This week, Colin talks to Kevin Furniss, the head of Corporate Safety for Maersk shipping, and what it’s like to head up safety for such a large, global concern.

Kevin talks frankly about the need to be adaptable to the ever changing needs of the business, the importance of looking at health and safety from the customer’s perspective, and why personal investigation matters so much.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Safety for a concern like Maersk happens at the ground level and extends upwards. Kevin’s remit is to design a team that works on developing the theory of safety, the rationale, and turn it into something that the brand of Maersk itself can turn into living practice.
• Safety began as the pursuit of keeping workforces safe, but along the way it became something of a bureaucratic automaton, keeping all but professionals on the periphery. It is now upon the industry to make it more all-encompassing.
• We gain credibility with our teams by not delegating entirely, but by joining the fight at the heart of the business, and investigating the work and environment for ourselves.
• One of the toughest challenges at the higher end of safety, is that we are forced to become a part of the executive teams, which requires us to leave behind some of the skills and talents that launched our career in the first place.
• We must always ensure that our reasoning comes from a place of wanting to help others, not simply ticking boxes in order to meet quotas.

BEST MOMENTS

‘I’m trying to make the world of work a healthier and safer place to be’

‘Why don’t we put people back at the centre’

‘You have to have “kahunas”. You have to have courage in order to go out there and do that with people’

’Skill-sets coupled with adequate knowledge give you a better result’

‘We’re here to serve everyone else, not serve our own egotistical fantasies'

VALUABLE RESOURCES

The Interesting Health & Safety Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/vn/podcast/the-interesting-health-safety-podcast/id1467771449  

Kevin Furniss LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinfurniss/?originalSubdomain=dk

Kevin Furniss for IOSH MAgazine - https://www.ioshmagazine.com/kevin-furniss-apm-terminals

ABOUT THE HOST

Colin Nottage

‘Making health and safety as important as everything else we do.’

This is the belief that Colin is passionate about and through his consultancy Influential Management Group (IMG) is able to spread into industry. Colin works at a strategic level with company owners and board members. He helps business leaders establish and achieve their health and safety ambitions.

He has developed a number of leading competency improvement programmes that are delivered across industry and his strengths are his ability to take a practical approach to problem-solving and being able to liaise at all levels within an organisation.

Colin also runs a company that vets contractors online and a network that develops and support H&S consultancies to become better businesses.

Colin chairs the Construction Dust Partnership, an industry collaboration directly involving many organisations, including the Health and Safety Executive.

He is a Post Graduate Tutor at Strathclyde University and a highly sought-after health and safety speaker and trainer. He has a Post Graduate Certificate in Safety and Risk management, an engineering degree and is a Chartered Member of the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH).