Legal advice also works preventively

Working safely and vitally is not just an issue for employers. Employees must also be aware of their role. How do you achieve that? Nicole Broos, manager P&O at Desch Plantpak tells how Poelmann van den Broek opened the eyes of their employees with a practical workshop.

Desch employees are true makers: pots, containers, trays, everything for professional horticulture. Production goes on day and night. And yes ... those shifts, they are quite heavy and can make employees feel less fit.

Healthy shift work

Nicole Broos: "Sustainable employability and safe working practices are high on our agenda. That is why we regularly take stock of the areas in which we need to take action. Besides education on healthy shift work, the prevention of incidents was on our action list. And for this we called in Nieske Nijkamp of Poelmann van den Broek. After all, she has been our regular partner for legal advice for more than ten years."

Concrete examples

The advantage of working closely with Poelmann van den Broek is that legal advice is also used preventively. In other words, prevention rather than prevention. Nicole Broos: "We want to make our employees aware of the importance of working safely and encourage behavioral change. This is best achieved by using concrete examples and then applying the theory. Because Nieske knows us well, she was able to use examples in the workshop that fit well with the perception of the employees."

Working as efficiently as possible

"We felt it was important to put the 'Healthy and Safe Working' workshop in a positive light and, above all, to emphasize what is already going well and what could be improved. Because we realize that most industrial accidents arise from the intention to work as efficiently as possible. If you've been operating the same machine for 20 years, you know when it's going to take its next hit. So why would you stop it first when a jar is crooked...? Accident risks are often underestimated."

The impact on colleagues

"Nieske mentioned the good intentions of the employees, that they want to solve a problem quickly without observing safety regulations. In the open and safe atmosphere thus created, the consequences were discussed. Not only the risks to the employees themselves, but also the impact an incident has on colleagues. That made it easy to make agreements on how to do things even better. We noticed that the combination of practical examples and information about the legal consequences struck the right chord. Now employees find it very logical to prevent incidents as much as possible and there is much more consultation between the sites about safe tools and procedures than before. What also helped enormously was the fact that Nieske and her colleague Antoinette Niebeek ended the workshop with a fun quiz and a prize. That made the participants bloodthirsty."

Fixed topic of conversation

The workshop has had a practical follow-up. Near misses are now also reported. Incident prevention at Desch has now become a regular item on the agenda at all meetings and committees. Mission accomplished.

SF nomination

Nice detail is that Desch was the first for-profit company to be nominated for the ESF award. Nicole Broos: "We had applied for a subsidy and the European Social Fund nominated us because we promote the development and health of our employees in a distinctive way. That got us a lot of positive media attention and - more importantly - worked internally as a catalyst."