Safety at our Core!

Cognition Land & Water launches our new programme demonstrating that Health, Safety and Wellbeing are rooted in everything we do.

Our primary goal at Cognition is to ensure that all our employees and supply chain go home safe and well at the end of every day.  As a company and individuals, we are all responsible for the health, safety and wellbeing of everyone involved in our projects.  We work with our clients and partners to continually develop a culture that minimises the risk of injury or ill health at work.

Fundamental to ensuring buy-in and commitment to our Safety at our Core culture are the four core principles (BLESS) around which we have built the programme. 

Behaviour

We regularly reinforce expectations of staff and employees to achieve consistent safe behaviours that support our business objectives.

By analysing human factors and risk perception, we tap into the minds of everyone working on our projects. We record all observations using an innovative smart phone/tablet app called iAuditor, which is accessible to all our team.  This allows us to assess health and safety, quality and environmental performance, helping us improve the day-to-day running of our jobs.

Leadership

Cognition’s leaders drive our health, safety and wellbeing culture throughout the business.  From the top down, directors and senior management realise their influence is pivotal to a healthy organisational culture, empowering individuals to ensure Every Voice Counts.  This reinforces our commitment to doing ‘the right thing’ even when inconvenient or against immediate commercial expectations.

We have introduced a leadership audit schedule to encourage continual improvement through engagement with our workforce.  Also, an internal and external training programme for senior management is underway to ensure they have the skills and techniques required to drive forward the programme.

Environment

We want a high-quality working environment to be the expectation and consistent across all projects.  In addition, we will meet and strive to exceed the legally required standard of health, safety and welfare for the benefit of our workforce.

Our aim is to provide improved visual standards and to collaboratively share information such as alerts and good practices across all projects.

Safety Standards

We have developed and introduced a strong foundation of safety standards to be followed consistently setting benchmarks for compliance measurement, performance analysis and improvement planning.

iAuditor is an important tool in maintaining those safety standards and allows us to make health and safety observations, create actions and measure progress towards safer working environments. 

Our aim is to achieve ISO45001 and RISQS thereby demonstrating the highest standards of our health, safety and wellbeing systems, processes and management, and ensuring we are recognised and accredited in our industry.

Campaign launch

This month we launched our Safety at our Core campaign across several of our key projects including Silvertown Tunnels and Harwell LETP Decommissioning.  Our internal H&S manager, Abdul Omar, and Operations Director, Jon Goddard, briefed staff on the programme, the vision of Safety at our Core, the ‘4 Core Principles’ (BLESS), and our expectation of all.

Jon reinforced the message by empowering individuals to say no and stand up for safety.  The campaign included a practical permit to dig scenario, which was well received by our supply chain and clients such as Riverlinx CJV and Magnox, who have commended our Safety at our Core programme.

For more information on how Cognition are putting Safety at our Core, please contact Jon Goddard (jon.goddard@cognitionltd.com) or Abdul Omar (abdul.omar@cognitionltd.com).