UAE Focus

UAE Focus

EC Harris urges focus on safety, health

01 November 2006

Cost-effective investment into Safety, Health and Environment (SHE) is as valuable as investment into any other business asset and can result in dramatic savings in your company’s bottom line, says EC Harris, a leading a professional services consultancy.

Good health and safety can help reduce costs – a UK-based utilities company saved £2.5 million ($4.7 million) by accident prevention alone from April 1992 to March 1998, reducing accident costs by 40 per cent and increasing productivity by 25 per cent.
“Most organisations are unaware of the true cost of poor health, safety and environmental standards and need to be aware that tackling the causes is not an unnecessary overhead but an investment in their business. The benefits achieved have helped clients manage their businesses with greater safety and environmental awareness, whilst obtaining significant costs reductions in operating costs,” says Aziz Zerban, regional health and safety consultant of EC Harris.
According to him, good health and safety management benefits businesses through:
Improved safety, reduced sickness, accidents and incidents;
• Improved efficiency and costs through the integration of SHE into mainstream business systems and processes;
• Reliable cost and completion dates;
• Cost reductions in building maintenance and operation;
• More efficient project management and planning;
• Increased productivity and quality of work;
• Improved publicity, reputation and repeat business;
• Project life-cycle cost savings;
• Reduced damage/loss of raw materials, products, property and plant;
• Reduced risk of fines;
• Reduced insurance premiums; and 
• Effective risk management.
“Those involved in construction within the Middle East must realise that successful health and safety is not about quick fixes but a sustained top down management approach and that installing a positive safety culture is vital. Many companies do have health and safety budgets. However they find that their performance remains stagnated. Not surprisingly, safety campaigns such as new rules, training, personal protective equipment, inspections and audits have little or no effect on safety performance, while ineffective expenditure only exacerbates financial losses (see figure above).
“It is a known fact that world class organisations with health and safety high on the agenda are often the most successful. EC Harris has the experience and knowledge to show companies how to achieve high standards,” says the Zerban.

The Solution
EC Harris International has a proven background of helping clients of all sizes and sectors identify and manage their organisation’s risks in a positive and proactive manner, he continues.
“Our focus on innovation and putting clients’ needs at the heart of our business has resulted in the development of long-term relationships with many of the world’s leading organisations. This has provided us with a unique understanding of our clients’ organisation drivers and risks. We are therefore delighted to introduce our construction and facilities health, safety and environmental service to the UAE,” he says.
“We aim to deliver solutions that meet the needs of our customers throughout the asset by providing business solutions that deliver better value results. Our construction consultancy offers assistance in the planning and creating of elements of the lifecycle, while our health and safety facilities management consultancy offers assistance during its operation,” he says.
Listing out the benefits accrued to the company’s clients following the implementation of the company’s services, he says:
“We have shown that smarter partnering improves efficiencies and savings. Our supply chain assessments alone when integrated into business management systems have the ability to offer savings of up to 30 per cent.
“The alignment of Health Safety and Environmental Key Performance Indicators into the overall business management system, can improve efficiency-related savings by up to 10 per cent,” he adds.
EC Harris has consistently demonstrated that its proactive safety and environmental approach does reduce waste and create a competitive advantage, says the Zerban.
The company’s professional SHE service provides:
•Health and safety management of construction and design: A study carried out by European Week determined that 60 per cent of accidents and 25 per cent of fatalities on construction sites were attributed to poor planning and design. The management of construction and design follows the principles of the UK CDM regulations and involves clients, designers and construction companies and its implementation means that health and safety is managed as a structured process from conception right through to the operation of the asset. EC Harris provides a proactive service that uses best practice, together with IT tools to manage the entire health and safety construction process, he says. The service offers clients a number of significant benefits, including effective risk management and planning, reduction of on-site injuries, reductions in the overall cost of building maintenance and operation, project lifecycle cost savings, and reliable cost and completion dates.
• Site inspections and audit utilising performance management tools: “These powerful tools provide the client the greatest value in terms of focused impact by offering real-time status on legal compliance and health and safety performance. They offers clients the potential for significant cost savings by enabling them to manage and mitigate risks more effectively, both at strategic and operational levels. The company’s tools increase transparency and give the client control in complex and demanding environments. Key Performance Indicators and Key Performance Measures are developed to meet the needs of the client, sector and industry,” says Zerban.
• Safety management systems implementation and management: EC Harris has extensive experience in providing bespoke, user-friendly and cost-effective robust safety management systems that not only complement existing business management systems but include performance benchmarking tools, promote best practice and lead to an overall increase in business efficiency. These systems may be integrated into facilities management (built assets) or construction processes.
• Assessment of supply chains: this enables organisations to demonstrate that reasonable enquiries have been made to establish the competency of supply chains, and includes a rigorous assessment of a sub-contractors’ safety, health and environmental management systems and implementation.
• Accident investigations: With experience of helping organisations prevent accidents, the company is ideally positioned to help clients to investigate the causes when something does go wrong. As well as the devastating human consequences of accidents, the cost affects everyone involved from the sub-contractor to the client. EC Harris will ensure accidents are investigated and make certain that lessons learnt from these reports are cascaded down.
Environmental consultancy: Environmental legislation, coupled with increased public awareness of environmental issues, means that businesses cannot afford to ignore environmental risks. The company’s flexible consultancy service meets clients’ varying environmental compliance needs. The service options include full environmental aspect/impact assessments, sustainable procurement assistance, waste management, pollution control, packaging and implementation of complete environmental management systems – whether in-house, EMAS or ISO14001.
• Safety, health and environmental training: Critical to any organisation’s safety culture is a competent and knowledgeable workforce. Given the different languages and cultures of workers, ensuring that effective training is provided can be a huge task.  EC Harris offers tailor-made training packages that meet an organisation’s and its clients’ needs. It aims to ensure that the training packages reflect current legislative requirements and advocate best practice.




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