For our April Water Health and Safety Feature, we spoke to Claire Hyde, HSSE Manager at Stantec, about the Health and Safety risks they face and how they responded to the pandemic.
Tell us about Stantec?
We have worked with our clients and communities in the UK for over 150 years. With over 1,800 people working in integrated regional teams across the UK, we plan, design, deliver and manage the development and infrastructure needed to support the creation of sustainable, healthy and prosperous communities.
Our work begins at the intersection of client relationships, creativity and community – providing effective and relevant solutions, translating our client’s vision into valued consent, deliverable plans for projects and programmes, and efficient designs for delivery, based on technical excellence and deep market insight.
We have circa 2000 employees, based in 20 offices around the UK and Ireland. We provide professional consultancy services in many sectors but have a long and esteemed history in the water industry.
The goal of Stantec’s SaferTogether™ is to create an interdependent safety culture, one where we all work together to be safe, whether at work, at home or in our communities. We work in different environments—in offices, in the field, at home—and perform a range of roles with varying risks. No matter where we are or what we do, we each have a role to keep ourselves and others healthy and safe. There is one key action we can drive as individuals: showing care to support the health, safety, and security of people—others and ourselves—as well as our environment.
Why is Health & Safety important in water management?
Health and Safety is important in water management due to the significant number of people potentially affected. Our duty of care extends not only to our employees but the supply chain we work with, our clients, especially their end-users and the wider communities and customers affected by our activities.
What are some of the major risks that Stantec faces, and how are you overcoming these risks?
The major H&S risks our company faces relate to the site and field activities undertaken by our employees, plus the CDM related aspects of designing out H&S risks for those constructing, operating, maintaining and eventually decommissioning the assets we design. Mental health and well-being are a significant risk, especially throughout the covid-19 pandemic, for both personal and work-related reasons.
How has covid-19 affected the health & safety of your operations?
The Covid-19 pandemic was a huge challenge that Stantec rose admirably to. Our operations were able to continue to service the needs of our clients and the business but will the majority of our employees working from home.
How did your organisation respond to the pandemic?
The Stantec Pandemic Preparedness Committee and Plan was already established prior to Covid-19; therefore, we were able to swiftly implement in the UK of the Gold and Silver response teams. At the start of the pandemic, our employees were enabled to work from home, with additional equipment being provided to meet DSE needs as required. To enable our clients to maintain critical national infrastructure, limited site and field activities took place with will planned risk assessments, including covid controls, approved through escalations to our Executive Leadership Team. As the pandemic evolved, our offices re-opened in line with government guidance, including controls such as social distancing, enhanced cleaning regimes, ventilation assessments and ‘stand up mask up’ face-covering requirements. From a mental health and wellbeing perspective, lots of proactive measures were deployed including weekly remote office briefings were held to help folks stay connected. Additional line manager and mental health first aider training was delivered to reinforce the importance of mental health check-ins and how to support our teams.
How would you improve your health & safety strategy going forward?
The objective of the 2022 UK H&S Action plan is the continued growth of our Stantec ‘ SaferTogether’ culture. The corporate business plan’s theme is ‘Enhanced Effectiveness’. This is being supplemented in the UK with a focus on human performance factors tools and techniques. We also have several working groups in place looking at how we continually enhance our CDM related capability, reduce occupational road risk, and manage our site and field activities, including the use of a lone/mobile worker app.
What public Health & Safety challenges does your company address?
Stantec addresses direct H&S risks to members of the public as a result of our employees on-site activities. We also address the long term public health risks associated with our water company clients ongoing operational activities.
How important is your product/service to Public Health & Safety?
Stantec addresses various aspects of public H&S through the safe working practices of our employees when undertaking fieldwork, e.g. use of traffic management when working on water company assets on the highway, ensuring we’re not causing slip and trip hazards, minimising noise and dust risks. However, more fundamental to addressing the public health risks associated with our water company customers and communities, we apply our technical expertise to ensure the delivery of wholesome water and the safe removal of wastewater. A recent digital innovation was the development of the Fire Flow tool that enables water company clients to assess the ability to supply water to fire hydrants and buildings in case of a fire emergency. https://www.stantec.com/en/services/fire-flow
How did Covid-19 affect your organisation dealing with the public? / How did you respond to Covid-19 to support consumers?
Stantec UK played a key role in supporting our water company clients’ ability to operate and maintain their critical national infrastructure through the provision of our professional services.
What can consumers do to protect their Health & Safety when consuming water? What advice would you provide consumers if they are concerned about their water quality?
Our Stantec teams who work on water company clients’ assets all understand the critical nature of protecting water quality. Anyone working on restricted area operations will be trained to the National Water Hygiene standards required by our clients. Our teams would advise consumers to contact their water service providers’ customer hotlines with any concerns about water quality.
Read more Stantec Articles and News on H2O Global News. Do you have an article or video that you would like to share? Submit your article here or keep up with the latest news from the water industry and wastewater industry by subscribing to our weekly newsletter
