’t go to plan.
Chairing, Andrew Sharman identified a potential dangerous divide between the safety professional and the frontline. “Is there a gap between our passion for what we do and the shopfloor…every time there’s an incident we add to the procedures. We get caught up in saying sophisticated things but get caught up in missing the grass roots.”
Marco Workel identified that paperwork and procedures ultimately comes from a good place: “Should we care if we pile them [the workers] with piles of papers – it’s well intended but does it help people on the shopfloor and does it show care.”
Hans-Peter Neumann shared an example of work-permit sign-offs, which involved four layers of sign-offs which accumulated to three hours – was this too much?
Chadwick-Jones suggested a middle ground, that too much paperwork could set a dangerous precedent. “There needs to be a balance between having a level of assurance and turning it into a several hour paper exercise. It’s on us to make [the workers’] life easier. The bureaucracy can make it difficult and make people do workarounds.”
All panellists agreed that teams need to feel engaged and therefore encouraged to speak-up. Chadwick-Jones added: “It should be coming from a place of proactive learning not fear.”
The narrative was switched to mental health, raised by an audience member keen to see what firms are doing around wellbeing and Chadwick-Jones referenced BP’s recent, visible approach to mental health. “We have to reduce the shame of struggles with our mental health,” she said. The “[BP’s campaign] aims to destigmatise the issue of people hiding their issues rather than phoning in sick”.
Andrew Sharman responded, “There’s a lot of talk about mental health but I’m worried we’re missing an important aspect as we strategise around it but fail to connect on a person-to-person level”.
He shared concern around asking people how they are; that the gesture today is now a hollow one and has lost impact, “we ask people how they are but we don’t understand how they’re doing. We should ask the question twice”.
