Changing the conversation: A transformational health, safety & wellbeing initiative

At Tilbury Douglas, safety has always been at the heart of what we do. For over two decades, we have demonstrated leadership in health, safety, and wellbeing, earning 24 consecutive Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), Gold Awards. Yet, as proud as we are of our past achievements, we are firmly focused on the future and the journey toward our ultimate goal: zero accidents, zero incidents, and zero harm.

The recently launched Changing the conversation initiative is a testament to this commitment. Built around our company values and our We-Care safety habits, this initiative aims to strengthen our health and safety culture through greater transparency, collaboration, behavioural change and building better relationships.

Why Changing the conversation is vital

Despite our strong safety record, recent years have shown that behaviours remain a significant factor in incidents. However, we know we must do more to connect with our people, reinforce our safety practices, and evolve our culture.

The Changing the conversation initiative seeks to address these challenges, embedding our existing health and safety processes, alongside innovative tools like the Cultural Calculator behavioural safety dashboard app.

We-Care

The initiative works to bring even further to the fore our five simple We-Care habits for successful safety management.

These are:

• Habit 1: Prepare for safety
• Habit 2: Lead by example
• Habit 3: Talk safety first
• Habit 4: Intervene for safety
• Habit 5: Report incidents

The initiative also focuses on our company values, which are:

• Everyone has a voice
• Do the right thing
• Take pride in what you do
• Bring better to life

How it works

The Cultural Calculator app gathers feedback through short surveys, providing colleagues and supply chain partners an opportunity to highlight risks, share observations, and contribute to a collective understanding of safety on our sites. The feedback aligns with our We-Care habits and company values and in turn helps identify areas for improvement.

This data is reviewed during monthly Site Safety Committee Meetings and cascaded to our leadership teams, fostering open and constructive conversations about health, safety, and wellbeing across all levels of the organisation. The ultimate aim is to empower every individual that comes to work on our sites, project and offices to act as a safety leader.

Early progress and achievements

Since the initiative launched in spring 2024, we have already made impressive strides, including:

• Training over 150 colleagues as part of our project leads cohorts
• Activating more than 35 dashboards, with plans to scale up significantly
• Engaging over 560 active users on the platform, with more being added regularly
• Launching incident learning forums and delivering internal webinars to support collaboration and knowledge-sharing
• Hosting Strategic Safety Forums to identify key themes and priorities through data-driven insights

These early successes highlight the power of Changing the conversation to drive meaningful change, but this is only the beginning.

A vision for the future

Looking ahead, we are focused on embedding the principles of Changing the conversation further into our organisation. Key priorities include:

• Strengthening supply chain engagement, including promoting the initiative at supply chain events
• Updating and relaunching onsite induction materials
• Rolling out long-term learning and development plans, with targeted training for new starters
• Expanding opportunities for project leads to share insights through follow-up webinars

By embracing feedback and acting on it decisively, we are not only changing the conversation – but we are also changing the culture.

A shared responsibility

Health and safety is everyone’s responsibility. Each voice matters, and each action has the power to shape a safer, more collaborative environment. Through Changing the conversation, we are fostering a culture where safety leadership is the norm, not the exception.

Together, we can ensure that every person who works with Tilbury Douglas returns home safely and in good health. By changing the conversation, we are setting a new standard for health, safety, and wellbeing – one conversation at a time.