How long have you been with the business?
I started with the Company in January 1998 as a Cable TV engineer working in Nottingham for Kelly Group on the Diamond Cable contract. The HSQE department was established in autumn of 2020 to coincide with me becoming a Director of HR & HSQE.
How many members of the department do we currently have within the HSQE department and how their roles impact our workforces working life?
We are looking to move to a regional model in the future to increase the support to our operations. The role of our HSQE (Health, Safety, Quality and Environment) department plays a pivotal role in promoting a culture of safety, sustainability, and excellence within the organisation. Through proactive measures and rigorous standards, the HSQE department ensures that operations are conducted with the highest regard for the well-being of employees, the environment, and the quality of products or services delivered. Our purpose is to contribute to creating a safer workplace, reducing environmental impact, enhancing product/service quality and ultimately fostering trust among stakeholders.
We know that innovation is key to delivering efficiency across our versatile functions at Kelly Group – can you tell us what we have done in the past and what we’re currently executing to ensure health and safety remains a top priority within The Group while implementing innovative solutions?
Creating a behavioural safety culture is paramount to the underpinning of our mission to have everyone return home safe at the end of the day. The launch of NEST and the 5 founding principles of safety were the start of this journey. We all need to believe and promote safety, not as a buzzword, but as a passion and belief in wanting to do the right things. This means that when we introduce new practices and solutions that enhance safe systems of work, such as Tetra that through education on the safety benefits, our people elect to use the system rather than having to be instructed to use them.
Can you give us an understanding of the support teams (&locations) that fall under the HSQE department?
There is always support available for any of our workforce who needs it. The best thing to do firstly is asking your manager for support or advise on who is the best person to contact. Our HSQE department is always available to advise and support our workforce the best we can so don’t be shy to get in touch for support. There are many activities we complete at the background to support the operation of the business including designing safe systems of work along with creating Risk Assessment and Method Statements (RAMS), accident and incident investigations, supporting corrective actions. Furthermore, analysing audits and incident data and root cause analysis to support the creation of prevention strategies, collaboration with clients and suppliers for the purpose of sharing best practice and shared learnings and lead on achieving and maintaining our company certifications and qualifications:
- ISO 45001 Management of Occupational Health and Safety, certified through BSI, this is our latest certification which we achieved in a successful stage 2 audit this February, following successful stage 1 audit in October 2023. Attaining this certificate was a key milestone of our safety ambitions, with the BSI auditor stating in her assessment report that “it is a pleasure to make a positive recommendation for IS45001”.
- ISO 14001 Environmental Management, certified through BSI.
- ISO 9001 Quality Management, certified through BSI.
- CHAS safe contractor
We play a key role in liaising with the operational team and training team to ensure that feedback loops are in place so that leaning from events is embedded across the wider organisation.
We currently operate across the UK and are currently planning to introduce a structured regional model to provide the local operation teams with qualified HSQE liaison points for the purpose of fostering safety culture and promoting team working.
Can you give us some information on any unique / unusual solutions or practices we adopted as a business?
Education for our management teams on safety matters and the role in which we all play in the overall company duty for keeping people safe in pivotal to our ongoing success in safety. In October 2023, we agreed a management engagement strategy with the 2 MD’s that are responsible for our 3 volume contracts (Openreach, CityFibre & VM02). I believe deeply in safety and so decide to lead the rollout of the “fireside safety discussion” program, which is an opportunity for me and no more than 4 managers to get together over a coffee and biscuits to talk through the safety challenges that we face a as business. These sessions were around 3 hours in duration and gave us the opportunity for intimate discussions on the critical aspects of all manager duty in relation to keeping our people safe. The feedback received following the session was that they were informative and gave a valuable and alternative perspective into why we must provide high quality supervision of our people. To date I have completed 19 sessions across the UK, with over 70 managers attending the sessions, with ore session in plan over the coming months.
