Behavioural safety culture programme for National Highways

Opportunity

National Highways’ vision for 2040 is that no one will be harmed when working or travelling on the strategic road network. Its ‘Home safe and well’ initiative was created to reinforce the importance of health, safety and wellbeing.

We were appointed in 2019 to help National Highways’ regional investment programme team improve the health and safety culture in southeast England. We reviewed the requirements and priorities, drawing on Mott MacDonald’s own health, safety and wellbeing culture and experience to do so.

Solution

We’re supporting National Highways across the lifecycle of its major projects. Working as a fully integrated part of the regional investment programme Southeast team, we developed a series of interactive ‘bitesize’ coaching sessions, delivered by specialists in construction, health, safety, wellbeing, and behavioural science. The sessions were designed to coach colleagues in the practical application of health and safety knowledge when projects mobilise for construction. They covered:

• Health and safety leadership
• Managing and influencing supplier performance
• Traffic management and incursions
• Utilities and statutory undertakers
• Incident management
• Fatigue management
• Occupational health and wellbeing
• Designing for safety and health
• Mental health awareness

National Highways has a model for assessing health and safety ‘maturity’ and wanted to achieve maturity level four: proactive safety leadership and values, driving continuous improvement. Through the coaching programme and by introducing a system for sharing lessons learned from significant incidents, National Highways has become a learning organisation. Data analysis has revealed health, safety and wellbeing trends, enabling proactive management across the organisation and supply chain.

Outcome

In the southeast region, level four maturity has been achieved and we are working towards level five: generative health and safety, in which ‘excellence is how we do business’.

Across all regions, we have assisted National Highways in reducing its lost time incident rate. Staff surveys show more employees agreeing that National Highways prioritises safety and that their work areas are secure.