STAND-DOWN FOR SAFETY
During May, we organised a series of ‘safety stand-downs’ to focus entirely on employee safety in the workplace.
Safety is one of our six core business values and the management team recognises the absolute need to continually drive the safety message and ensure a strong safety awareness throughout the organisation.
In the first of a number of planned stand-downs, the business invited Geoff Bollands, a survivor of the Piper Alpha disaster, to talk through his own experiences and to challenge the team to think of the potential risks that they may be exposed to and, importantly, how these risks can be removed.
The Piper Alpha disaster in 1988 was caused by an explosion on the oil production platform which resulted in oil and gas fires which destroyed the structure killing 167 people including two crewmen of a rescue vessel.
The sessions were extremely moving and incredibly interactive, with Geoff using his own story as one of only 61 survivors of the disaster to prompt ideas and provoke debate.
IMH employees have really taken note of the topics discussed with Mike Burns, Senior Service Engineer explaining: “Geoff’s presentation reminded me of the absolute need for effective and open communication and to keep things as simple as possible in order to avoid any mis-understanding”
And Matthew Leeson, Component Sales Co-Ordinator adding: “sitting through the session has made me think more carefully about how my decisions can affect other people in the workplace.”
James Griffiths, General Manager at IMH commented: “The presentation and personal account from Geoff was shocking and I never want to be in a position where we are faced with something even remotely similar.
“We wanted to provide our employees with an impacting and thought-provoking event that would cause everyone to really stop and think about the potential dangers in our working environment and to further develop a culture of looking after each other.
“The discussion that followed Geoff’s presentation has provided us with some key improvement opportunities to work through over the coming months.”
Geoff Bollands, Piper Alpha survivor said: “telling my own story doesn’t get any easier but if it makes people think more seriously about their own safety, then I’ll keep doing it.”
We’d like to extend our heartfelt thanks to Geoff for taking the time to come and speak to us and share his experiences and we’ll look to take away from this, important lessons on safety that will protect our workforce and those that we work with.
To find out more about IMH and how we operate contact us on email: info@imh-uk.com or call the team on +44 (0)1642 802 700.