“WE HAVE MOBILIZED SUFFICIENT LABOUR  
BUT ARE THEY THE RIGHT KIND THAT WE
REQUIRE?”- SNS

Celebrating Safety Month 2021

Following tradition, the new year kicked off with the celebration of January as the Safety Month and the inaugural function was conducted on MS Teams on January 2nd, 2021 replete with a digital flag hoisting and virtual speeches.

In his keynote address, Mr S N Subrahmanyan (SNS) CEO & Managing Director, L&T praised the workmen remobilization effort but inquired whether the labour mobilized was the right kind of workforce that projects were seeking. “Are they are similarly trained or equipped with the right skill sets? Do they understand our value systems, our safety processes, and standards?” Serious questions that project leadership and teams across the organization should take cognizance of and address.

A year of challenges & positives
Setting context to the programme, Whole Time Director & Senior Executive Vice President (Buildings), Mr M V Satish (MVS) described Year 2020 as one that was full of challenges. “It tested our resilience and our capability to respond to sudden disruption,” he remarked, congratulating the site teams for their exemplary handling of the workmen reverse migration and remobilization efforts. “The new year is as good a time as any for us to recommit to Mission Zero Harm,” he shared on a positive note.

A surprising but appropriate speaker at the event was Mr Subramanian Sarma, Whole Time Director & Senior Executive Vice President (Energy) who in his role of Chairman of L&T’s EHS Council, brought in a wider perspective. “I look at Year 2020 for some of its positives,” he said brightly, “first was the massive churn of resources that we witnessed through the year in terms of numbers, composition, etc, then the quick adoption to the new COVID-19 SOPs and protocols and thirdly, the deployment of the latest technologies.” He reiterated that Safety was everyone’s responsibility and that it was imperative to drive safety in one’s sphere of influence and control. “Good EHS leads to good productivity that makes good business sense,” he said, signing off on a high.

A bagful of awards
Both SNS and MVS congratulated the Project and EHS teams for the surfeit of Safety awards that L&T Construction had mopped up during the year including 8 ‘Sword of Honour’ Awards from the British Safety Council all for B&F projects, 86 RoSPA Awards (including 53 ‘Golds’), 5 American Society of Safety Awards, one ASSP HSC Excellence Award and two projects that won the Golden Peacock.

Citing its success in Hydrocarbon, SNS said that he found a direct correlation between rewards and accidents; the more the awards the lesser the number of safety incidents. “I think it’s a good method to follow. For some reason, we at L&T Construction, have not institutionalized the reward system restricting ourselves to certificates, trophies, gifts, and such like,” he remarked, urging the senior leadership to consider it seriously, implement and institutionalize it at the earliest.

EHS is a good habit to cultivate
“Although there have been no directives to the effect, I find people more disciplined at site these days,” observed SNS, on a lighter note. “I find the staff wearing all the proper PPE, the hoardings at site are all painted and well kept, and I see more vigour all around. There is also less dust around and it seems we have become more green friendly,” he said, all praise for efforts at the various project sites. “I also find that the ecosystem of our subcontractors and vendors are following the same discipline and, at many sites, I understand they have adapted our safety procedures and even modified them to be tougher and more elaborate than what we have,” he pointed out.