Fatal Risks
The safety of our employees and the communities in which we operate is fundamental to our business. Our goal is Zero Harm.
Despite implementation of safety standards and systems being mandatory at our operations, significant incidents and, in some instances, fatal accidents continue to occur. This is a cause of major concern to us, and we are totally committed to eliminating these incidents from our businesses.
Our challenge is to fully implement and optimise the safety management standards we have developed. We need to ensure that all our employees and contractors understand, rigorously apply, and fully comply with these standards.
See the following for:
- details on Our Approach to this challenge
- an understanding of Our Drivers.
Our Approach
Across the organisation we manage safety risks through our risk-based HSEC Management Standards and other dedicated safety systems. Our safety strategy is based on three principles:
- leadership effectiveness
- behaviours and awareness
- rigorous standards and systems for managing risks and ensuring full compliance.
These all focus on our people and systems, with two key objectives:
- ensuring that our practices, procedures, conditions, equipment and behaviour all contribute towards creating a workplace where it is possible to work without adverse impact on people, the environment or the community
- developing our people to make the right decisions as they go about their day-to-day work.
Leadership
The need to address at-risk behaviours and increase safety awareness is integral to achieving Zero Harm in safety, as outlined in 'Our Future State', the Company's vision for its safety performance. Effective safety leadership is crucial to the success of our safety programs. We therefore hold line management accountable for the safety of our operations. In this regard we have implemented an Operating Discipline program.
Behaviour
Behavioural-based safety is the process of involving our people in defining the ways they are most likely to be injured and asking them to observe co-workers; and engaging them in a discussion that reinforces safe behaviours and identifies ways the job can be done more safely.
Standards
A review of our past fatalities and significant incidents resulted in the identification of a series of key fatal risks to our people – risks that require the development of sound systems to eliminate fatalities and incidents that could, in slightly different circumstances, cause fatalities. Consequently the Fatal Risk Control Protocols were established in 2003. The Protocols were developed through workgroups made up of individuals from across BHP Billiton with extensive experience in operations. The Protocols establish minimum performance expectations for managing these risk areas at leading practice levels.
The Fatal Risk Control Protocols are self-audited annually to ensure compliance against the Protocols and that any at-risk practice is identified and managed.
To proactively manage safety performance we use lead indicators as a metric to drive and measure activities that control and prevent injury, damage or loss. When measured and monitored effectively, they provide data to enable effective intervention to address or reverse a negative trend before it results in injury, damage or loss.
We therefore encourage near miss reporting to increase awareness and focus about key fatal risks and provide the impetus for our employees and contractors to review their operation for similar risks and implement preventative actions. Near miss reporting is also useful as a learning tool, providing real and valuable information for use in toolbox talks, safety communications, training programs and risk assessments.
Our Drivers
We recognise that our employees and contractors have a right to a safe work environment and that they have families and dependants whose lives can be devastated by losing a loved one. As well as doing the right thing by our workforce, our mission of achieving Zero Harm is simply good business. We need to be able to attract and retain talented people to work with us, and good people are attracted by high standards and performance.
To obtain and maintain a licence to operate, we must be seen by our host communities as a company that protects and cares for its people. We must also be able to continue operating within increasingly stringent regulatory frameworks.
In financial terms we are a very successful organisation, but until we eliminate fatalities from our operations we will not achieve our objective of being the best company. We recognise that it is the best companies that people want to welcome into their communities and work with, buy from and invest in.
