William den Ouden ambassadeur veiligheid

Ambassador of safety 

“In the company there are seven cousins active in a few subjects that the family values,” says William. "As ambassador we take care that the colleagues stay involved with these certain subjects. For example where one cousin is ambassador of sustainability and the other of Den Ouden DNA, I am the one that carries out the safety policy of Den Ouden on the production/project locations but also at the office. Go home safely, also called GVNH, that is a mnemonic for the safety pillars behaviour, safety, nature and hygiene. Our safety policy is based on these pillars.”

safety awareness 

“how i keep colleagues involved with the safety policy? I visit our project and production locations daily and ask the colleagues how they experience the safety. Have they ever witnessed unsafe situations, what do they find important in the field of safety, what are the risks in their daily work? By talking about this subject amongst the colleagues, I noticed that the workers have a lot more awareness for their safety. The beautiful thing about this job is that I can pass on the message to the colleagues about the importance of safety and then see the result of them prioritizing a safe work environment more than before.''

Awareness Safety-day

“In short, on the daily we are very active with working in a healthy and safe way within the company. On Awareness Safety-day I would like to take a moment to reflect on some of the milestones in the field of safety.

• Last year we reached step 4 of the safety culture ladder which is second highest level.
• In addition to me visiting the project and production locations to talk about the importance of safety, the board and management also do this quarterly.
• On our intern platform Den Ouden stimulus colleagues can follow  training courses on safety and read news items in the SafetyFlits that gets published every quarter.
• The division QHSE receives more and more reports in which a proposal of improvement is made this shows me that the safety awareness of colleagues is increasing.”

"At Den Ouden always remember: Go home safely!"

Photo with thanks to Tom Doms.