Guinness Nigeria Records 1000 Days Safety Milestone
Guinness Nigeria Plc has achieved 1000 days free of Lost Time Accidents (LTA) in one of its operational sites, the Benin brewery. This is the third manufacturing site of the brewing giant to cross this milestone achievement following its Ikeja and Aba sites which also recorded over 1000 LTA free days all in the current financial year.
By general standards, an LTA is defined as any work related incident, involving injury or illness, where either Guinness Nigeria or a healthcare professional recommends one or more days away from work, or where the employee is absent from work or unable to return to work for the next shift or where the employee is attending work but unable to carry out normal duties. This assessment is made without regard as to whether or not the person was SCHEDULE to work those days (i.e. off days, weekend, holidays, vacations among others.
According to the Supply Director, Guinness Nigeria Plc, Cephas Afebuameh, “Reducing accidents at all our brewery sites has long been an active strategy of Guinness Nigeria through our Zero Harm Culture which seeks to create a consistent and proactive culture for safety across all our operations. I am extremely happy that the Benin brewery has recorded this amazing feat following in the footsteps of other sites like Ikeja and Aba and I pray that as we continue to sustain safety best practices, we will hit 2000 and 3000 and so on.”
Afebuameh explained that Zero Harm Culture model of Guinness Nigeria is founded on three pillars of operation which are prevention – all accidents are preventable and avoidable, compliance – working compliantly using the appropriate and provided PPEs (personal protective equipment) and following the right work instructions and capability – training and awareness on what employees need to know to assure their safety. Under prevention for instance, proactive measures aimed at risk reduction through programmes such as risk assessment, incident REPORTING, trending and root cause analysis amongst others are carried out to proactively identify and control site hazards.
Also speaking on the achievement, Corporate Relations Director, Guinness Nigeria, Sesan Sobowale,, said that the company is committed and cares for all its employees and visitors that might have any cause to visit any of the company’s sites. “Very important for us is the actual human angle of this where we know that employees and visitors will leave loved ones to come to work or to carry out a transaction at our sites and we feel compelled to do everything within our control to ensure that they are able to return home intact to those they left behind. This achievement makes me proud to be a Diageo employee and makes me proud of what we do,” he said.
In his own comments, Plant Manager, Guinness Benin Brewery, Kingsley Imade, said “I am utterly grateful to members of my team who took it upon themselves to work diligently to maintain an LTA free environment. They have all imbibed the safety culture of the organisation and have lived out the saying ‘If It Is Not Safe, Don’t Do It’ and that ensures that everyone will go home safe, every day, in all our sites.”
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