Continuous improvement for health and safety at Gallagher
What do Mudgee, Epping, Pukekohe, Kansas City, Owen Sound, Hamilton, and Warwick have in common? They’re all home to Gallagher manufacturing or distribution sites, and they’re all part of a renewed focus on building our health and safety culture and practices across the globe.
Group Health & Safety Manager Ben Brown, who joined Gallagher in February 2021, spent his first year on the job focused on ensuring the safety of our team and maintaining business as usual during the Covid pandemic. Now, he’s turning his focus to creating strong connections between teams doing similar work across the globe and supporting a continuous improvement ethic.
Following a recent series of meetings with distribution team members across our regions, Ben and the teams have achieved some quick wins including:
- developing a risk register for the US, Canada, and the UK
- implementing a Health & Safety management software, which will remove the need for paper-based reporting and give Ben (and therefore our ELT and Board) a picture of our Health & Safety risk and status across the globe.
“The biggest outcome though has been seeing fully engaged teams wanting to make a difference in their workplaces and sharing practices that may help the rest of the Group. My job is to facilitate the connection across these groups and support their growth.”
Ben is focused on how to create better work outcomes, in terms of productivity, efficiency, quality, and health and safety, that helps create a good day at work for everyone.
“A good example is looking at one of our regional distribution hubs unloading a container of stock that has come from New Zealand. If the product has been packed in such a way in New Zealand that doesn’t result in damaged stock on arrival and team members don’t have to do additional manual handling to unload it, then that’s a better work outcome all around.”
He says the Operations leaders across the globe shared a lot of knowledge and experience throughout the Covid times, but once the crisis was over everyone returned to business as usual.
“Our group has around 1300 staff – that’s 1300 minds we can tap into to solve problems that achieve better work outcomes.”
A great example is solving real manufacturing challenges, he says.
“The team at eShepherd in Forest Hill are looking for a solution to remove soldering fumes during the manufacturing assembly process. The team at Thunderbird (in Mudgee) have found a solution to that exact problem, so I’m trying to facilitate a conversation between the two groups.”
Ben and the regional teams have established three Health & Safety huddles across the globe covering the Northern Hemisphere (US, Canada, UK), Australia, and New Zealand. Each group is now establishing a 12-month improvement plan so they can document the areas they want to work on, with support as needed from Ben and the Group team.
“Quite often people think of Health & Safety as compliance. But if you go back to our Health & Safety policy, people are at the centre – all we’re doing is providing the systems and tools and environment for them to make safety an outcome.
Ben says it was talking to Cesar Negrete, one of our warehouse associates in Kansas City, which brought it all home.
“Cesar said it all comes back to family. He comes to work for his family and to be the best for his team. And if we can support that through the systems, tools, and environment, to give Cesar and his team a better day at work, then that’s what it’s all about.”