G4S Fire Solutions Expands Services in East Africa
29 September 2011Thursday, 29th September 2011….The key economic sectors of manufacturing, petrochemicals, building and construction in Kenya have been identified as the main sectors that are in dire need of safety expertise for the region’s growing economy.
Leading experts in operational excellence and safety for business and institutions, G4S Fire Protection and Safety Solutions, has said that many of the country’s businesses do not maintain certified safety procedures thus affecting their output which in the long run creates huge losses on the bottom line.
Clive Lee, the General Manager, G4S Fire Protection and Safety Solutions, said losses from incidences such as downtime (machines lying idle) due to injuries and accidents could be avoided if proper safety guidelines were instituted and followed maintained.
“One of the key challenges organizations face is line managers’ accountability for safety. As G4S we help line management understand their role in safety, what they should be doing and how they should be engaging with the workforce”, he said.
Lee was speaking during the passing out parade of 20 emergency services crew (14 firefighters and 6 ambulance crew) of London Distillers Kenya, trained by G4S. G4S also presented a fire-engine and ambulance worth Kshs 5.4 million, bought by the distiller as part of its risk management plan.
According to G4S, organizations in East Africa, tend to be in a reactive mode with safety issues generally left to the Safety Department and who most often face challenges in getting worker and management buy-in of safety initiatives.
“So, even though a lot of safety initiatives take place, they are not necessarily sustainable. Safety is left to supervision and once the supervisor has left the location, workers generally go back to their normal behavior, which does not necessarily comply with safety guidelines”, he said.
Lee said companies that had partnered with G4S on operational excellence and safety procedures had registered remarkable improvements in savings ranging between 5-15% of operational costs among other indirect costs, caused by incidents such as fatalities and stoppages.
During the event, G4S disclosed its core strategies and benefits are based on information focused around skills & knowledge transfer. G4S Fire protection and safety solutions, mainly assists organizations to drive a culture change that embraces care and concern, with safety as a core value.
“G4S Fire protection and safety solutions, believes that culture change initiatives in any operation are based on the role of leaders in creating management commitment. Once the management commitment becomes visible the safety culture will start to filter down to the rest of the workforce”, said Clive Lee.
Lee said G4S Fire Protection and Safety Solution’s tailor-made solutions were developed based on an organization’s current safety state out of which a roadmap is arrived at describing how to get to the envisioned state taking into account various stages and interventions.
“Our approach to fire is always protection. We have end to end solutions like alarm monitoring and response to ensure we manage this effectively. We engage organizations; we don’t go in and take over their safety programmes but assist them to develop their own safety initiatives. This way the organization is instrumental in developing its own internalized solution thus creating a more sustainable programme,” he concluded.
Lee added that G4S Fire Protection and Safety Solutions had now developed a focused approach to cater for the region’s specific needs as part of its enhanced growth within Africa driven by a great demand for organizational help with safety improvement programmes in all industries.
As a follow up action, G4S Fire Protection and Safety Solutions will conduct Fire audit for LDK as well as maintaining the acquired fire engine and ambulance. In addition, G4S will conduct refresher training programs for both the ambulance and fire engine crews.
G4S fire protection and safety solutions, is Kenya’s first fully-fledged private sector fire service, established in 2002. It has built a reputation of product and service quality and expertise in providing fire protection and safety measures.
Currently G4S fire protection and safety solutions, has 5 response stations strategically positioned to respond to fire call outs from all directions of Nairobi, including, Industrial Area (Enterprise Road) station, UNON station, Serena Hotel, Witu road G4S headquarters and at EABL which is a dedicated station to serve the client.
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About G4S
G4S is the world's leading security solutions group, which specialises in outsourcing of
business processes in sectors where security and safety risks are considered a strategic
threat.
G4S is the largest employer quoted on the London Stock Exchange and has an additional
stock exchange listing in Copenhagen.
G4S has operations in more than 125 countries and more than 635,000 employees. For
more information on G4S, visit www.g4s.com