Conscious safe behavior with Seeing-Act-Learning 

Attention to a safe workplace is a top priority at more and more companies, not only on the construction site but also in the office. Promoting desired safety behaviors does not happen overnight. It is a culture change that requires awareness, so that employees understand the need to work safely and can and dare call colleagues to account for undesirable behavior. To increase this awareness even more, all 600 employees of Hollander Techniek are currently following Aboma's Zien-Handelen-Leren program.

The Zien-Handelen-Leren program is designed to promote the behavior that leads to working safely, says Jeroen Lammertse, director of Aboma. "It ensures that safe working becomes the standard and that colleagues dare to call each other to account for unsafe situations and actions. But then they must first be able to interpret that unsafe behavior and then do something about it, in such a way that they learn something from it. And that is precisely what this training focuses on. By the way, we first train a number of ambassadors who spread the ideas further in the company and participate in the training of all other employees. It is a multi-year program in which we train the entire population of a company. We keep it mostly practical with exercises and recognizable real-life situations."

Safety Culture Ladder

At Hollander Techniek, Aboma's Seeing-Acting-Learning training is part of the process to become certified for the Safety Culture Ladder as a company. "The most important thing is that all employees come home safe and sound at the end of the day," says Paul Kok, operations director at Hollander Techniek. "That applies both to the colleagues on the construction site with the necessary physical hazards and to the people in the office. With this training they learn to take action and speak out themselves to help colleagues further and prevent unsafe situations." 

Ambassadors

Aboma has now trained about 60 ambassadors at Hollander Techniek. "They experienced the training as very positive," Kok looks back. "Everyone had a certain expectation of the training and they were quite critical of the content. Ultimately, working safely must become the common thread throughout our organization. It is a continuous process. Aboma conveyed this positive mindset. Our ambassadors are now ready to train all 600 employees together with Aboma's experts. By the end of the first quarter of 2024, everyone will have been trained." But it doesn't stop there. "We are going to organize periodic return sessions to initiate a lasting culture change. This is in the interest of our organization, employees and our customers."