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Assist and Assure Monadelphous Case Study full recording (member company-only link)
Challenge
Monadelphous is an Australian engineering group providing construction, maintenance, and industrial services to a wide range of customers within the resources, energy, and infrastructure sectors. With a 7,400 strong, multidisciplinary workforce supporting its operations across the globe, Monadelphous has successfully delivered a diverse range of services to the energy industry, both onshore and offshore, working on some of the most significant energy projects in the world.
Monadelphous believes that “The Safe Way is the Only Way”, that safe projects are successful projects, and that all injuries are preventable. The company lives its corporate values of safety and wellbeing every day and actively promotes that culture to all employees, subcontractors, and business partners. Safety is not just a set of rules - it is a company attitude that everyone embraces.
Pre-job planning and transition to work is a vital part of any effective safety management system, but just how effective are the hazard identification checklist tools that have traditionally been used by many companies to do this? Do they generate the quality of conversation that’s required to ensure all members of the team “switch on” prior to commencing the task?
Solution
Assist & Assure is a way of working to proactively identify and mitigate risk in work preparation and execution. Its primary objective is to avoid harm to those on the front line. Trialled successfully across the Shell Wells Group globally, Shell subsequently gifted the Assist & Assure program to industry via Safer Together.
Monadelphous became aware of the Assist & Assure program when it was introduced by Shell to one of their offshore facilities.
The Assist & Assure program focuses on creating a safe environment for open, engaging safety conversations meant to 'Assist' employees and contractors to work more safely, and it 'Assures' us both individually, and as a community in a proactive manner, that the conversations are consistent and effective leading to improvement in safety outcomes.
The four key elements of the program are:
- safely transitioning to work
- ensuring safe work processes – Step 7
- effective supervision; and
- in field assurance conversations with field teams.
The key to the tool is generating conversation between the team members to ensure all risks are discussed, understood, and mitigated to ALARP. This conversation centres around the premise that “if the risks are not talked about, then they are not thought about”.
Safer Together offers training and support materials so that Member Companies can effectively deploy Assist & Assure in their workplace.
Result
The Assist & Assure program was first introduced to Monadelphous in Q3 2020 through leadership training workshops, up to and including the divisional General Manager. Attendees included onshore HSE teams, onshore leads, onshore HSE Manager, Project Director and offshore supervisors who were on R+R (rest and recuperation).
These sessions were first held in Perth and then rolled out on site though toolboxes, training sessions, infield engagements and checking back in with the crews initially on a daily basis and reducing over time once the crew were comfortable with the tool. Onshore leads also mobilised to site to support roll out of the program.
Roll out of the Assist & Assure program took approximately three months, to enable Monadelphous to reach everyone and to allow time for initial uncertainty around the program to be resolved. Deployment was facilitated through posters and information delivered in pre-starts and toolboxes, plus handing out a physical card to all employees and then following up to ensure they had their card on them when out in the field. Anyone who didn’t have their cards were issued new ones in field.
The program was rolled out to core crews of approximately 100 people and then on an as needed basis when campaign crews were mobilised to site. An overview of the Assist & Assure program and reminders of its use are also delivered as part of the “new to site” and “return to site” engagement with Offshore Coordinators.
Monadelphous found that Assist & Assure was a fantastic conversation starter for infield engagement. Use of the program became second nature to the teams and therefore provided a level of confidence to the teams when engaging with client or company management and area authorities during in-field interactions.
The program has provided a structured, effective process for changing and developing positive safety focused human behaviours, engaging personnel at all levels, both individually and collectively, in their daily tasks. The workforce embraced its use and have found real value through each phase of the Assist & Assure program – transition to work, safe work process, goal zero supervision and assurance.
Monadelphous observed that the Assist & Assure Step 7 process really engages all work party members during toolbox talks. Working through every line every time ensures that everyone in the work party understands the scope, their role, who is doing what, what tools are required, what hazards exist, and the controls needed to reduce the risks. The process prompts the user to ask the same questions before starting work that would be asked during an investigation of an incident.
Assist & Assure has been well received by line managers, site supervisors and frontline work crews alike because they can see for themselves the benefits:
"Great tool to create a group discussion within the crew. Creating these discussions instils confidence that the crew understand the hazards associated with the scope and to check controls are in place” (Rigging Supervisor)
“It engages the wider team and encourages interaction. It also lets us reflect on lesson learnt from previous activities. The process is very thorough and is never rushed. I’ve even witnessed where a question has been asked from the Area Authority to the group which they were having trouble answering. Area Authority gave the group a few ideas to consider, made them have a group discussion, the meeting was re-started, and everyone was then made more aware of their surroundings.” (Coordinator)
“Identifies any simultaneous operations in the area, which includes not just surrounding area but also above and below. Instils confidence that scope is safe to start.” (Insulator)
Lessons Learnt
Commitment From The Top – ensure leaders in your company are put through the training modules to fully understand the program and deliver a top-down implementation process. Management-led implementation and engagement on site delivered assurance to our teams that we were 100% behind and embraced the program.
Let the Work Crews Lead The Conversation – and contribute with open ended searching questions if a risk or work task has been missed. Simply providing the answers does not allow the team to activate their thought process and collaborate to identify the risks.
Approach conversations in a non-confrontational, supportive, and friendly manner – always have spare cards on you when conducting field talks and interactions. Replacement cards need to be given out without hesitation or negativity.
Download the Case Study Poster.