By Sean McLoughlin, Project Manager-Maintenance.

The DCM Maintenance team recently reached a significant safety milestone of more than 4,000,000 man-hours without a loss time injury (LTI). The team also worked over 800,000 hours last year with a Recordable Injury Frequency (RIF) of 0.25 and a Total Injury Frequency (TIF) of 2.98, which represent two major safety accomplishments!

These achievements are a major success for the company and especially for our workers given the industrial and weather conditions in which they work.

The success of our Maintenance team is built on the dedication of its Safety team, the commitment of managers and supervisors and the strength of our workforce.

A safety culture, which flows from top to bottom, is built upon three pillars: strong management commitment (#1 priority), employee engagement and personal accountability. You only get out what you put into it!

The old fashioned way of improving safety was to focus on operator error. Moving away from this outdated approach paved the way for a new philosophy that focuses on culture and management systems that influence safe behaviour and rely on leadership to empower employees at every level to take responsibility for safety.

The basic safety philosophy in maintenance is quite simple:

• All accidents can be prevented.
• No job is worth getting hurt for.
• Every job can (and will) be done safely.
• Incidents can be managed.
• Safety is everyone’s responsibility.

Direct intervention and accountability are needed to eliminate or mitigate unsafe behaviours. As such, it is important to:

• Understand the risks in the workplace and the benefits of working safely
• Come to an agreement on the fact that unsafe behaviours are not worth the consequences
• Recognize and identify unsafe behaviours
• Replace “bad” habits with safe work practices
• Help employees make better choices in terms of working safely, and
• Suggest proper and safe behaviours to create an accident-free workplace

The key to the success of a culture-based approach is to reinforce safe work habits, reward safe behaviour, encourage consistency and remind employees of the effects of incidents.

Examples of our processes and initiatives include:

• The unwavering commitment of management to the safety of its crews, and open and transparent communication with our clients
• A clear demonstration of safety values by management and supervision… we lead by example
• The implementation of an operationally consistent, innovative, creative, and employee-owned safety philosophy
• Detailed dashboards for tracking leading/lagging indicators, analysis and trending
• A thorough investigation and reporting of every incident
• A well-managed and strongly supported employee recognition program
• Trade-specific safety meetings to compliment the formal safety meeting program
• Regular safety inspections and WSOs by Safety, Supervisors and Management
• Strong support of the DCM Green Hand/Gold Hand program

DCM thanks its Maintenance team for their continued dedication and commitment to safety. Keep up the good work!