If you improve safety, at the same time you also improve product quality and product and process efficiency.
Top quality is every grower’s trademark. Safety is another important priority: Growers take things further than is legally necessary and set the bar extremely high. The result? millions of working hours without any accident leading to absence, working methods and production processes which are efficiently organized and an undisputed product quality.
Growers need to draw up clear guidelines to limit dangerous situations as much as possible and reduce the chance of incidents. The most important ones are summarized as the so-called ‘golden guidelines’ ‘Certain for instance when it comes to working at height, loading and unloading, separating pedestrians from forklifts and working in closed areas.’ It is essential of course that employees adhere to these guidelines. ‘According to the law, you are not allowed to drive faster than 50km/hr in urban areas. But not everyone is adhering to that rule either,’. ‘Research showed that the unsafe situations within companies are for 90 per cent the result of decisions of employees to do something or not.
Stimulating safety awareness is therefore crucial.’ That is why stimulation of the safety culture and safety behaviour of people receive a lot of attention in floriculture. Most growers organise annual safety day. During this specific day employees are actively involved in workshops and receive medical checks. In addition, each employee receives a socalled safety visit. ‘An employee is being visited by a trained colleague who observes them and advises on improvements.
These are so-called Safety Management Auditing Technique-audits, or in short SMAT-audits. In this way growers prevent people from getting blinkered view, because they have been doing their job for a very long time. Research shows that people with routine jobs run the largest risk of getting an accident.’
The mentioned safety guidelines in combination with the focus on safe conduct is clearly bearing fruit. Flower growers employees are extremely safety conscious and – very important – point out unsafe behaviour to each other.
Safety on Site
Growers not only find it important for employees to work safely within the company premises, companies pay attention to safety on the road and at the grower’s location. ‘Many colleagues travel a lot and visit clients. Research has showed that calling while driving is extremely dangerous, even when it is done hands free. Growers guideline therefore states that in case of bad weather or important calls, to park your car first. It is still a challenge to find a balance with regards to this specific issue.’
Experience teaches us that safety on site at the grower is not receiving sufficient attention yet, not with regards to their own personnel nor third parties. According to a grower working on height is a good example. ‘Every day production employees, consultants and suppliers use installations which take them high up in the greenhouse. At every point that works up to 6 metres high needs to follow a safety training first, be secured and use a helmet on a certified installation that is regularly checked. This is not without reason! The number of deadly accidents while working at height is extremely high all over the world.’
This is exactly why growers will train the employees who regularly work in greenhouses on how to work safely at height and make them more conscious about the existing dangers. In the future we also want to take into account other unsafe situations in and near greenhouses. A possible example for instance is making machines energy free when they are being maintained. ‘This knowledge we also want to share and discuss with clients in order to increase safety awareness among growers. We hope this will be an eye opener for them.’ Although the average horticultural company can improve a lot when it comes to safety, in other aspects the horticultural sector is leading. ‘Other sectors can learn a lot from the hygiene protocols that are implemented in horticulture.’
Multiple benefits
The focus on safety does not only result in extremely low figures of occupational injuries; growers are benefiting in other fields as well. ‘If you improve safety, at the same time you also improve product quality and product and process efficiency. ‘Working safely does also imply working error-free. When a machine is not directly accessible because of fencing, you cannot fix small problems quickly. You therefore have to guarantee that the machine always works perfectly. Those issues benefit the quality and the working methods. All these factors are interrelated and strengthen each other. That is why working in a safe way leads to multiple benefits!