The Town Like No Other by Robert McLean

Author:Robert McLean
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781764132121
Publisher: Bakers Lane Books

A ZERO FATALITY MINDSET

In the late 1970s a radical view began to emerge about safety that was central to management practice. It came from management thinkers like Tom Peters and Bob Waterman, as outlined in their book In Search of Excellence, British researcher Elliott Jaques who worked with CRA, and Japanese automotive companies like Toyota. All emphasised how critical priority setting, measurement and accountability were to achieving breakthrough performance in production, quality and safety. John Ralph of CRA led the group in embracing this thinking. John was born and raised in Broken Hill and became Chief Executive of CRA in 1987. Recently he told me that he saw safety as a ‘mechanism for change’. Management and miners had a common interest in working together on safety. It was about production and safety, not production or safety. This mindset has been taken up by companies in industries around the world, paving the way for a target of zero fatalities.

When I became a company director at CSR in the late 1990s, safety was paramount for the Board and management. Two fatalities occurred in my time on the CSR Board. One involved road work where a contractor was run over. The other occurred when a workman climbed into a machine to free something and the machine started. These fatalities were the first items on the Board agenda. The business unit head who resided in the United States was flown to Sydney to explain to the Board the circumstances that led to the fatality where a contractor was run over. The lessons learned and the practices that needed to change evolved from that meeting. The message was that safety mattered, managers were accountable, and the Board had a critical role to play in ensuring a safe workplace.

Today our expectations are for zero fatalities. Workplace safety practices are aligned to that goal, even in hazardous occupations. For example, Rio Tinto announced in 2023 they achieved zero fatalities at managed operations for 55,000 employees across six continents. Soon after achieving this result four employees died in a plane crash travelling to the Diavik Diamond Mine in the Northwest Territories in Canada.

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