SIR MOIR LOCKHEAD SAFETY AWARD
Malem describes how local
conditions have in uenced
its approach. “The messaging
doesn’t change at the top level: don’t
proceed to work if it is unsafe; do
one-minute risk assessments; try
to get across a culture where people
feel empowered to stop working if
they think it is unsafe. It’s the usual
stu . The only thing I would say that
is di erent in the Middle East is that
maybe there are more nationalities. I
think we have 71 di erent languages
in the organisation. There is the risk
of miscommunication or people not
quite understanding, and cultures
that don’t really want to ask if people
don’t understand, because they don’t
want to lose face. The biggest issue is
the cultural and language barriers.
“We have this thing we call ‘speed,
simplicity and self-con dence’. The
simplicity bit is taking our operating
procedures and making them easy
“Visibility, lead by example and keep
it fun and fresh; otherwise people will
get bored of it”
to understand. We do role-play for
example when we are training people
to understand the procedures, which
we probably don’t do as much of in
other parts of the world.
“We are in one of the few parts
of the world where we have to
not only look after people during
the day, but we also we look after
them, for the majority of sta , with
PHIL MALEM
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
SERCO MIDDLE EAST
accommodation at night. That posed
extra responsibilities when COVID
came along. We said we wanted to
come out of the pandemic stronger
as a company than when we went in.
And I don’t just mean in a nancial
perspective, but I mean culturally, in
looking after each other. Our values
are really important to us, it’s about
trust and care, and COVID allowed us
to do it. We talk a lot about health and
safety and we get into the theoretical
too quickly. It’s the old adage of going
home at night in the same condition
that they went to work in the
morning. With COVID, we continue to
do that, and we have tried to drive on
the cultural piece of looking after each
other; we are a family.
“I insist on very high visibility of
leaders and leading by example in
terms of the values and the culture
and particularly in terms of health,
safety, environment, security and
welfare of sta . A lot of it is about
getting people out there, getting
visible, getting close to contacts and
to people; really understanding what
the key issues are. I go out on site
with di erent contracts two to three
times a week, and I would like that to
be the same for the rest of the team.
We do have the near-miss reporting
and the safety observations. You’ve
got to make safety interesting and
fresh, and inclusive – everyone’s
got the ability to in uence, and
the con dence to do a safety
observation, good or bad. Everyone’s
got to have the con dence that if I
stop a job I’m not going to be shouted
at by the supervisor.
“We’ve just done a zero-harm
week. We did about 20 activities.
It was really fun; people enjoyed
it. There was mental health stu
in there; there was road safety, we
talked about COVID. So: visibility, lead
by example and keep it fun and fresh,
otherwise people will get bored of it.
“We use leading indicators such as
near misses. Plot near miss reporting
and you’ll start to see trends and
hotspots; the certain contracts that
we really need to keep an eye on. But
it’s not only standalone. Let’s say
that the near-miss report might be
a spillage in a certain building, and
someone goes and cleans it up. That’s
great, because it might have stopped
something bigger; wonderful. But
if you don’t store the data and use
and analyse it, you might not know
that that same spot that you’re
referring to has had 20 other people
report near misses in the past 20
days. I’m exaggerating to make the
point. It might be a knock-on e ect,
there might be some other issue. It’s
not just a spillage; there might be
problem with the water system, or
whatever else. Without collecting the
data and analysing it, you would never
see trends and patterns.”
20 www.operationsengineer.org.uk Winter 2021
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