Webinar: How to integrate a positive health and safety culture in an organisation

Tracy Seward  00:03

Hello, thank you for joining us. Welcome to the Praxis42 webinar how best to integrate a positive health and safety culture throughout an organisation. I’m Tracy at Praxis42 and today I’m joined by our expert panellists Clive Johnson – head of safety for Derwent London and has 10 years extensive experience operating at board level with blue chip organisations a past president of IIRSM Clive now chairs the Connie and managing risk well Working Group on behalf of the HSE and sits on both the health in construction leadership group and construction clients leadership group. Clive was awarded the freedom of the City of London for his work on health, safety and security. And more recently has been asked by the Cabinet Office to be part of their inclusive economy Partnership Programme focusing on mental health. So we’re delighted to have Clive join us for this webinar today.

We’re also joined by Adam Clarke, MD of consulting Praxis42. Adam has a background in occupational health and safety of over 20 years, supporting large organisations across a variety of sectors with their compliance needs. And Adams passionate about creating a positive approach to health and safety and making it part of an organization’s culture, benefiting employees as well as organisations as a whole. So for the webinar today, your mics will be muted throughout. But there are buttons at the top of your screen where you can ask questions which will be addressed in the q&a session at the end of the webinar. And we will also be sending out some downloads related to the event afterwards, and we’ll be able to event you’ll be able to share the events on social media. So we’ve already had some questions coming in for the q&a. But if you do want to send a question in during the webinar, then then please do so with the q&a button above. And we will do our best to get it get through it at the end. Any that we don’t have time to answer today will be answered and put up on our resources page after today’s session. And obviously, we will send everybody who signed up for the webinar, a link to that afterwards, as well as a recording of today’s webinar. So if I could hand over to you, Clive to kick things off.

Clive Johnson 02:23

Thank you very much, Tracy. And good morning to everybody. And thank you for the opportunity to share with you probably over the next 40 minutes my journey, I suppose really but just to put it into perspective a little bit. I’ve sort of been in health and safety now since sort of 1996. So it’s a bell time. And prior to that I did just shot at 23 years in the Royal Air Force. So I’ve probably been out of the air force now longer than I was in so. So what I’d like to do really before I get into my sort of slide presentation, so to speak, is just to explain to you a little bit of history around sort of health and safety leadership and how I became so we’re quite passionate about it. And now I’ve seen the benefits from Infinite positive health and safety leadership. So I’m going to start from about 2003, where I was appointed as head of health and safety for terminal five at Heathrow on the new construction project there. And the client there has been a throat and and that was my first experience really of how a client can really set the tone across its supply chain. And being the top of the food chain in terms of its procurement, it can really set that tone and then sort of implement how they want the project to sort of to run. And I remember right at the start of the project, I was involved in a meeting with the the insurance, the health and safety executive, and the investors basically. So I was sat next to the managing director, a guy called Andrew Wilson Helm, in this meeting, and they were talking about investment here investment there. How are you going to take and the project’s going to be sort of 4.4 billion and it’s this this construction, and the HSC guy, a guy called Kevin Myers at the time. He said, Well, according to all the stats, you’ve just given me on how much is gonna cost, how many people are going to employ it and how long it’s going to take, as sort of calculations would estimate that there’s going to be probably nine deaths on this site on history of incidents and accidents. So Andrew Wilson stood up very bravely, and I’ll never forget this. He said, right, if that’s a consequence of building this new airport, we won’t build it. We have got to do something different. And from that day on in Ba really sort of set the scene as far as I’m concerned in terms of how you can demonstrate that commitment to get in a safe and healthy project. So VA set off then and introduced a whole different way of working within construction and yesterday lots of lessons learned from Crossrail and previous major infrastructure projects. But that particular story and commitment from Andrew Wilson no really set the scene for the next sort of seven years of its construction. Now, unfortunately, there were there were two deaths on the project, but, and they came right at the tail end of it to be fair, but it was still still better than the name of the agency predicted. And it was very sad that we had the two but it’s a lot better than it could have been so. So that for me really was the way that I learned so much from the big sort of culture that when I left VA, when the airport opened in 2007, I took so much away from that learning into the into my new sort of into my journey and health and safety, I suppose really, so. So what I’m trying to say is that the BA was a foundation to the way I’ve developed health and safety culture throughout the business that I’ve worked with since neck since 2007. Now then went on to work for us to Ballmer then went on to do eight years for company called Lunch securities property company. And now as Tracy alluded to develop, and say to be do in London, another property company with a very diverse portfolio. So that’s a bit of a potted history as to what I’ve gone through. But everything I’ve done, I’ve learned from client to client then sort of grown in terms of the culture itself. So. So in terms of a takeaway for you all today, what I’d like you to take away from this presentation is the fact that it’s within all your gifts, because of the competencies, you’ve got to influence and change people’s behaviours and culture. And the takeaways from today is that there may be a few tools that you’ll be able to use or influence and put in front of your own businesses to try and change that culture. Right. So let’s get going. So if you just flick to the next slide, please to God. So this is a slide I’ve used. And I’m not going to make any excuses. I’ve used this since my days at VA, because ultimately, this slide clearly demonstrates what you can do in terms of setting the certain tone for the project. And now what you say as that ripple effect, right throughout your supply chain and your employees. So it’s setting that tone right across your business activities. It doesn’t matter where you’re in construction, manufacturing, don’t matter what you do, you’ve got the key here in terms of how you set that tone. They’ve just flicked on Please, God. So for Clive, it’s about being risk aware, but not risk averse, and acting responsibly. So you might say, What do you mean by that, Clive? Well, the way that I look at health and safety and risk management is the fact that if you’ve got people with all the right competencies in the the activities and the jobs that you do, I do believe that there’s nothing wrong with taking some risk on because you can manage it. Because what we don’t want to be seen in the health and safety world is blockers. And quite often that perception of health and safety is somebody in a tweed jacket with a clipboard and they’re to stop the job. That’s the perception a lot of people other than safety. But what we’re going to try and do now is change that whole perception of people’s perception of health and safety where we are more risk managers, as opposed to being health and safety practice practitioners. And we all plan to play within each different business that we have. So whatever we do, we’ve got to act responsibly. So it’s all about working with your sort of business sort of colleagues in terms of how you adopt this. But for Clyde, it’s about getting the people around you with the right competencies to do the job and manage risk. In that respect, in terms of whatever industry you’re in. If you could just like to move on, please, Julie

Adam Clarke  08:53

and Clive if I can just just ask them, you know, when you used to work in the in the Royal Air Force, were there some risks that you had to accept whether you liked them more? Or not? How did that impact on the culture that you you were part of and how did that influence when you were out of the Air Force?

Clive Johnson 09:12

Great question. Because one of the things when you could come cocooned in an environment like the forces, Army, Navy or Air Force, you don’t realise what you do until you leave. And it’s not until you leave that you realise, oh, crikey, I can adapt this to that. And I can adapt this to this. And one of the one of the takeaways, what many takeaways from the Air Force was this dynamic risk assessment. So it’s looking at what activity you’re going to be doing having the right knowledge and training to make a decision on on that environment. And that’s why I’m really keen on having the right competencies to do whether you’re an electrician or whether you’re a steel worker, whatever it is, it’s having that ability to be able to carry out that dynamic risk assessment in terms of what work activity so You know, there was lots of things that we did it before that which have now been able to translate out and bring into the, into the sort of work environment that I’m in at the moment. Right, thank you. So, so moving on developing and delivering world class, health and safety, culture and performance. So the slide that you can see in front of you now, I’m going to pick up on sort of leadership a little bit more as we go through. But this is my sort of roadmap, I suppose, really, in terms of how I’ve worked with executive boards, CEOs, and sort of directors within different departments in terms of driving that health and safety culture. So the biggest bit is around changing people’s behaviour. And that was both behaviour and attitude. You know, we either have a good or a bad attitude towards anything. And the way that I’ve been able to deliver, the culture that I’ve created in the business that I’ve worked in, is not using the cloak of compliance to get things done. And what I mean by that is that myself or my team, don’t go out there and say, You can’t do this because that regulation says that, because that’s when you get that perception of our health and safety here to stop it. So for me, it’s not you, it’s embracing the health and safety culture, but not using the cloak of compliance to get things done. Because if you can get people to do the things for the right reasons, they’re going to do it. And that will change their behaviours. So you don’t have to use that rulebook to get them to choose the right piece of equipment for working, or choose the right piece of equipment, if they’re working in a noisy environment, or just the environment, they know, it’s the right thing to do, because they’ve got the right attitude about it. And a lot of the things I talk about within the businesses I’ve worked in, it’s about, you know, you know, we’re all in the working world for whatever amount of years it is, but ultimately, we all come to work for one reason. And that’s hopefully to earn some money to have a holidays, look after your families. And at the end of the day, we all need to go how Oh, go home in a fit healthy and safe way because people are counting on you to get on. So in terms of changing behaviours, the behaviours that are influenced within particular deadwind is along those lines, it’s all about your family values. And if you think about what could go wrong in the workplace could have an effect on your family values. Well, that changes people’s behaviours. So in terms of engagement, I think whatever business that you work in, you must have certain stakeholders that you have to engage with. And it’s health and safety is okay, in one respect, you’ve got to have that certificate, that’s qualification. But the biggest factor now in terms of changing people’s behaviour, has been able to influence people. And having that ability, more softer skills to to be able to influence. So, you know, when when you’re looking into the recruitment of health and safety practitioners, I do believe that’s a crucial ingredient to making sure you’ve got the right person because you need those softer skills now to to influence. So we’ve got raising standards all the time, we want to raise standards in whatever business we’re in. And some industries are sort of committed to it, and some aren’t. But it’s about working with everybody to, to raise the standards that you, you want to sort of set within your particular business. And then it is maintaining it in a consistency in a consistent environment. And parliament is key. In terms of the way I work with my teams, it’s all about empowering your team to do what they do. Let them get on with it, create the right environment for them to thrive. So personally speaking, I know we’ve come into the different working world now after COVID. But I don’t mind where my team do their work from as long as they do it. So if they’re working from a site, working from an office, working from home, working on a train, as long as they do what they supposed to do, as far as I’m really happy. And by creating the environment, you get more out of your people anyway. But it is about empowering them and letting them get on with it and and sometimes they’re going to make mistakes, but Soviet people learn from these things, but you’ve empowered that person, and you’ll get a lot more respect on that basis.

Adam Clarke  14:18

And that presumably then is a relationship based on trust.

Clive Johnson 14:23

Absolutely. And so trust is absolutely key and empowering people with that trust, you get the rewards. The Vault, it’s really it really does. And I pick up on that trust that in a moment or two but but yeah, it absolutely does.

Adam Clarke  14:41

And equally when you said we said about mistakes there I mean, I think we all recognise that we’re humans we will make mistakes, but there’s a difference between owning your mistakes and and not which which has a big difference on the on the culture is will we expect you to make a mistake but will work on it together is a very different approach.

Clive Johnson 15:03

Yeah, I totally agree and, and people will make mistakes, we all sort of make mistakes, but it’s that learning from them, and that you’re going to get yourself and the business in a better place anyway, you know, but sometimes you’ve got to break a few eggs and say I’m here to make the omelette type of thing. But, but you know that, and that’s why it’s key now to I’ve been a real diversity, for example. So I’m talking about better skilled people and improve performance and raising standards, the way that you can do that is having a very diverse team. So if you look at my team, for example, we’ve got client, they all that get in the team, but I’ve got a very diverse portfolio from in terms of race, religion, and age, and all these people bring a different perspective to health and safety. So when we’re together in our team meetings, it’s all about, we may have something to look at in a problem to solve. But I’ll get a different view from Jess, I get a different view from Simon, and Avena. And that’s what’s quite refreshing about having a very diversity from all these different backgrounds and cultures. And then you get a better you get a better outcome because of that, that involvement. So sorry, Adam. Yeah, so So improved performance. I mean, every day is sort of resisted. The problem is every day is a school that we all learned something each day in terms of hoping to help us do our jobs in a better way. And, you know, the world of health and safety and risk management, you know, one of the things I say to my team is about, at the end of the day, what can you go home and say you’ve been proud that you’ve done today. And if you can do that every day, you know that you’ve, you’ve done something in that day. And I’ve even done that with the board within do it. The way that we’ve got health or safety culture now, within materials are doing is quite different to what it was when I started. So it’s, it’s very inclusive. And just move on to the next slide, please, to God, I can maybe show you an example of I’ve done that. So. So inclusivity, as far as I can tell, it’s for me, it’s like do all went together. And that’s how we operate. So I’ve got three sort of three pillars on this slide. So we’ve got health, which is both physical and mental, which we we’ve got a booklet for that, obviously got the safety bit. And then we’ve got security. So security, for me is the third pillar in sort of the health and safety pyramid where it’s about preserving life security. So it fits quite well within the remit of my role. So, but what we do within that role is sort of, you know, make it inclusive into every department that we work in. So we’ve got an organisation out within doing. But we work with risk, we work with corporate comms, we work we are we have our thing is in all these different pies from a development operations, managed portfolio, and inclusive health and safety. And that’s what it’s about to be part of all the different departments in your team, what health and safety shouldn’t be, as that department that sits up on the third floor in the corner, and nobody comes to charge you. So influence in health and safety culture is one of the things I’ve adopted over the many years by, for example, in my team, I’ve got two people that work within the construction sector. So they don’t go and sit with Clive, they go and sit with the development teams to go and sit out on site. So the become more inclusive into that into that business part of the of the operation of the business. And similarly with a with our managed portfolio. We’ve got I’ve got two people that work within the buildings that go and sit with a different team. So they are not sat in a certain place, they are sort of out and about and inclusive into that team’s operation. So they become part and parcel of what they do and how they do it.

Adam Clarke  18:57

Would you would you encourage other organisations then to get their people out into the operational side to understand what’s really what’s going on and the challenges that they face?

Clive Johnson 19:09

Absolutely crucial for them. Because at that point, you don’t become a blocker anymore. As a health and safety practitioner or risk management, you are there to solve the solution within so you understand how the business or the project operates. You understand how the building operates, and it’s managed. And then you can put your to Penniston to make sure that you’re managing the risks, and you’re not becoming that locker, you know, and, you know, I’ve seen some real benefits from from operating like that. So to answer your question, I would say yes, you know, some people might feel uncomfortable doing it to start with, but the feedback I get from my team is that they get to know every part of their development project, they get to know the QS has to get to know the the architect to get to know everybody in that business. So it’s a win win.

Adam Clarke  19:53

I think you nailed it with what you said previously with your team is a diverse group of people. So you’re getting different perspectives when you’re or, you know, focusing on your own objectives. But your team, then when they’re involved in that operational side, they’re bringing that perspective to, to that group of people. So they can add benefit simply by looking at looking at a problem in a different way.

Clive Johnson 20:14

Absolutely. Yeah. And, and I say, you know, it’s all about being, it’s all about influencing. And, and I think one thing that COVID has taught us is that you don’t have to be visible to be productive sometimes. So yes, man, I might not see my team for three or four days, but I know they’re doing what they’re doing and being productive. And that, again, it goes back to that trust thing. Again, I haven’t done it, you know, you’re empowering them to get on with it. And then they thrive because of it, you know, and,

Adam Clarke  20:46

and you’ve mentioned influencing a few times. So so far, and I absolutely agree with you that that is a really important skill for anybody in our space to get things done. But I suppose my question without then is, first of all, how can we give people the skills to be able to influence and and also when you’re when you’re recruiting for new people, Clive? Is that something that you’re particularly focusing on as part of the recruitment process.

Clive Johnson 21:10

And I’ve recruited sort of four people since I’ve been at do and that’s been key to the recruitment process, having those softer skills, being able to implement people, and being able to have the ability to change your conversation to you talking to, so you might have to change a conversation working with an architect to work in with the office manager, or you might have to change your tone. And so it’s having that ability to know what one was just pitted

Adam Clarke  21:39

across? Yeah, and I think for the benefit, the people that weren’t on the call, before we started it, you know, Clive was explaining that, you know, with what he’s wearing today isn’t what he was wearing yesterday, when he was out on out on site.

Clive Johnson 21:50

You know, so it is all about that the way that you sort of input. So yeah, going back to aggression, recruiters, I think in the health and safety world now realise that the softer skills, the influencing skills is a key part of that job description going forward. And so, but again, sometimes that comes with experience as well, it might not. So just for example, if I was choosing between two people, and they didn’t have the right official product to get, I don’t know, see my OSHA or whatever it is, but they got great softer skills, I would go for the person with the softer skills and then teaching the See, because you can’t always teach the soft skills. That’s what I’m trying to say.

Adam Clarke  22:29

No, no, I know, I know exactly what you need clients.

Clive Johnson 22:33

I’m happy to then put people on the right course, because I know they’ve got the softer skills to support it once I’ve got the ticket, you know? Yeah, yeah. Anyway, I think we’re moving on there. If you don’t mind, God, thank you. So I’ve talked about this consistency, and this visible leadership. So visible leadership is key to the success of a, you know, a very positive health and safety culture within a business. And so it’s not about being sat behind your desk. As we’ve said a few times, it is about being out. on the construction side, it’s about being in the buildings, and physically, visibly being out there to talk to people. And that’s got to come from not just the yourself as a team, but it’s got to come from the directors and the board. So I’m very fortunate in all the last three big jobs I’ve had, I’ve always reported to the CEO. Now from a health and safety perspective, that is my that that’s the preferred option. And that’s how it should be in there because the board that non execs really see health and safety as a sort of an asset to the business. And by seeing it reporting into the exec and the CEO, the know that the business is taking it seriously. So for me, I’ve been very fortunate that I’ve always reported the CEO and, and the like, and, and it really does have an effect on the rest of the business in terms of how you do what you do. And we’ve talked about sort of setting the tone, as we said earlier on, you know, in terms of consistency, it’s, it’s, I’ve got a very diverse portfolio that I sort of have to have to look after. And it’s adopting that consistent approach, whether it’s on a construction site, or an office environment, or a retail park, or on our sort of 1000s of acres of arable land with our agricultural colleagues in Scotland. So, you know, from a health and safety perspective, we have got to have all the different skills and attributes to try and imagine trying to set the health and safety culture with a with some farming contractors in Scotland. quite different to setting the culture with a principal contractor like Skanska, or whatever, it’s quite different. You’ve got to have that different approach to get them to buy into it. So that’s my challenge for next week as it happens. I’m off to Scotland next week to work with our agricultural guys in terms of health and safety culture along with the National Farmers Union. So that’s why we spoke a lot earlier on about open, trusting and transparent culture that is key The willingness to speak up, I think that is also absolutely crucial to empower your team to speak up. And an encourage conversation about health and safety. And most businesses now probably have health safety committees and, and the like, but ultimately to encourage conversations about alsager, particularly in high risk activities is absolutely lucky in terms of how you do that. And just one thing, I’ve also brought from my BA days, which really have worked, and it’s something around some messaging on a hive, Hive is best. So all the supervisors would have a logo on the bottom, it says, it’s okay to talk to me about safety. Okay, so what that supervisors doing is empowering the rest of the workforce to come onto our team. So you wouldn’t wear that high vis vest, if you didn’t want somebody to charge you. And the workers have a slogan on the back, he says, Stop me if my safety or health is at risk. So that person wearing that high vis vest is giving people permission to stop it. So that’s all around the culture that you set that you’re empowering people. So a guy could be carrying out some works, but another guy that’s not even in this trade, could come back and tap him on the shoulder and said, Look, I don’t think you’re doing that, right. And that’s what this open and transparent culture is about. And it’s really quite refreshing and rewarding when you get the feedback when that sort of happened as well. And as I say, this disjointed approach and looking at the the diagram on the left hand side there, I mean, I’m just gonna pick up on two points on there. And that’s around courage and relationships, and particularly courage is having the courage to speak up and empowering these people, no matter what industry you’re in. Again, it’s empowering them and giving that courage to speak up. And then the other bit is around relationships, which I’m going to pick up on, on the next slide. But all the other areas there, we’ve picked up on the trust, teamwork key, and whatever you’re talking about, it’s got to be relevant to what you do and how you do it. And then make sure your communications are clear and concise, no mixed messaging, you know, in terms of what you’re trying to get out there. Don’t leave anything open to interpretation, I suppose. That’s what I’m trying to say.

Adam Clarke  27:15

That’s a really good I really like that Clive, and I just want comment, then we’ll be it all of those things are excellent. But you know, one of the things that always throws how do you how do you kind of create that environment, because back to the concept of psychological safety that you want, you want all of these things to happen, and you want people you know, I love the idea of the hive is of the high vis vest, but I can think of plenty of construction sites that if I do ask someone to wear that, that kind of a hope is best. But the message on I would have got a very different message back back to me. So how do you how do you get that? How do you start like, if you haven’t got, if you’ve got a culture where you’re starting where it’s very different to what you’ve described, you know, what the starting little the baby steps to get that moving towards this, this ultimate goal?

Clive Johnson 28:01

Right. So if you go back to my second slide, where I showed you that drop in the water, just if I’m gonna pick up on construction now, just as an example, because we’re doing not only construction, we do it across the business. But in terms of construction, we’ve got what we call the client slides in the induction. So I’ve got a slide in there, we did with a commitment statement from our CEO. Okay. So that’s in the induction for every construction sites that so every person that comes in sits through a site induction gets three slides from the clients perspective, in terms of this, these are our expectations of you. But this is what you can count on from us as a client. So this is where you would set the tone after the induction. So when you set the induction, people that sat in the induction, that’s when you’re given the hype is best, because you speak about that open and transparency and having that courage to speak up. And as it leaves the induction. You say, Look, you have a choice. Now you understand this project bit harsh, or you take this high vis vest, and we’re with it. And we’ve nobody has yet said well don’t do that. I’m not going to take the best but but that’s how to do it. Because you’ve got to do it right at the startup project. Or when somebody starts in your business or, or whatever it is that you do, you’ve got to do it right from the start. And then it will then just just carry on from there. But there’ll be

Adam Clarke  29:29

there’ll be a fair amount of construction workers that have ever had that started that start as well. So you’re saying you want to engage with me on this, rather than it be, you know, just stick stick stick when things don’t? Don’t go right?

Clive Johnson 29:43

Yeah, so it’s key, the fact that you can get the workforce to buy in and hence why we’ve got the two or three slides commitment from the CEO to say, look, we want this site to be as safe and healthy as it can because we want you all to go home to your families every day. And it’s that That’s our message and that no matter what industry working, you know, nobody comes to work to get hurt the day. So, you know, there’s certain sort of clients, landlords, whoever it is, I’ve got an opportunity to, to change that.

Adam Clarke  30:12

So what we’re what we’re really boiling it down to is at the starting point of any positive culture change is making sure there is an absolute commitment from the from the top to that energetic genuine commitment.

Clive Johnson 30:25

Oh, yeah, yeah. And I think you know, as well, you know, whether it’s genuine or not, or they’re just doing it to tick a box, you know, to mean, so, if I use my car as an example, he chairs our health and safety committee, for example, which is great. And no disrespect to any other CEOs I’ve worked with. I’ve never known a CEO get into the nitty gritty of what we do and how we do it. And I can’t thank him enough for that, because it really does support what we do, you know, but, but yeah, it has got to come from from the top abdomen, and it’s got to be meant, and people know if it’s not there, not that often. People know, if they’re just saying it for saying its purpose. So great. Thank you. Wherever we do have God, I think we’re just moving on to the next slide, please. That one? Yeah. So. So for Clive and his team, and the businesses I’ve worked with in the past that the foundation of all accomplishments from a is relationships. And talking about the diverse portfolio that I work with is having the relationships by internal and external stakeholders, is having relationships with the EHL, the fire brigade, the Health and Safety Executive, you’ve got to have this ability to build these relationships. And if you can do that, you can accomplish so much more. So and again, you see the same sort of sort of messaging on the left hand side there, which I’ve just picked up on. But that’s a thread that moves right through. So if you use a sporting analogy with this relationship, pyramid that I know, everyone had been to sort of Grand Prix indoor cycling, but if you want to do the motor sport Grand Prix is on a weekend where Hamilton and Verstappen and this not the other, you know, Hamilton or wherever it is the Windsor World Championship, he gets the the accolades and, and gets the trophies. But if he hasn’t got that relationship with his pit team, and when you see how many people are involved in getting Lewis Hamilton down that track and finish it in his car, it’s a lot of people. So what I’m trying to say is that Lewis, Hamilton’s got to have a really great relationship with the guys that look after his care. He’s got a great relationship with his team, because if he hasn’t got a great relationship with his team, and he falls out with a guy that normally changes his wheels on a Sunday afternoon, so So do Hamilton, you’re not talking to me like that again, and you don’t put his wheels on properly, you know, so you’ve got to have that relationship and trust with the people. And Lewis Hamilton’s got that because he trusts everybody in that team to do what they’re supposed to do. And that’s key in terms of risk management, as well as having that trust with all your people to do to do the job. So and it’s similar in cycling, you cycling the same, you have a team of people that get one person across the line to get the yellow jersey, so everybody’s working to one ultimate goal. But so my advice to anybody listening today is broaden that relationship, whether it’s with your own team, or the team’s external people. But the more you do that, the more as I say, the more you will accomplish, and you’ll get more out of what you do. Right, if you could just move on please God. Right. The next slide you’ve got now is something which I’ve adopted into do went from middle of last year, really. So this what are we call our six pillars is the way that we sort of manage our risks across the business. And this aligned with the health and safety initiative, Health and Safety Executive initiatives as well. So so we’ve got sort of, as you can see, with the six pillars we’ve got there. So acting together. So this is working with both internal and external stakeholders promoting best practice good practice, through the doorway. So the Derwent way is a sort of suite of documents, which we as a construction client or landlord, give out to our supply chain in terms of how we want to do things. So we’ve got design safety instructions, we’ve got inclusive design guides to make sure that all our buildings are built for inclusivity to make sure that so and the way that we do that, I’ve set up what I’ve called these continuous improvement groups. So we have one, which is we’d bring up into the contractors in we have room where we bring our service partners in, we have room where we bring our architects in. So we collectively talk about how we do things together. So we’ve got that one single message in in terms of working and acting together. So that so these, you know cgroups, as I call them are a key to our success. in getting the deal and messaging out through our supply chains. The next one along there is Taplin Hill health. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m just going to spend a few minutes on this one because allegedly, I’ve been a health and safety practitioner since 1996. But if I was honest, until about 2015, I was probably just a safety practitioner. And if most people listening, that could probably say the same because you felt for years, I focused on the immediacy of safety, because you can see what’s going to happen and somebody falls, somebody does this. And it wasn’t until I got involved with the health and construction leadership group, because we identified that, you know, safety and health needed the same building of safety. So working with some of my industry sort of colleagues, we pulled together this healthy contraction leadership group to try and change that balance to give it the same billing. And as a result of that the health and safety leadership, health and contraction leadership group was formed. Because just for example, they just under 40 People die in construction every year, probably similarly in agriculture. But there’s 12,000 people die a year through occupational related health diseases. And you don’t see all these numbers, because they’re not the immediacy of a construction fatality. You know, somebody’s inhale, dust, silica, asbestos, wherever it is, it’s the latency of the the ill health, which is the problem. So for 12,000 people that work in in construction, every year die as a result of an activity in construction. So tackling ill health is a is a key influencer and a key part of what I do at the moment to try and give you that same bullet. And that’s not just physical health. It’s also mental health. So what the hclg did, it came up with some initiatives, and maybe someones listening, we we in 2016, we brought in the meeting mind mental health, mental health programme for construction, because we’re two suicides a day in construction, and they still are, unfortunately, so the mating mind programme. And again, from a construction client point of view, with Darwin, we ask all our contractors to sign up to the mating mind programme or a mental health programme. And also, within that within driving the the occupational health agenda as well to raise the profile around around that. So it’s really key that we we do get health the same building as a safety to make sure that we, you know, not only protect him from the immediacy of safety effects of work, but also the the occupational health effects at work as well. I mean, we’re all pretty good at walking around the site, and we can quite clearly see that there’s a place where there’s no edge protection, and we get something done about it. But when you walk in round sites, I suppose what’s the open edge in terms of health? You know, how many? How many times do you walk by somebody that’s carrying out some, you know, abrasive wheel work, we know where defenders on all, they’re not wearing eye protection, or they’re not all the breathing and just without the right respiratory protection, whatever it is, it’s around giving that balance. And that’s, again, where the health and safety culture from a client’s perspective can really set the tone in terms of how we operate as a business. But it’s not really interesting.

Adam Clarke  38:18

Very clever, really, really interesting. points there. So just to to comments from from my point of use i Absolutely. The health side of it, you know, the given the it’s mostly to do with the lungs, and you think about all the all the deaths, you know, we’re dealing with over 99% of the deaths are safer, from health health conditions for things that quite often we can’t, we can’t see, the safety side of it is almost managed, because it is easier. It’s easier to physically see, see things and sometimes it’s about well, it’s a lot harder to really identify what what are the substances that are being used? What measures are in place to actually reduce that and might require a little bit of enhanced assessment. So we focus on it so much, but the other point really was, so I really love the idea of having all of your stakeholders sign up to the to the Derwent way. My question is, do you get positive feedback from them that, you know, them being part of this system has actually changed the way that their culture is within their own organisations?

Clive Johnson 39:18

Yeah, I mean, if I can just use I’m going to name drop Skanska at the moment and they like an informed and intelligent construction client, in terms of how they operate, because I’m not saying we’re restricted with things that we do with them, we’ve got things that we want them to follow. And if they’ve got a good health and safety culture anyway, it’s, they would do it anyway. But what it does do it sort of gives gives us a level playing field, right, right across the project. And, and we’re doing it with our service partners. Well, you know, CBRE that look after our sort of nice portfolio from an engineering perspective. So it doesn’t just apply to construction. These do outweigh standards apply to all the different activities that that we’ve done, and we’ve just done it Caledonian way for our agricultural team open in Scotland, so you can adapt all these sort of implementing sort of skills and procedures to sort of really set the scene in terms of your expectations of value or them to perform.

Adam Clarke  40:16

I love the idea of we’re looking at, you know, generally changing behaviour and changing culture that if you’re going to do that with your supply supply chain, it might be that the spark from that sparks your client, you’re, you’re contracted to do it with their contractors, and, you know, so on and so forth. And that’s how we get you know, that’s how we’ll make a difference

Clive Johnson 40:32

isn’t you know, that it’s quite infectious once it starts. And, you know, the feedback from some of the supply chain is that it’s helped them win more work as well, because of the change their behaviours, and it’s when they present it to win another job, because they’re now doing this and doing that it’s helped him to win a job. And so it’s it just

Adam Clarke  40:52

further cements your point about relationships, that they’re growing as you’re growing.

Clive Johnson 40:56

Yeah. So it’s so yeah, so there’s, you know, every day is quite different in terms of the world that we work in now from a risk management perspective. But these six pillars, that sort of what we’re doing at the moment, and the next one along the line, there is managing risk well, which is the one I chair that one for the Health and Safety Executive where we’ve focused on two areas in this last year. And that’s where I’m working at height and construction fire, for obvious reasons, post Grenfell. So we’ve got some documents out there on the internet now in terms of safety steps for working high, and we’ve got competency matrix for construction, five related issues. So a lot of work has been going up there. So you can you can find that I can send you the links to them, if anybody wants them. Hopefully you find them useful. And moving on to the next one, supporting small contracts is sort of links in with acting together does that one book term, you know, through our competency assessments, in terms of before we get somebody on our approved list, we have to get some assurances from these contractors that they will sign up to the doorway, and they will work with us on this and work with us on that. So it is working with him on on those sort of things. And, you know, I know people were doesn’t make a job safe or healthy, and it never will. But in terms of due diligence and doing the competency checks on your on your supply chain, God forbid anything goes wrong. The first thing they want is that piece of paper. Now, as an example of that, several years ago, there was a fatality on one of our construction sites not to do it with one but but and the first thing that HSE and the police asked for when they went to the site to investigate, ask the client, can you confirm you’ve done a due diligence check on your principal contractor. And the fact that I produced the paperwork that did on the day, it took the foot off the gas, because what more could we have done, we’ve done all the right checks. So then they went to the principal contractor, what checks have you done on your subcontractor, so it just goes down the line in terms. So yes, paperwork will never make anything safe or healthy. But if anything goes on, you’ve got to have it there to make sure that you’ve done the right checks in the first place. So working with small contractors is key, keeping pace with change. Again, that’s how I can bring that into doing it because of the committees that I sit on. But it’s been aware of what’s happening in industry, we, there’s a lot of work now around virtual sort of wedding of glasses, just to show you what that project is going to look like. And scaffolding companies now, in their some of their training this year with their scaffold as well, this is what it would look like we know aid to protection, and there’s a whole lot of work around that and BIM and it’s keeping pace with changing getting health and safety involved in in a lot of the policies and procedures and and once you’ve got a no change, you know, it’s a matter of adjusting your, your policies to align with that, you know, and the final one is sharing success. So every sort of meeting that we have within doing is all about the positives. Because more often than not, you’re talking about health and safety, it’s all negative. So it’s turning the tables around and talking about positives, rewarding and recognising as opposed to pointing the finger and don’t do this and don’t do that. There’s a way of doing it, but But sharing successes in terms of what you’ve done. It’s also key to that, you know, that safety culture that you creating within a business so so there are six pillars, these are what we’re committed to in terms of our objectives for this year. And we’ll be sort of measured on them next year, which is you know, which is good so we can prove what we’ve done to work with industry. And that there’s a final slide. God, please. And we mentioned this right at the start safe and healthy attitude. Now. It’s all about having that right attitude to do what you do and how you do it. You know, you’ve got family that need you to come home with good health and safe for all the reasons we spoke about earlier. And you’ve got people that can’t Do you need to get on, you know, each night, whether it’s your kids, your partners, or your parents. So, yes, we come to work for all those right reasons. But ultimately, if you ask most people, the most important thing in their life is their families. And, and that’s what you’ve got to bear in mind, the impacts that you could have the consequences of a bad bad attitude in the workplace, could really affect really affect that, and nobody wants that. We only have one workforce, we have got to look after them. We’ve got an ageing workforce. And there’s not many more, there’s not a lot of people coming into construction at the moment are lots of other industries. But we’ve got to make it more attractive. And one of those reasons is to make it safer and healthier for people to come in into the industry. But a few years ago, I went to a careers event ready. And there was some construction, promoting construction there. And the feedback we got from the parents, we got quite a lot of kids interested in Brick Lane and this and the other, but their parents perception of construction was it’s dirty, murky, and it kills people. So what we did, we brought some of the parents to one of our big sites in the central London to show them some of the welfare facilities now that are available. So you’re not sat in a monkey old van eating out of SNAP box, they’ve got proper welfare facilities there and somewhere to keep warm if it’s raining and dry, and all these sorts of things. So I think it’s changed, changing people’s perception about what construction is and what it isn’t. So hopefully, if you’ve picked up on a few bits in terms of what I’ve done, try to do over the last sort of 20 odd years in the world of work in health and safety and risk management. And, you know, I’ve seen the positive outcomes I’ve had in a positive health and safety culture with business that I’ve worked with, and there’s no reason why any business can’t be the same, to be fair, but I’m happy to take any questions if anybody’s got any, but if not, thank you for listening and stay safe and healthy. I think

Adam Clarke  47:07

club I’m just gonna, I’m just gonna get the first one in because I’ve already had a few but you know, I’m greedy. So, from your six, your six pillars, and I think that’s a great, great scheme to bring in. Is that then the progress on that over the first year? are you reporting back to the board? The board wants to know how that’s progressing? Is that a key key objective that’s built into the overall strategy?

Clive Johnson 47:29

Yeah, it is an in so we’re certain things that we report on in the board. And it’s how we were how we are comparing against our objectives. So and that’s one of them. The other objective we’ve got is something which we we require minimum scores on certain activities where a construction site might be audited by CCS, that’s a considered contractor scheme. So they have to maintain a certain score on that. There’s also another scheme call clocks, which is all about vulnerable road users and vehicles in and out a construction site. So they have to make a certain score on that. So there’s quite a few objectives that we’ve got that our contract is up to up to measure up to as well, but But to answer your question, yeah, we report back on our objectives, and this is one

Adam Clarke  48:13

excellent and the other one, then me on slightly different tangent, you talked about attitudes, which I absolutely get attitude is really important, but where you might have people coming across to you who worked in other organisations where perhaps the culture wasn’t there. And their their behaviours are not as you’d like, because, you know, the behaviours are based on what they’ve learned and what they’ve done. Do you have in your experience any, you know, any gold nuggets on how do you change people’s behaviours, which often influences their attitude?

Clive Johnson 48:42

Right? Yeah, I think I have because I’m going to use do it as an example here, because when people join the business, each head of department presents to the new joiners. Now, I go and do my bit for 30 minutes somebody from development as their if now, people’s expectations of what clients are going to talk about for 30 minutes, if preconceived gently or else and say just coming in for this, and do this and do that. So when I come in and do what I do, and about relationships and attitudes, and you know, this, that and the other, the feedback that we’re getting from the people that joining do it is well, I’ve never been explained health and safety this way. And it makes sense. And it’s again to that not using that cloak of compliance as well to get things done so. So it’s, it’s how you sort of demonstrate that relationship bit, really, in terms of who you are and what you are and getting them and I give them sort of little exercises to do and I’ve got a little it’s a 10 point 10 point question, which I’m happy to share with everybody if you want it. And it asked them to look at their relationships, their personal relationship to health and safety, and that’s at home and at work. And that’s to score yourself on it. And lo and behold, where people are most at risk is at home And so what we’re trying to do is when we get create great attitudes in the workplace, we want them to take those attitudes home as well, as well. So it’s about getting them to look at their own personal relationship to safety and change. And quite often stories that you can relate to that have the desired impact to get them to change. Is answered your question?

Adam Clarke  50:22

Great. Thanks. I’ll pass over to Tracy.

Tracy Seward  50:25

Thank you. Yeah, we’ve we’ve had a couple of questions come in. First one similar to what you were asking Adam, how would you suggest that an organisation measures the effectiveness of a positive health and safety culture? And is it all about figures?

Clive Johnson 50:41

No, it’s not about figures, or whoever said that’s the question is about it. It’s about that visible visibility. And it’s about being out in the business. And you can feel whether you’ve got the right culture or not, when you go and sit in different departments, meetings, or different buildings or construction sites, you know, whether it has an impact or not, and, but what you’ve got to do when you’re doing that, or whoever’s there from the exec or from from my team, it is involved in those conversations, and you get some real feedback, then whether the culture is landing, or it’s not London? Or are you just doing it because you’re ticking the box? And you assume no, by having the conversations with people, whether or not the culture is changing, and behaviours are changing? I don’t think it’s not a dark out. But but we don’t, it’s not we don’t measure it like that, you know, the only thing we do measure is our blinking Accident Incident rate, but nothing else is sort of measured as yet to be fair, but everything’s sort of going out and having a good feeling about things and engaging with people as opposed to it being a dark out science.

Adam Clarke  51:47

No, I completely, completely agree with you, Clive, on on that and, and part of it at times is, you know, if it is the leadership team, you want to get an idea of, of what it looks like is is encouraged them to go out and take some time out of their busy schedule, and go and go and meet some people and get a firsthand look at it.

Clive Johnson 52:05

Yeah, I mean, I don’t know if anyone on the call, it’s old enough to remember Boothby it’s good to talk. And it is good to talk. And that’s what successful health and safety management culture is about conversation, talking personalities. You know, it’s about sharing stories and, and relating it to the workplace. And that’s what changes people’s attitudes and, and cultures, you know, and then they take that behaviour outside the workplace, you know, so

Tracy Seward  52:36

Yeah. Next question that’s come in, what do you do about those that don’t want to engage or fit the culture?

Clive Johnson 52:47

They used to have a sort of phrase in the in the construction sector where it was, if you don’t align with it, you’re down the road, you know, to mean, it’s, if you don’t want to align with this, and I think it’s going back to the question that Adam asked in right into just a few minutes ago, it’s about if the don’t if it will i plus period as people as prisoners, partners or tourists, that’s how I class people joining the business. A prisoner is somebody that didn’t want to listen to Clive really, is coming along to this health and safety chat, just because he’s got to the sort of touristy person is that? Well, I go along, you might say this, I might like this, I might like that learn a bit. But the partner is assuming that’s already embracing it. So the question that I asked people is that how many prisoners I’ve got in the room. And I want people to be honest. So my challenge then is to then say, at least get them to be a tourist before they leave the room. But lo and behold, I want them to be a partner. So I think it’s asking the question in the first place, and then they’ll tell you, hopefully, I mean, my experiences if a prisoner puts his decision prisoner, it generally tells you why. And then from that, you can say, well, look at the thought of doing this, I thought, obviously, this is the way we do it here. And, and having that conversation and engagement. Generally speaking people does the trick. But but that’s how I categorise my audience generally, what I do,

Adam Clarke  54:18

and I love that Clive and I just added to that, you know, don’t underestimate the power of asking someone an open question and then really listening. So if people are in that prisoner category, there’s there’s generally going to be a reason why they’re in it has to be based on their, their past experiences. So someone’s, if someone’s not, not on board, ask them a question. Just tell me about your experiences. Let me understand where you come from so that we can help you. We can work together to move, move forward.

Clive Johnson 54:45

Totally agree totally. So that’s, I hope that’s answered the question, but that’s my sort of approach and it has a desired effect.

Tracy Seward  54:54

As you say, open honest conversations. It’s good.

Clive Johnson 54:58

It’s been it’s straight talking The optimal as well. So it’s either positive or negative. I don’t know if that is.

Tracy Seward  55:07

Well, thank you so much for your time today, Clive and I haven’t had any more questions come in. I’ve had a few people asking for some of the slides and some of the resources that we’ve discussed today, which we will be sending out by Monday. Yeah, when this is finished, yeah. And, and also a link to the recording of the webinar. So thank you, everyone, for joining us today. And yet, we nearly out of time anyway, so we will post all of that stuff after the webinar. And if anyone has any more questions that they want answered, then send those across to us at info at practice 40 two.com Or just reply to the email that we send to you and, and we’ll get live to answer any of those questions. So, yeah, thanks again to my for your time and thank you for people that’s listening. Thank you.

Adam Clarke  55:56

Thank you. Thanks.