Thanks to the launch of targeted occupational safety programs, Norilsk Nickel has achieved significant changes in reducing injuries.
Stanislav Seleznev, Vice President for Ecology and Industrial Safety of Norilsk Nickel, in an interview to journal.ecostandard.ru told how the company works with managers and employees in terms of occupational safety.
According to the vice president, if the head of a plant or mine has one fatal accident during the year, he is deprived of annual bonuses. If the second one appears, the division director is fired.
"Since then, the directors have been turning to me for help, we audit their enterprises with them, look at where the main problems are, analyze the incidents that have occurred, and I, just like a doctor, prescribe a specific set of "pills" for each enterprise – labor protection measures. Then the director starts working with lower-level managers," says Seleznev.
He informed that the institute of internal occupational safety trainers has been opened at Norilsk Nickel, where two main trainings are conducted – on dynamic risk assessment for workers and behavioral safety audit for managers. Workers are taught to look for risks around them with the help of dynamic assessment, managers are taught to talk to workers with the help of behavioral audit. And it depends on both sides how this knowledge will work to reduce injuries.
"The labor protection service has two ways. The first is a "crusade", when you come and build a system of totalitarian fear, and at the same time you need to stand over it all and watch, because as soon as you turn away, someone will try to break something. And the second way is "missionary", when you convey to employees what they themselves begin to believe, and thus motivate them to safety. We are following the second path," Seleznev summed up.
Alex Shishlo for Rough&Polished
