19 January 2023

A group-wide Safety Stand Down kick starts 2023 – with Safety, Health, the Environment and Quality (SHEQ) remaining a business priority

Health and Safety remains first priority across the Quartzelec business, with the annual safety stand downs now fully adopted UK wide.

As a business, we are committed to ensuring that all of our employees remain safe whilst we deliver an extensive range of engineering support solutions to critical industries and key service sectors and it’s important that all employees take the time to consider the importance of safety within their role as well as the wider business.

Safety Stand Downs have been very well received over the years, as they give employees the opportunity to discuss specific concerns that they may have. Reviews from previous years also allow managers and employees to identify initiatives that worked well but also highlight problem areas, which in turn has helped to create unit-specific objectives.

It’s Safe to Say – the ongoing employee focused wellbeing programme designed to provide a ‘safe’ environment to speak out or seek support in complete confidence is an important part of our SHEQ culture. Its implementation has resulted in a more positive and safety aware workforce and is being further integrated, with the programme’s logo adopted throughout our officially branded workwear.

As we look back at some of our initiatives from 2022, one of the most significant was the introduction of POWRA’s (Point of Work Risk Assessments) to all our projects. This was a success and 2023 will build on this and continue to complete these at the point of work commencement or before changes occur that may increase the risk to individuals and their work party.

Sustainability was also a priority for 2022 and we are proud to be working with ‘The Waste Experts’ who are helping us to reduce the amount of waste that ends up in landfills. We have successfully created a ‘zero to landfill’ process with all our UK based companies and this will remain an ongoing commitment in 2023.

Reducing the amount of plastic is something that we will also continue to do in 2023. Last year we reduced our plastic consumption with our supplier Mathias by 40kg and will build on this this year but also work with our other suppliers to reduce our plastic consumption.

So, what’s new for 2023? Well, as well as SAFETY, we will also be focusing on HEALTH issues and looking at the quality of air that we breathe. Occupational lung disease is contributing to the estimated 12,000 annual death rate and we will be ensuring the proper and safe use of RPE (Respiratory Protective Equipment) especially where employees could be harmed by the emission of silica, dust or paint fumes during tasks. Guidelines have been provided on how to select the correct type of RPE and fitting of the equipment.

HAVs (Hand, Arm, Vibration syndrome) is another health issue that has been highlighted this year with instructions on how to identify and manage symptoms, but also how to safely control vibration hazards.

Finally, we will be looking at solar panel investment on the roofs at some of our locations, looking at renewable energy sources and contributing positively to reducing carbon emissions.

A busy year for the Quartzelec group of companies and 2023 will be committed to keeping people safe and healthy.

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