Health and Safety Council Lunch Meeting - 30th May

A few days before this lunch meeting, Panasonic's Health and Safety Officer - Dave English - came over to my desk and asked if I would like to participate. Dave is an absolute fruitloop, but is lovely and takes a genuine interest in the welfare of Panasonic's employees - he built a real rapport with us students! He told me that two senior members from the British Safety Council would be visiting and that the aim of the meeting was to show them how seriously Panasonic takes health and safety initiatives within the company through the use of compulsory training programmes and health inspections.
Myself and Olly, the PR Assistant for Business, as well as a previous HR placement student who, since leaving the company, has returned to work here permanently, were there to discuss with Dave and the British Safety Council the programmes in place for staff at Panasonic. One of the many training courses I have undertaken with the other placement students is Health and Safety and it was brilliant to see how much importance was placed on our welfare and on developing our knowledge of how to stay safe in the workplace.
Initially, during our first couple of months at Panasonic, Dave gave us a tour of the building, pointing out all sorts of potential hazards which we simply hadn't realised existed - it certainly opened our eyes! A couple of weeks later, we were invited to attend a course on Health and Safety, which included a presentation that Dave had created. The presentation included an abundance of topics, including:

• Types of hazards
  


• Warning signs
  


• Emotional Welfare



• Hazard Avoidance

We were all given the presentation slides to take away and revise from as, a week later, we had an exam! We all passed and were each awarded with a certificate to say that we had passed Level 1 Health and Safety Training. This was brilliant, as this is a qualification we can take with us into any future employment!

The BSC were very impressed with what we had taken away from our training and were pleased to know that the ethos of staying safe within the workplace was instilled into the thinking of everyone in the company. What we also let them know (and not just because Dave was in the room!) was that we all felt we could easily approach Panasonic's Health and Safety Team with any concerns we had and that they always welcomed any feedback we had on any of the company's welfare procedures. For example, I'm only just over 5" (yes, really!) and as soon as I mentioned to Dave that I could freely swing my legs when sat at my desk, he came rushing over with a foot rest and made sure that I was sat at the right height and in the correct position, so that I wouldn't get back ache! It certainly made a difference, so I was really pleased he'd been so quick and willing to alter my sitting position for me. Awareness of good posture whilst sat working at a desk is something that Panasonic is really focusing on now - they have brought in a compulsory, educational questionnaire and awareness programme on the issue, to ensure everyone is sat correctly whilst working. One of the BSC members told us that they were also working on this with other companies and that they were developing a 'chair aerobics' class to teach employees exercises they can do at their desks to alleviate back pain and discomfort whilst sitting - sounds great!

It was lovely to be able to participate in the lunch meeting and it felt really nice to have our feedback on Panasonic's Health and Safety programme listened to and taken into account. We also learnt a lot about how health and safety measures are applied in other companies and it was really interesting to hear how the BSC have been implementing precautions in the run-up to the Olympics!