A-one+ has reported reaching five million hours RIDDOR free, following a ‘consistent and rigorous’ effort towards eliminating risk in Area 12 of the strategic network.
All staff have been encouraged to focus on individual behaviour and responsibility, enabling them to address risk before it becomes an incident. This is part of a company-wide award-winning Wellbeing, Inclusion, Safety, Health and Environmental Strategy (WISHES), which says A-one+, has been ‘fundamental’ in helping to ‘develop the right mature behaviours, management tools and engagement to achieve success’.
A-one+ started the five-year asset support contract in Area 12 in June 2016 and since then it has been working to exceed the 4.65 million hours achieved in its previous five-year contract. It’s taken the company two and half years to beat our record with more than £250 million in value of schemes and maintenance work delivered.
The WISHES is fully aligned with Highways England’s ‘Home Safe and Well’ safety framework but tailored to suit the needs of A-one+ and updated each year using intelligence from safety observations, industry awareness and parent company best practice. “We know it includes the things that matter to us from front line to back office support. The WISHES are driven by behaviour-based safety, encouraging our people to do the right
thing because they want to and not because they must,” says the company.
“Behavioural change is linked to continuous improvement, fostering engagement between management and workface operational staff, allowing our people to innovate, improve and take ownership,” it went on to say.
As a result, several tools have been implemented as part of the engagement process; Be Safe cards for new employees, empowering them to stop work , if unsafe, WISHES booklets and posters and visual reporting tools, cultural behavioural training and refresher workshops, A-one+ Safety App for reporting observations and ideas and a start of shift briefing incorporating hazard awareness. There are also safety stand downs and supervisor away day targeted workshops, design, maintenance, customer and supply chain improvement groups and LEAN methodologies are implemented for continuous improvement.
Five million hours equates to 625,000 eight-hour working shifts where A-one+’s team and its supply chain got ‘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.
Highways England Regional Director, Richard Marshall, said: “Safety underpins everything we do at Highways England and I’d like to congratulate A-one+ on such a remarkable achievement. Motorways and A roads can be hazardous working environments and important milestones
like this are only possible with the right culture, with safety at its heart. We will continue to work closely with our supply chain to ensure the safety for road workers and users is our top priority.”
Brian Statham, General Manager, Area 12 said: “Reaching five million hours RIDDOR free shows how our people have embraced our WISHES and brought the ethos to life as we deliver our service. Creating the right environment for the right behaviours is encouraging ownership to report, review and remove risks as they’re observed, eliminating it at source.
“This achievement will be a legacy for our Area 12 team as we head towards transition to asset led delivery in 2021. They should be proud of the vital role they continue to play for themselves, for each other and for our industry as we head into that change.”
In addition, the company’s Area 4 team covering Kent, Sussex and parts of East Hampshire exceeded four million hours and almost three years without a RIDDOR in June this year, marking A-one+ as a nine million hours RIDDOR free service provider for Highways England.
A-one+ is a shared joint venture between Colas, Costain and Jacobs and a key provider of integrated highway services carrying out work on behalf of Highways England. The support of each parent company is central to A-one+ achieving success.
