Aramark Safety Summit

Following an extensive review in 2005 by Aramark, the food and facility management services provider, of its health and safety procedures, a new strategy was devised entailing the training of 200 staff in all aspects of safety awareness at work .Aramark called in Purple Monster who were immediately briefed to kick-start a series of training initiatives to help create a 'care for each other' culture across the workforce.

  • to build trust and confidence between staff and management
  • to develop assertive communication skills for all with the ability to communicate with impact
  • to enable all participants to share personal safety worries.

Purple Monster first worked with Caroline and the company's health and safety representatives to identify the problem areas, and then facilitated an initial workshop for the 12-strong management team to help develop the motivational skills necessary to successfully support Aramark staff in the implementation of agreed new safety principles on a day to day basis.

There followed a fully interactive, four-summit series involving staff, over four days at three different BP locations, to highlight how the new approach to health and safety would be implemented.

The initial management team workshop helped to develop active listening and questioning skills within the group which then tackled the need to build rapport and trust with staff over health and safety issues. We also worked with the team to help them better understand the conditions that build motivation and the impact of placing the duty of everyone to put care' at the heart of their working lives.

The safety summits involved staff at all levels   senior management to junior kitchen staff - with the added challenge that not only was English not always the first language for many workers, but the cultural differences of staff were equally diverse.

Particular emphasis was placed around employee status and empowerment, whatever people's backgrounds, and being able to challenge peers and senior management alike when it comes to unsafe health and safety practices.

Thanks to the success of the safety summit training initiative, Aramark continues to use the training model with new personnel, delivering its new found health and safety culture in such an innovative way.

The number of recordable incidents cut by 20% at extensive restaurant and hospitality facilities located on three of BP's main operational sites in the UK.

Feedback by staff has been hugely encouraging, and they now certainly feel able to alert colleagues to safety hazards or breaches of procedure. There is a new confidence and commitment to feeding back directly to line managers when and wherever a problem occurs

We have overcome many hurdles. By engaging staff at all levels, listening and then implementing a health and safety training programme that works, we are now seeing some very positive results.

We addressed some pretty serious issues and Purple Monster has helped us to hit all the right buttons with a diverse workforce which now understands that their safety in delivering our services to customers remains Aramark's principle consideration.

Caroline Brown - Facilities Manager

www.aramark.co.uk/