Safety initiative enters second year on back of successful first 12 months6th Feb 2018

The first 12 months of our health and safety culture programme has been hailed a success.

Jones Bros Civil Engineering launched its ‘Together Safer’ programme a year ago, which aims to encourage all staff to take personal ownership of health and safety.

The scheme seeks to ensure the family firm constantly evaluates its approach to health and safety.

A questionnaire designed by the Health and Safety Laboratory was completed by employees in March 2016, and the most significant issue raised related to a reluctance to report near misses and unsafe conditions.

Jones Bros took steps to address this concern, and near miss reports have increased from approximately 50 per year to more than 100 per month.

Dave Gibson, health, safety, environment and quality manager, said: “We have achieved our immediate goal of instilling confidence at all levels of the workforce to report near misses.

“We were keen to stress to everyone from senior management to apprentices that they have the authorisation and confidence to challenge anyone acting unsafely. We also committed to making it easier to report unsafe acts or conditions.

“We met with representatives of the workforce, created a plan of action, and implemented the suggestions. One of these was a mobile app to streamline the reporting process and make it simpler for the workforce to log items when out on site. Close to 90 per cent of reports now come via the app.

“More than 300 employees completed our second questionnaire last November and the results show that this area of concern has been successfully addressed.”

Mike Mowbray, health and safety manager, said: “The accident prevention card and mobile app have enabled all personnel associated with Jones Bros to not only report unsafe acts or conditions, but to report safe acts and conditions which reinforces the high standards at the company.

“The safety of our workforce is of paramount importance and it’s pleasing to know that the team are more aware when on site.

“It’s also important to celebrate good behaviour and we encourage the reporting of such instances and emphasise them during safety briefings.”

Dave added: “Together Safer is our behavioural safety culture programme and is specific to Jones Bros. It’s now embedded in the company for years to come and aims to achieve what it says – Together Safer.

“The second questionnaire has identified a new area for us to work on and plans are already in place to tackle this in partnership with the team.”

Founded in the 1950s and employing almost 350 people, Jones Bros has grown rapidly in the last decade.  It is currently working on contracts in various sectors including the construction of waste management facilities, highways, flood and marine defence and renewable energy projects around the UK.