Chapter 3: Methodology
3.4 Research Procedures
3.4.3 Interventions
SIBCA LLC immediately implemented a series of OHS interventions to reduce employee exposure to OHS hazards and increase employee knowledge of OHS policies and procedures, OHS awareness, OHS
participation, and related protocol adherence. Table 2 shows a timeline of 44 major OHS activities at SIBCA LLC as part of the intervention process.
Table 2: Occupational Health and Safety Interventions Timeline
No. Date Intervention
1 20-May-21 Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Survey launched 2 27-May-21 Mandatory integrated management system (IMS) Awareness
training provided to all new employees
3 30-May-21 Environmental Internal Audit Findings Closeout Meeting 4 30-May-21 First-round Health, Safety, and Environment (HSE) officer
interviews conducted
5 1-Jun-21 SIBCA LLC Quality, Health, Safety, and Environment (QHSE) SharePoint portal launched
6 2-Jun-21
HSE Management Walkthrough inspections launched requiring SIBCA LLC supervisors and management, depending on the level of seniority, to conduct weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual reviews of work sites 7 8-Jun-21 HSE Manager starts at SIBCA LLC
8 8-Jun-21
QHSE and project management office team undergo Lead Auditor training for ISO 9001:2015, ISO 45001:2018, and ISO 14001:2015
9 9-Jun-21 Corrective Actions Request Closeout Strategy Meeting 10 15-Jun-21
OHS induction provided to existing staff at Dubai Warehouse; the same is to be followed across all Projects and Branch Offices
11 16-Jun-21 First-round Quality Assurance (QA) and Quality Control (QC) Engineer interviews conducted
Table 2: Occupational Health and Safety Interventions Timeline (Continued)
No. Date Intervention
12 16-Jun-21
Management Review Meeting conducted. Target and Objective agreed to conduct inspections at all SIBCA LLC sites per the Abu Dhabi Occupational Safety and Health (OSHAD) technical guidelines
13 16-Jun-21 Top Management Quarterly QHSE Action Committee Meeting
14 19-Jun-21
Dedicated COVID-19 page launched on QHSE SharePoint, prompting all employees to report positive results and notification of returning to work; cases were followed up vigorously in collaboration with HR
15 26-Jun-21 Emergency Response Drill carried out at SIBCA LLC HQ 16 29-Jun-21 Environment Management System Internal Audit Closeout
review
17 30-Jun-21 Environmental Management System (EMS) ISO 14001:2015 External Audit Stage 1 initiated
18 6-Jul-21 Emergency Response Team Meeting conducted to discuss the Emergency Drill on 06/26
19 7-Jul-21 Third-party ISO 14001:2015 audit conducted; auditors’
reviews overlapped with OHS
20 11-Jul-21 EMS ISO 14001:2015 External Audit Stage 2 initiated 21 1-Aug-21 Incident investigation—Abu Dhabi Future School Baniyas
Package 8 Phase 9
22 5-Aug-21 Two-day ISO 9001:2015 Internal Auditor training provided to the SIBCA LLC QHSE team
23 11-Aug-21 QHSE Budget presented to Top Management for 2021 and 2022
24 15-Aug-21 HSE Officers’ number increased to 8 after 1 employee Joins. Area of focus: Etihad Rail
25 24-Aug-21 Final round of interviews with QA/QC personnel 26 6-Sep-21 Work-related incident and loss time injury meeting
conducted to identify critical requirements 27 8-Sep-21
QHSE organized a meeting with the HRA Team to discuss their role in implementing the IMS. From performance evaluation to communication of documented information 28 13-Sep-21 HSE Alert issued for unsafe act
29 19-Sep-21 HSE Officers’ number increased to 9 after 1 employee joins.
Area of focus: Etihad Rail
Table 2: Occupational Health and Safety Interventions Timeline (Continued)
No. Date Intervention
30 3-Oct-21 HSE Officer number increased to 10 after 1 employee Joins.
Area of focus: Services and Other projects
31 17-Oct-21 HSE Officers’ number increased to 11 after 1 employee joins. Area of focus: Dubai Services and Other projects 32 27-Oct-21
Second phase of First Aid and Fire Fighting Training provided to 20 personnel across all SIBCA LLC-occupied offices
33 3-Nov-21 Training Evaluation of First Aid and Fire Fighting initiated 34 9-Nov-21 First Aid Kits for Head Office and all Branch Offices in
UAE received
35 10-Nov-21 First monthly review with Operations HoDs conducted 36 10-Nov-21
Internal advertisement published for QA/QC Engineer (not OHS, but the two are linked from a perceptional
perspective)
37 21-Dec-21
SIBCA LLC team at Za’abeel 1 District Cooling Plant Project received a Certificate of Achievement for their contribution to one million safe man-hours without lost time injury
38 25-Jan-22
ADNOC awards SIBCA LLC “Best HSE Performer – Service Contractor” based on an audit of 27 Service Contractors from 20 to 21-12-2021
39 24-Mar-22 Induction Refresher Training for all project teams (Abu Dhabi Operation/Services and Dubai Operation/Services) 40 28-Apr-22 HSE Officers’ number increased to 12 after 1 employee
joins. Area of focus: Abu Dhabi Services
41 25-May-22 HSE Officers’ number increased to 13 after 1 employee joins. Area of focus: Abu Dhabi Services
42 23-Jun-22
HSE Officers’ number increased to 14 after 1 employee joins. Area of focus: Etihad Rail Project. SIBCA LLC has doubled the number of HSE Officers since the formation of the QHSE department and the first survey
43 24-Jun-22
SIBCA LLC CEO receives special recognition from British Safety Council for their “International CEO Award” – Shortlisted and “Highly Commended” for his contribution to Health and Safety in the workplace and industry
44 12-Jul-22 Successful completion of external UKAS certification audit against ISO9001:2015 and ISO45001:2018
Further, the company reported 11 lost time injury cases. As of June, one case was in March 2020; six, in 2021; and four, in 2022. Additionally, the company hired 7 new OHS experts since the interventions started, taking the total number of OHS professionals to 14. A total of 1,197 observations were recorded since the interventions, relative to 78 observations before the interventions. The observations since the interventions started were
classified into six types:
• 725 Unsafe Conditions
• 299 Good Practices
• 149 Unsafe Acts
• 13 Internal HSE Violations
• 5 Positive Observations
• 9 General Information
The 78 observations before the interventions started were also classified into six types:
• 36 Unsafe Conditions
• 16 Good Practices
• 15 Unsafe Acts
• 0 Internal HSE Violations
• 8 Positive Observations
• 3 General Information
The increase in observations is evidence of company efforts to improve OHS, as the OHS staff can conduct such observations and assign corrective actions to those applicable with more knowledge.
The impact on productivity and employee perceptions of OHS is expected to continue indefinitely because the interventions are ongoing.
Thus, productivity data were collected for 13 months before and 13 months
after the interventions began (not following the conclusion of the
interventions, as impact and interventions are expected to accumulate over time, extending far beyond this study).
The effect of the intervention was first measured via the response of the survey participants and, second, through productivity data collected from the company’s HR records regarding productive days.