The A-one+ Area 12 team ihas achieved an industry first by reaching six million working hours free of a Reportable Injury Disease and Dangerous Occurrence (RIDDOR) and no lost time incidents since November 2018.
Within the last three years it has exceeded itsprevious managing agent contract record of 4.65 million working hours RIDDOR free, while delivering around £300 million value of work for its client Highways England.
This landmark achievement has been reached through its behaviour-based safety approach, encouraging its people and supply chain to make the right choice because they want to, according to the company.
A-one+ said it has a ‘strong culture’ of engagement and continuous improvement, by using its award-winning strategy, Wellbeing, Inclusion, Safety, Health and Environment Strategy or ‘WISHES’ . The strategy guides the company’s objectives, tools and engagement for success. It is also aligned with the six focus areas of ‘Home Safe and Well’, which is Highways England’s approach to ensure that no one should be harmed when travelling or working on the strategic road network.
The company’s strategy is renewed annually and updated monthly, with new initiatives from safety observation trends reported by staff on its A-one+ Safety App. This reporting system has been one of A-one +’s biggest successes, making it easy for people to report observations and improvements through a simple app. Each observation is reviewed at a weekly operations meeting and this helps the company to make improvements and eliminate or reduce risk to prevent incidents from happening.
The company uses several tools to help create the right safe environment such as: ‘Be Safe’ cards for all employees, empowering them to stop work if unsafe, WISHES booklets, posters and visual reporting tools to highlight its key objectives, cultural behavioural training with refresher workshops, focussed start of shift briefings identifying specific hazard awareness, supervisor away days with focussed workshops and supply chain safety improvement groups to learn and share best practice.
More recently A-one+’s focus is around maintaining this consistency to the end of the contract. It is holding safety stand down events throughout January focussing on risk management and understanding roles and responsibilities. It has also produced an improved monthly safety, health and environment newsletter, designed as a prompt for supervisors to talk through during briefings to promote conversation and engage people.
Brian Statham, General Manager, A-one+, said: “Reaching this milestone of six million working hours RIDDOR free is an incredible achievement for our team and dedicated supply chain partners. Our challenge is to maintain this to the end of the contract and leave a legacy we will all be proud of. We will continue to work tirelessly to make safety our top priority for our people, customers and communities, and everybody associated with the contract should feel proud of this achievement against the backdrop of working in a challenging environment, often at night and next to live carriageways.”
Regional Director, Yorkshire & North East, Richard Marshall, said: “This is a remarkable achievement and I’d like to congratulate A-one+ on reaching this landmark figure.
“Safety underpins everything we do at Highways England and we will continue to work closely with our supply chain to ensure the safety for road workers and users remains our top priority. Motorways and A roads can be hazardous working environments and important milestones like this are only possible by displaying the right culture and with safety at its heart.”
A-one+ is a shared joint venture between Colas, Costain and Jacobs and a key provider of integrated highway services carrying its work on behalf of Highways England. The support of each parent company is central to A-one+ achieving success.
