Keeping the light bulb on! - E.ON: Re-energizing Health and Safety

One of the UK's largest power and gas companies, sponsor of the FA Cup, member of the British Safety Council and winner of 7 Swords of Honour in 2010: how are these things connected? E.ON.

E.ON is a leading energy supplier with over 5.3 million electricity and gas customers covering domestic, small business and industrial markets. In the UK, the company has around 17,000 employees (70,000 worldwide) and they work across a variety of divisions. Due to this, the health and safety implications across its workforce are huge.

Derrick Farthing, director of health, safety and environment, explains the risks some of them face: "The risks in our company vary tremendously depending on where people are. For example, we've got a lot of people in call centres and their main risks are MSDs and stress conditions. If you look at others, there are a few that work as linesmen, going out and looking after the networks and they do have an MSD risk, but they are clearly dealing with working at heights and electricity. There is also our generation staff: we have people there doing a mixture of jobs: working in the control room, and there the risks are limb disorders, but there are others who also work with electricity and manual handling."

Derrick adds that their biggest risk led to E.ON putting in their own time and money into researching it. "Slips, trips and falls are definitely the largest risk. The accident profile for this is from our employees who sell door-to-door. That's why we've researched and invested in the right type of footwear to stop them slipping."

E.ON has been a member of the British Safety Council for four years and has benefitted from membership from the word go: accessing auditory programmes, benchmarking their health and safety standards and motivating people. Derrick says: "What the British Safety Council five star audit does is give you an assurance and a benchmark. You can use that to either check or motivate people. We go through about 4 or 5 five star audits a year at different sites and we use it for different things in different parts of our business. For some areas it's to go out and assure where the standards already are and look for ways in which we can develop; in others we use it as a stepping stone to something like the 18001 accreditation." The British Safety Council was able to provide particular help in that respect by providing a gap analysis prior to E.ON going through the 18001.

Going through the 18001 accreditation challenged E.ON in its robust, consistent and broad check of its systems. "You've got to have everything in place and explain it," Derrick notes. "We've always tried to get the same auditor, so there is also that consistency. And he has always been very competent, understanding the whole picture and what we are trying to do."

And E.ON is doing a lot. Over the last three years E.ON has implemented a massive project across the whole of the E.ON UK business about the way it engages with its contracting partners. Derrick explains, "It has had a big impact and overall we have managed to drive down accident rates substantially." Attendance has also been an issue: "We have also managed to improve attendance and in that respect, over the last 3 years, we have saved over £28 million. This comes about when you've got a really engaged senior management team and the leaders here are really keen to drive safety and health through the business and that shows in results."

And being a member of the British Safety Council helps when driving health and safety practices through any business. As Derrick points out, being a British Safety Council member has its benefits, no matter the type of organisation: "If you're an SME, things like Safety Management magazine and the information systems are very useful. If you're a large organisation the ability to tap into internationally recognised standards like the five star audit is extremely useful. Even people who are very well developed in their health and safety culture go for the Sword of Honour. It's a chance to celebrate success in health and safety. Most of the time we're talking about avoiding negative things, but having something really positive, something to celebrate such as winning a prestigious award in health and safety is fantastic. It's called 'light bulb management': the only time you notice a light bulb is when it doesn't work. The only time you really notice safety is when it's not working and people are getting hurt and having accidents."

E.ON is a good example, therefore, of keeping conscious that the lights are on - and that they remain so.

Article thanks to British Safety Council.