Neslihan (AKGÜN) ERGÜVEN
Quality Control, R&D, and OHS-Environment Management Manager
OYAK Aslan Cement
Aslan Cement has been carrying out its activities for over a century as an exemplary factory in many ways. In addition, it also stands out with its Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) practices that set an example for all the sector players. With our longstanding OHS programs, we have been taking steps towards maintaining the employee engagement at the highest level to create a sustainable OHS culture. We have also been able to systematically manage this subject for over ten years thanks to our OHSAS 18001 Occupational Health and Safety Management System certification.
Through our vision that aims to prevent all work accidents and occupational illness, we have been working towards achieving zero work accidents and becoming a world class company in this field. In addition, we have been carrying out annual “OHS campaign programs” on the subjects where our employees and the system need to progress and taking related actions within a planned process. Our journey, which started in 2015 with the main theme of “OHS Leadership,” continued in 2016 with the subjects such as OHS practices in maintenance work, the use of personal protective equipment, and working at height. These campaign programs represent the activities where our company made great progress in three-month periods by carefully reviewing many subjects from risk assessment processes and training needs to equipment checks and audit mechanisms. The “Campaign Leaders” elected to the campaign programs, which will also continue in 2017, make sure that all employees, including blue collar employees, actively take part in these programs.
One of the most important OHS work that we have been focusing on since late 2015 is the Occupational Health and Safety Training Center. We thought that the existing training system was not effective enough to ensure a change in employee behaviors, and thus we established a center where we can now address all field-related risks by offering handson-training sessions at designated practice plants. This center provides our employees with the opportunity to improve their individual learning and initiative-taking skills via touch screens. The center also allows for a wide range of hands-on-training sessions on several different subjects including
– Basic OHS Training
– OHS Leadership Training for Managers
– LOTOTO
– Risk Assessment
– Rescue Team Trainings
– Working at Height
– Working in Confined Spaces
– Hazardous Work Management
All participants are subject to pre-tests and final tests via touch screens so as to measure the efficiency of the training process. The center, which also serves to our OYAK Cement group companies in addition to Aslan Cement, offered 45 training sessions for 636 people from January – October 2016.
All of these OHS efforts by our company received the biggest appreciation with the project called “audit project of ÇEİS (Employers’ Trade Union of Cement Industry) Member Factories for OHS Practices,” which was carried out at all member factories by ÇEİS together with the British Safety Council (BSC) auditors.
Our company’s cumulative point was 88.16%, according to a report prepared as a result of the audit carried out within the BSC’s “Five Star OHS Audit” methodology by comparing our factory’s occupational health and safety practices with the best OHS practices. This report was also approved by the BSC’s UK headquarters. Our company was entitled to win a ‘4 Star award’ with this result.
We have been maintaining our efforts to achieve the level corresponding to 5 Stars – which represents the world standard. But we are also very happy to have achieved the level corresponding to 4 Stars – which in this case represents Turkey’s first “4 Star” award in addition to being the highest point won within the audits carried out at 40 factories.
This success achieved with a great belief as a result of the huge efforts by all our employees from top executives to lower level employees is the product of a longstanding systematical work and huge commitment to the OHS culture. After all, our company never kept away from investing in the OHS practices, and in fact, it is committed to preparing safer work environments for its employees with a budget approach specific to the OHS practices.
We strongly believe that our OHS journey boasting an endless improvement potential will help us put our mark under greater accomplishments by also supporting the development of our contractor companies as part of a win-win principle.
