On 28 April 2017, Arkema takes part in the World Day for Safety and Health at Work. Sponsored by the International Labour Organization (ILO), this event focuses on the prevention of occupational accidents and diseases. The Group, which aims to rank among the best chemicals manufacturers in terms of safety, is stepping up its awareness initiatives, in particular through its peer observation program.
Safety is everyone’s business!
Arkema places safety and the protection of the health of its employees at the center of its concerns. "Leading by example" not only in-house but also with regard to all stakeholders.
In order to enhance the safety of both its personnel and its facilities, Arkema works towards promoting responsible behaviors. For the last ten years, the company has been encouraging its personnel to practice peer observation.
What is peer observation?
The principle of peer observation entails engaging risk awareness in order to reduce the number of accidents at work. There are two ways a peer observer might step in: either a peer sets out to watch a colleague performing a task, or a peer responds to a coworker’s request for an outside take. The purpose is the same: a safety debriefing based on the comments jotted down during the observation.
The exercise encourages us to reach out to each other and talk about the safety of a frontline situation. Safety isn’t just for specialists.
Everyone is responsible for their own safety and for the safety of others; everyone is therefore involved in this initiative, which is an integral part of Arkema’s CSR policy. "Peer observation has clearly made our teams more vigilant", says Paul Leonard. For evidence, you have only to look at the sharp reduction in the total recordable injury rate, or TRIR, per million hours worked, which has dropped by 50% in the last three years.
This participatory and caring monitoring method has now been adopted by almost 60% of the Group’s sites. The target by 2025 is to extend it to 100% of the sites.
Testimonies from coworkers
Peer observation starts conversations. Through constructive double-checking, everyone pays more attention to the safety of others. Vigilance becomes a collective effort. Five percent of the 190 observations conducted in 2016 led to corrective actions, such as cleaning filters to cut down on dust and reminding people of the proper body mechanics for moving heavy objects. Our observers — two-thirds of our staff — are big supporters of the practice.
More than 60% of our people have been trained in peer observation, three years after it was introduced at the plant. This shows how invested our teams are in the method, which also benefits members personally. Spotting an at-risk situation not only lets you correct a behavior — thereby improving safety — it also points up a technical or organizational problem that was missed. For example, following observations on several machines, we replaced tools that were found hard to use.