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Innovative Health & Safety secures construction award for Chevron TM

Infrastructure safety specialists, Chevron Traffic Management has beaten off global competition from across the construction industry to secure a prestigious RoSPA Industry Award.

Published 2024-04-24
Chevron TM now holds the RoSPA winners title in the Construction Engineering sector for demonstrating its commitment to health and safety excellence. 
 
Phil Last, Head of Health & Safety at Chevron TM outlines the company’s innovative approach to health and safety which marks them out as industry leaders. 
 
“Chevron TM’s mission is to get people home safely every day. It’s an uncompromising aim which puts safety at the heart of everything we do. Simply put, to achieve our mission, we have to get it right. Our approach to health and safety is a holistic one which transcends every corner of our business. It is the sum of many parts which are underpinned by robust systems and processes, clear communication, strong employee engagement, innovative technology and supportive leadership from our CEO and senior leadership team.” 
 
“Our systems and processes are certified through our ISO 45001 certification which is also SSIP accredited. This forms a solid foundation for continuously improving and reinforcing our health and safety controls. In addition to this, we are heavily focussed on using advances in technology and techniques to improve how we reduce health and safety risks within the business. We’ve have been trialling new technology such as Backtrack wearable technology to reduce manual handling injuries and AI Integrated Human Form Recognition Cameras from Arcure to reduce risks from vehicle and pedestrian interactions. The integration of technology in our operations such as digital incursion warning systems and the introduction of the EMCC technique also plays a key part in our innovative health and safety approach.”
 
“In the world of health and safety, often one of the biggest challenges can be securing the buy-in and engagement of the wider workforce. Chevron TM has invested time and resources in this area which has really contributed to our success in winning the RoSPA award.” 
 
“In 2023, we launched our first Safety Climate Survey giving the opportunity to our workforce to have their say on all aspects of our safety management system. The results fed into our improvement plan for 2023 and now into 2024.” 
 
“We also launched our Target Zero initiative which is a long-term Health and Safety strategy aimed at eliminating or controlling risks that can kill or cause life changing injury. Target Zero is intended to refocus attention on the significant risks in our operations to look for additional ways to eliminate exposure to significant risks or to strengthen controls using additional layers of protection. Above all else, Target Zero is intended to ensure that significant risks are controlled at all times to make sure that when the work is done, everyone goes home safe and well.”
 
“Of course, we can launch as many initiatives as we want but if we don’t secure employee buy-in, they can fail before they even start. To address this, we focused on our communication strategy, including setting up monthly learning circle meetings where information on health and safety performance, best practice and initiatives are discussed. We have also refreshed and relaunched our Health and Safety Committees at depot level which review elements of our policies, current risk assessments, as well as assessing the impacts of change on our operations.  The enthusiasm being generated in our meetings is proof that our employees feel more engaged and involved in improvements.”
 
“All our initiatives are supported by clear, simple and consistent messaging which is landing with all our employees, particularly our on-road operatives.”
 
The esteemed RoSPA Awards program now celebrates its 68th year as the UK’s largest and most impactful health and safety programme. With almost 2,000 entries annually from over 50 countries, impacting over seven million employees, they offer a platform to spotlight an unwavering commitment to continuous improvement and excellence in health and safety.
 
“We are absolutely delighted to have won the RoPSA Industry Award for Construction Engineering,” adds Phil. “To put this award into context, I describe the RoSPA Industry awards as the “Oscars of the Safety Industry”. We have previously secured a RoSPA Gold Award for 14 years in a row and also hold the President’s Award but the Industry Award puts us into a new level. We are competing with the best of the best in the world including some of the largest construction and engineering organisations. Chevron TM is a relatively small, specialist infrastructure safety business operating in the construction industry. To be recognised as a health and safety industry leader is pretty special and deserved recognition for everyone in Chevron TM who live and breath our mission statement which is to get people home safely.”