Safety

COMMITTED TO

EMPLOYEE SAFETY AND WELLBEING

It is a matter of extreme regret that we lost seven colleagues in work-related accidents during the year. We share the pain of their loved ones and are conveying our deepest condolences to them. Their loss is a hard reminder for us to continuously work to strengthen and improve our safety management systems.

At the beginning of FY2020, we observed an increasing trend in safety incidents, leading to fatalities within our workforce, over the past three years. This was a matter of grave concern, because within the same period, we had invested heavily in several systems and standards, which were introduced to ensure a safe, injury-free workplace.

To understand the rationale behind this anomaly, the Group ExCo along with our Group HSE teams went on to analyse the situation and developed a way forward. The team determined that while the existing controls are important and development and monitoring of these needs to continue, given the nature of the safety incidents (70% repeats, >90% impacting our business partners) the following three areas required management attention:

Visible Felt Leadership

Where the expectation for leaders and support personnel is to spend quality time in the field performing safety interactions, workplace hazard reviews, along with making proactive & hands-on safety interventions

Manage Safety Critical Tasks

Business Partner Engagement

Fatalities

CASE STUDY 01:

SURVEILLANCE TEAMS TO ENSURE SAFE WORK CONDITIONS AT NIGHT

BALCO’s Senior Management has vouched for safety and integrity as their prime focus. They strive to ensure a conducive and safe working environment and have undertaken several programmes to demonstrate Visible Felt Leadership.

In order to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the plant at night, the management implemented the Night Surveillance Initiative. The Night Surveillance team promotes smooth flow of operations inside the plant through regulation-based, proactive safety oversight system. The team comprises three executives with one member from the senior/middle management supported by an executive each from safety and security teams. The primary function of the team is to visit the SBUs (Metal, Power and Enabling) to identify unsafe operational practices, violation of cardinal rules, zero tolerance rules, violation of standing order provisions and any other applicable guidelines laid down under the Code of Business Conduct. Over 150 employees are involved in this process, conducting cross-functional audits and have helped highlight several best practices. The initiative is supported by an online platform providing immediate learnings and course corrections. This initiative has provided BALCO an additional platform to spread the awareness on safety and demonstrated the commitment of the senior leadership team towards HSE & the wellbeing of the workforce.

SDG Alignment

Goal: SDG 8- Economic Growth & Decent Work for All
Target:8.8 Protect labor rights and provide safe work conditions for all

CASE STUDY 02:

SAFETY BOOSTER PROGRAM

Unsafe work conditions are often a result of consistent, long-term unsafe habits by employees on the shop floor. Left unchecked, these behaviours can have a negative impact on the safety culture of the site and result in injuries or fatalities.

To prevent such behaviours from spreading unchecked, the Jharsuguda plant has adopted a ‘safety booster’ programme for those employees (Vedanta & business partners) who exhibit borderline unsafe behaviour. These employees are identified by the plant head in consultation with the HODs and safety teams if they exhibit the following behaviours over a period of time:

Higher count of safety notices for areas under their supervision
Repeated road safety violations
Risk taking behaviours while performing jobs, a repetition of violations, or an unwillingness to perform safe work practices
Not conducting Visible Felt Leadership/Behaviour Based Safety/Making Better Risk Decisions (MBRD) interactions/inspections
Lower safety compliance in their area
People working in isolation or isolated areas
PPE violations

Once identified, these employees are provided counselling sessions, safety training, and a review of their performance after six months. The training programme covers the following topics: life-saving rules, safety standards, permit to work system, behaviour-based safety, zero harm culture, safety inspections and interactions, Hazard Identification and Risk Assessment, and safety legal requirements.

This approach has allowed several employees to self-correct once back on the shop floor and has improved the overall safety culture of the plant.

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SDG Alignment

Goal: SDG 8-Economic Growth & Decent Work for All
Target:8.8 Protect labor rights and provide safe work conditions for all