Stepping-in is a gift, the theme of this year’s CEMEX H & S days

Stepping in and challenging unsafe behaviour is a gift that demonstrates a colleague cares enough to keep another person safe.  This is the main theme of this year’s CEMEX UK Health and Safety training days. During September and October nearly 2000 people including CEMEX employees, contractors and suppliers will have attended one of 18 days training, at locations throughout the country.

According to David Harding, MPA Wales the day’s training was “very different and a creative way of getting staff involved in the issues.” The day focused on a real live incident at one of CEMEX plants, with actors playing out the possible actions and decisions that led to a major incident and resulted in an employee being disabled.

Following each of the four scenarios, CEMEX colleagues are prompted by the facilitator to discuss, evaluate and consider what happened and why.  Andy Taylor Health and Safety Director “Using actors gives a very human element to the narrative of the incident and helps colleagues to understand the situation and enable learning. It’s a graphic illustration of how we can all step-in and prevent incidents.”

But there was a lot more to the day, with different exercises including a discussion on the DuPont Bradley Curve. Everyone debates if CEMEX colleagues are reactive, dependent, independent or interdependent when it comes to safety.  The ideal situation would be interdependent, when everyone has a shared understanding and responsibility resulting in zero incidents. Another exercise includes an analysis of SwissAir Flight 111 and the nature of errors.

A fun exercise of the day centres around team building and creation of interdependency. Teams of eight colleagues have to lower a rod to the floor, it may sound easy but requires significant communication amongst the team.

Andy Taylor comments “It’s a very rewarding day and as Ghandi says “you have to be the change you want to see”.  Let’s hope more CEMEX colleagues feel empowered to step-in.”

Some thoughts on the day:

Stuart Keighley, Readymix Director Central: the training got everyone in the room involved in the issue of stepping in.  We have to stop, think, step-in and make a difference.

Richard Hughes, Contractor, Lowther Forestry Group: Powerful, fast and furious.  You learnt things without knowing you were learning and understanding.

Rebecca Rickaby,  Commercial Assistant, CEMEX Marine: Deeply impressed,  it was brilliant.  Interesting to see how people really communicate in a situation

Duncan Hargreaves,  H & S manager: very relevant to everyone in our industry

Rob Cunningham, Supply Chain Manager, Aggregates South: highlights the peer pressures that can lead to a disaster. Anyone in the room could be the guy involved in the disaster.

Ends

 For further information on CEMEX  UK contact Elizabeth Young; email: Elizabeth.young@cemex.com t: 01932 58321401932 583214.

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• Helping to build a Great Britain – CEMEX’s vision is to help build a greater Britain by providing solutions to construction problems through our innovative building materials, our expertise, our understanding of the construction issues and our people.  We aim to create the best service and the best solutions for a better future.   

• About CEMEX: CEMEX is a global manufacturer of building materials and the biggest Mexican investor in the UK, with 3,000 people employed across 450 sites nationwide. In this country, we are a leading provider of aggregates, cement, ready-mixed concrete and rail sleepers with annual sales of around £1 billion.