Collen Construction – Construction Safety Week 2017 Program of Events

Stand Down for Safety

The CIF are calling all construction companies to ‘Stand Down for Safety’ for 1 minute at 12pm on Monday, the 23^rd of October. All Collen sites & Head Office will be participating in this stand down.

 Collen Construction Ltd. – Safety Week

In support of Construction Safety Week, Collen will be launching our ‘Near Miss’ Reporting Campaign. Near Miss Events are gold dust as they can highlight a weakness. A number of Near Miss events can identify a trend and help the manner in which we focus our efforts on eliminating accidents. What initially appears to be bad luck (wrong place/wrong time) may, on analysis, turn out to be a chain of failures and errors that have led almost inevitably to the event. To prevent adverse events, effective risk control measures, which address the immediate, underlying and root causes must be provided.

As part of our leadership and as a team, to ensure best practice in our safety management system for continual improvement, we have agreed to build a trusting team environment where Near Miss reporting is embraced. Near Misses happen every day on construction sites. Regardless of their potential for personal injury and property damage, all near misses should be taken seriously and consistently reported. It is important that everyone understands exactly what constitutes a Near Miss and why it is essential to make a record of it, so it can be investigated and addressed.

Collecting Near-Miss reports helps create a culture that seeks to identify and control hazards, which will reduce risks and the potential for harm. Ideally, the number of Near-Misses that will be reported should decrease in time as you’ll be addressing the underlying hazards that created the Near-Misses in the first place and secondly, as workers’ pay more attention to Near-Misses, they’ll also improve their attention to safe work practices, reducing the likelihood of Near Miss occurrences.

Tracking Near Misses can also be utilised as a leading indicator to measure safety performance, and it’s crucial to establish a reporting culture where workers are encouraged to report Near Misses in a positive environment without fear of blame or repercussion. Leadership must establish a reporting culture reinforcing that every opportunity to identify and control hazards, reduce risk and prevent harmful incidents must be acted on. If a supervisor does not treat Near Miss reporting as a priority, the likelihood is that workers won’t either. Supervisors need to lead by example by reporting Near Misses themselves. When workers see that their supervisors are actively reporting Near Misses, it will make them feel more comfortable in reporting Near Misses.

Stand Down for Safety

The CIF are calling all construction companies to ‘Stand Down for Safety’ for 1 minute at 12pm on Monday, the 23^rd of October. All Collen sites & Head Office will be participating in this stand down.

Daily Safety Presentations to promote Construction Safety Week

The CIF set 5 different themes for each day during safety week and we have organised a guest speaker for each day to give a presentation/practical demonstration, relative to each theme (Note each of the speakers has issued their presentations in advance and this material will be disseminated to all sites by the relevant CCL Health & Safety Officer).

Joe O’Dwyer, Health & Safety Manager, Collen Construction