Sarens celebrated international safety day at its headquarters on 26th April. The idea was to start with a small event where Sarens invited some of their partners to deliver sessions about safety topics.

Our SHEQ Manager, Sarens Projects, Graziella Merny, and Fleet manager TS, Wim Charita, welcomed the team of 30 participants which were divided into three groups that followed three different sessions in the morning.

Hoffmann Group, our main supplier of tools, came over to our headquarters to talk about hand tool safety. They educated our teams on the new standards for ladders and what we have to look at before climbing on them. Safety knives of Martor were presented along with all the alternatives for the 'unsafe' cutter knives which most of the people still use. The participants were given goody bags by Hoffmann. 

Another session was conducted by Mennens, our main supplier of steel cables and lifting equipment.

They discussed the safe use of lifting equipment, some examples of bad use of lifting equipment and some lifting equipment that was not fit to be used anymore.

An additional session was also given to the site supervisors and project managers. Most of them do not perform rigging activities, but it is important for them to have knowledge about the performance of lifting equipment. The importance of rigging was explained to them which involves a number of parameters that should be taken care of like the angle of rigging, the maximum load per equipment, etc.

Vandeputte, our partner in providing working clothes and Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) also came to our office to explain the specifications of Sarens new working clothes - flameretardant, hi-viz and arc-flash. Also some of our PPE, like safety glasses, dust masks and ear protection were discussed briefly. After the session Vandeputte gave a hi-viz bracelet to all the participants to wear when running or cycling depicting safe practices at work and outside work in our personal lives. 

Post-lunch session included a presentation on SARPLAN by Line Rigo, Sarens RDTS Manager. SARPLAN is the new tool for planning projects, creating inentories of equipment, and document management system for equipment. With the new QR code on our equipment, one could easily scan and find all the information about the equipment.  

In the following session, KBC (Bank & Insurance), gave a presentation about incident investigation to our site and project managers. It is important to do an investigation quickly after an incident/accident takes place before losing all the evidence. During the investigation it is important to look at every aspect, for which we are advised to use the MUOPO technique (Mens, Uitrusting, Organisatie, Product, Omgeving) or an analysis based on Human factors, Products and Tools, organizational and environmental factors.

Amelior, an external training center, also came in to give training about Safety Leadership. This training was targeted at the management of Sarens. Some communication skills were presented in a one day course. This training will be given to all our management teams within western Europe during this year.

In the concluding session, Fire Safety Training was given by Liantis. A big bus was brought inside the yard to demonstrate the use of the different types of fire extinguishers.  The training and sessions were organised by our SHEQ team to depict the importance of safety in day-to-day activities at the workplace and also in their surroundings. For Sarens, safety is the key and we take all steps necessary to make our employees aware, accountable, and involved in the best practices.