G4S Group CEO, Ashley Almanza, talks to The International Security Ligue, an organisation which he chairs, on ‘Putting Safety First: A Zero Tolerance Approach to Harm’ about safety and the importance of putting our people first.
“Delivering world class security for our clients is a complicated business. There are myriad nuances to consider. A thousand little details to address. It requires the precise movement of hundreds of moving parts. However, for all our intricacies, security companies are also rather straightforward. At our core, we are all about our people.
“Day in and day out, we rely on our security officers to keep our clients’ people, property and assets safe from harm. It is our employees that make us the companies we are, which permits the leaders of our industry to rise above the rest. We may be comprised of countless little pieces, but they are our most valuable resource.
“So, that raises a critical question: Are we taking adequate steps to enhance their safety and health? In other words, are we doing enough to protect the protectors?
“We live in tumultuous times. Societies, technology and the manner of work are all undergoing rapid transformation. These changes have implications for the business, certainly, but they also mean the risks faced by our personnel are evolving. Our safety programmes must keep pace. A safety and health programme that tries to maintain the status quo is almost assuredly moving backward.
“Many safety programmes were built, first and foremost, on the need to meet safety and health regulations. But while compliance assurance is a key element in a successful safety and health programme, it is only a baseline. It is merely a starting point. Regulations are often insufficient to protect workers and typically move too slowly to keep pace with changes in risk. If a compliance mindset is the primary driver of worker safety and health, one should expect that a gradual degradation in performance is likely to go unnoticed.
“To truly advance worker safety and health, safety programmes must focus on goals in addition to regulatory compliance. Programmes must continually move forward, improve and reflect advances in safety management practice, theory and controls. They must be flexible, responsive and continuously measure a variety of indicators of safety performance.
“In a mature safety environment, companies should be able to talk about many aspects of safety at once, without fear that any one discussion will dominate or compromise the others. A company should be able to examine injury rates without fear that the company will view it as the only—or even the most important—measure of safety. And companies should be able to talk about individual behaviour and responsibility without it diminishing the importance of organisational cultural issues. All areas are important, and we need to work on them simultaneously. Our people deserve it.
“The International Security Ligue is an association of private security organisations responsible for defining, establishing and maintaining the highest ethical and professional standards of the private security industry worldwide. The current issue of the bi-annual publication, LIGAZETTE, is dedicated to the issue of employee safety.”
ABOUT THE LIGUE
The International Security Ligue was founded in 1934. The registered offices are based in Berne, Switzerland. The Ligue is an association of private security organisations throughout the free world. Over the years it has played a vital role in defining, establishing and maintaining the highest ethical and professional standards of the private security industry as we know it world-wide. This has been achieved through the very open and cordial exchange of ideas and experiences between the member companies, who are all leading companies in the countries they represent. The Ligue is now represented on all continents and in 34 countries.
www.security-ligue.org
ABOUT G4S
G4S is the leading global, integrated security company, specialising in the provision of security services and solutions to customers. Its mission is to create material, sustainable value for customers and shareholders by being the supply partner of choice in all its markets.
G4S is quoted on the London Stock Exchange and has a secondary stock exchange listing in Copenhagen. G4S is active in around 90 countries and has around 546,000 employees. For more information on G4S, visit www.g4s.com.
