Safety is a non-negotiable on a project and the rules are there on-site to ensure everyone returns home safe from work. However, sometimes, bad habits can form and in the absence of accountability, shortcuts can be made. It’s therefore imperative that behavioural safety is at the forefront of all our minds on-site.
Gratte Brothers’ Health & Safety Advisor, Stephen Murray is making a considerable drive to deliver this initiative, having recently created the Behavioural Safety Leaderboard at GBL’s LON2 site. This leaderboard acts as a league table, ranking each contractor’s Health & Safety performance (this includes Gratte Brothers, too)! At the end of each month, the contractor in the top spot selects a charity for Gratte Brothers to donate £100 to. The contractor in last place has to donate £50 to a charity of Gratte Brothers’ choice.
Scoring for the leaderboard follows a green, yellow and red observation system:
- Green | 3 points | Positive safety performance (full PPE, raising near misses etc).
- Yellow | -3 points | Deviating from Gratte Brothers’ safety ethos.
- Red | -6 points | Repetitive or substantial failures to adhere to health and safety requirements on-site. Operatives may be sent home, with RAMS reviewed.
Stephen’s creation is in its infancy, but positive results are already evident. Last month, the subcontractor in last place took on board the observations raised and recognised the need to raise its standards. By the end of the month, changes made meant they were ranked in the top 3; quite the effort! Also, in August 2023, the H&S team at LON2 were getting four contractor weekly returns. They now receive fourteen a week by having implemented this simple behavioural safety push.
The leaderboard extends beyond site level: we’ve now initiated monthly Director meetings to discuss performance, too. These meetings serve as a platform for the senior management of our subcontractors to align with Gratte Brothers’ Safety First ethos. As a result, the contractors have bought into the scheme and now eagerly anticipate the weekly communications Stephen pushes to the project.
Safety is always paramount:
The scheme ultimately reminds us that everyone on site is responsible for ensuring the safety of themselves and those around them. We must all be held equally accountable. With LON2 successfully adopting the scheme, we’ll soon be rolling it out across the rest of our business.
We see this as a win-win. Operatives and contractors embrace Gratte Brothers’ safety culture, which means that our Health & Safety teams can concentrate on driving continual improvement, and our projects also give back something to charity as well as the local community every month.
