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Safe implementation starts at the drawing board. It is not a paper exercise, but a way of working. That is exactly where things sometimes go wrong in practice. Safety has to be right up front: you have to be demonstrably ‘in control’ before the work starts. Fine words alone are not enough: what you say, you must also do. These are the words of Faisel Baboe, strategic safety coach at Baboe Consultancy BV. His son Cynric, manager of integral safety in the Boskalis team, works closely with Faisel to ensure safety during the widening of the A2 motorway in Limburg.
As a company, Baboe Consultancy works on both the contractor side and the client side. Thus, in addition to this Boskalis project (contractor), they also work for ProRail, project De Maaslijn and Rijkswaterstaat (waterways), among others. “When you perform safety from an independent role, it is irrelevant who pays your bill. We see all employees, regardless of blood group, as our colleagues and are entitled to a safe, healthy and pleasant working environment,” Baboe says. “People are our most important capital which will and must be protected at all costs. Of course, we do not lose sight of everything else important in the process because one cannot exist without the other. Hence our slogan: everything in its time!”
“Because we as Baboe Consultancy BV always act from the perspective of the contractor and client, we see at an early stage where things (could) go wrong and especially in the execution up to the management and maintenance phase. Often, unrealistic agreements are made about safety, and they do not always turn out to be feasible during execution. Then unnecessary discussions arise in the heat of the moment during execution,” Baboe knows from experience. “Our role as specialists is not to point the finger, but to think along: how can things be done?”
The core of the approach is simple, but requires guts: turn the perspective around. “And we do that by reasoning not from what a client asks, but what you yourself, from your own heart and soul, need to do the job right and safely in one go,” he explains. “If you organize that well, a client ultimately wants exactly the same thing.” The family business advises on working conditions based on the Occupational Health and Safety Act, but looks beyond rules. The basic way of working is to look at safety from the starting point that the work is going to be delivered and then look back at what you need to do to do that. “So safety approach starts with the work process and the people doing the work. Can employees and machines actually do what is asked of them? Is the load realistic? Are the right resources available? Analyzing each activity individually reveals common ground: between shifts, machines, operations and environment. As manager of integral safety on the Boskalis team, Cynric's job is to ensure safety in all work plans.”
Instead of saying ‘we'll see that there,’ everything is coordinated in advance, Baboe assures. “Who works where, when and with what resources? Who runs into each other? Who waits then, and who goes first and why? That coordination takes time on the front end, but prevents improvisation, failure costs and delays in execution.” Baboe Consultancy always looks at this through the employee's lens. “What does he or she have to do? What knowledge and experience is needed? Is this the right machine, and does the user know that machine? The environment is also included, as are other activities at the same location. Safety is thus not a separate component, but fully integrated into planning and execution.”
As an independent reviewer, Baboe then reviews the work plans already prepared in the preliminary phase by the Boskalis team in conjunction with his son. “In this way, the client sees that Boskalis is critical of itself, which virtually eliminates the risk of safety-related rejection of their submitted plans. You can never prevent accidents completely, but by focusing on the right attitude and behavior in combination with good preparation you reduce the chance enormously. And that's where real safety begins.”
