Multinational chemicals company achieves rapid cultural shift and safety performance improvement
Context and Challenges
A global leader in inorganic chemicals manufacturing, this company’s products are used in a broad range of industries, from textile, to paints and coatings, pharma, polymer, ceramic, paper and personal care.
In early 2021, with a new management structure behind it, with the company’s refreshed Board engaged dss+ to assess its safety practices and help define an improvement roadmap.
dss+ Approach
Using the dss+ Operations Risk Management Framework, our consultants conducted a holistic assessment across three sites in India, involving nearly 1500 employees. The following opportunities for improvement were identified:
- The involvement of line management in Safety improvement initiatives was not adequate.
- The employees’ belief in a zero-incident culture needed enhancement.
- Perceptions of risk amongst employees needed to be heightened.
Impact
After a focussed 18 month engagement, remarkable improvement in both safety perception and performance occurred across the organisation. The dss+ Safety Perception SurveyTM analyses employees perception of safety against a global best practice benchmark. dss+ ran one both prior to and at the end of the project; it showed a significant cultural shift by employees and contractors.
Amongst other positive outcomes, the following systems have been maturing and delivering lasting benefits:
- The culture transformation journey has improved production and helped stabilize operations. With cross-functional involvement, many commercial levers have also been realized.
- Leaders are actively participating in safety initiatives, clearly role modelling and demonstrating the priority the company now places on safety.
- Safety is now accepted as a line management responsibility while the safety function acts as a facilitator. This ensures safety is embedded in all company’s activities.
- Leading and lagging KPI’s are systematically tracked and reviewed through established governance structures. This allows the company to react quickly to any concerning trends and address any gaps.
The company is committed to continuing on its safety transformation journey. The organization is now focusing on reducing risks to a higher level and scope level using the framework given by dss+.
“Safety rules are strongly being followed by all. There is an increased awareness at frontline, which is a big change.”
– Senior Management
“All conversations, including even our union meetings, now start with a conversation on safety.”
– Managing Director
“Years ago, we had an initiative to start our phone calls with a “Safety first” slogan. Today Safety truly comes first!”
– Operator