The practice of "Line Walks" has been implemented in our company's production operations.
A Line Walk is a regular inspection by a manager of office premises and(or) workplaces in their department (division) to ensure compliance with legislative requirements in the field of industrial and environmental safety.
The goal of the walk is to build a dialogue with employees, identify issues that concern people, and solve them, rather than punishing for violations.
This practice promotes the involvement of managers in monitoring compliance with HSE requirements by their subordinates to prevent hazardous situations and their consequences at an early stage by receiving information in a timely manner.
A Line Walk differs from planned inspections in that it is built on trust. For example, a manager can identify cases of non-compliance with occupational safety standards, prevent a hazardous situation, and/or learn about industrial safety issues through a confidential conversation with line personnel.
Regular communication with subordinates allows for monitoring the fulfillment of the department's key performance indicators (hereinafter — KPIs), thereby influencing the improvement of work performance together with employees.
This practice is successfully applied in our company both in production (at construction sites/facilities) and in the corporate center (office).
However, a period came when the world was struck by the coronavirus epidemic, and many companies had to learn to work under pandemic conditions. Their activities were "paralyzed" by universal quarantine. Many enterprises, including ours, began to improve their IT capabilities to make working in isolation as comfortable as possible; for example, the pandemic quickly turned video calls into a routine part of life. The era of remote work began, and the staff remaining within the company had to follow strict rules: no contact with colleagues from other departments, maintaining a distance of 1.5 meters, etc.
Under such conditions, it was impossible to apply one of the basic principles of the "Line Walk" tool — the manager's visit to the work sites. We started thinking: "What should we do? How can we breathe new life into the existing practice of Line Walks and not lose an effective tool?" — and here is what we came up with:
Success 1. Defining a new format for conducting Line Walks.
The use of telecommunication technologies for interactive engagement, in the form of video conferencing (hereinafter — VTC) based on the "Skype for Business" platform. This platform allows for the remote connection of the required number of personnel to participate in a meeting (conference) in real-time.
Based on the above, a new name was assigned: "Remote Line Walk" (hereinafter — RLW).
Success 2. Distribution of RLW participants into two groups:
Group 1. Permanent participants:
Group 2. The participating department where the walk is conducted according to the schedule.
The department is represented by: the head of the department and employees (3-4 people; if necessary, all employees of the department are connected).
Success 3. Development of the RLW schedule.
The schedule is designed for conducting an RLW once a month for each department (division, service), with subsequent uploading to the Microsoft Outlook meeting calendars, which is widely used in many companies.
Success 4. Development of a checklist.
This checklist of questions acts as a roadmap and serves to identify and subsequently resolve problems in the following areas:
Success 5. Conducting RLW in VTC format.
Meetings are held according to a previously approved schedule with two groups of participants.
Before the meeting, the RLW participant from Group 2 prepares a list of problematic issues or topics requiring discussion based on the developed checklist. Then, during the VTC meeting, the host (moderator) leads the discussion on the aforementioned topics. During the dialogue, each department from Group 1 (HSE, MS, HR, etc.) can ask clarifying questions to Group 2 participants regarding problems in their department and/or provide necessary information within their area of responsibility.
Based on the RLW results, meeting minutes are generated with the decisions made during the discussion and assigned responsible executors.
Success 6. Monitoring the implementation of improvement measures.
The minutes with assignments and deadlines are tracked on a weekly basis and sent to the head of the organization.
This practice allowed us to maintain the established format of "Line Walks" and take it to a new level in the current difficult conditions.
The new format of Line Walks expanded the circle of participants and the range of topics for discussing important issues in various areas. A so-called "Round Table" of diverse participants was formed to identify problem areas in the company and subsequently resolve them.
This practice is currently used in our company, taking into account the extensive geography of the sites where our employees are involved.