Published on February 09, 2017
Tata Business Excellence Group (TBExG) organised a two-day conclave to highlight and share best practices in safety and health. The conclave organised on January 30 and 31, 2017, was held at the Vivanta by Taj - President, Mumbai.
‘Safety Excellence – Value addition to Business’ was the theme of the conclave in which about 75 participants from 35 Tata group companies participated.
Introductory address by Gautam Gondil, TBExG, marked the beginning of the two-day event which was followed by a presentation by Suresh Tanwar, Chief, Group Safety and Health, TBExG, on Safety Excellence – Value addition to Business.
Next to take the rostrum was Mahesh V Chandak, Lead, India-Africa ESH and Human Rights, Monsanto India Ltd, who provided the Monsanto’s perspective on ‘Leadership Competency – How it helps drive safety culture’.
The post-lunch session began with a presentation by Arvind Bodhankar, Corporate Head, SHE and Sustainability, Tata Motors, on ‘Sustaining Safety Excellence – Key Success Factors’. It was followed by Vijay Chourey, Chief, Corporate Safety, Tata Power, who provided insights about the ‘contractors’ safety code of conduct’.
With stress levels increasing at workplaces and affecting the health of workers, the need to reduce stress and make it safe and secure for the workers figures high on the occupational health and safety agenda of responsible corporates. A session on ‘Stress; an emerging corporate health issue - Understanding and Managing it’ by Dr S Sivaramakrishnan, Medical Consultant, helped rivet the spotlight on the critical issue.
The session was followed by a presentation on ‘High Impact Safety Initiatives - Safety First at TCS’ by Chaitanya S Sathe, VP, Head - Business Operations, Mumbai and Corporate Safety Leader, Tata Consultancy Services.
The day ended with sessions on ‘Enhancing Safety and Health through Responsible Care’ by Shrinivas Pranesh, Head - Responsible Care, BASF, and ‘Offices and Facilities Safety - Critical Factors to look’ by Jagdish Vatapalli, Regional Regulatory Head - Codes and Advisory Services – Underwriter Laboratories.
The second day of the conclave began with a session on ‘Enhancing Safety in Service Industry like Hotels – ITC Approach’ by N Ramamoorthy, Chief Engineer, ITC Grand Chola.
Steve Coupland, who chairs the Tata Steel Europe Fire Safety Committee and the UK H&S Committee, provided the European major’s perspective on ‘Implementation of Health & Safety Management System - Tata Steel Europe experience’
It was followed by a session by N Prasad Rajadhyaksha, Head, Process Safety (western region), MS Cholamandalam Risk Services, who threw light on the ‘Emerging trends in Legal requirements in Safety & Health’.
The next session on ‘Integrated management system to deliver safety and operational risk’ was addressed by Shashank Singh, Head, Governance and Integration, Safety and Operational Risk, Reliance Industries.
Mukul Kumar, Global Head - Environment, Occupational Health and Safety and Sustainability, Tata Communications, provided an overview of his company’s ‘safety excellence journey’.
Sharing of best practices is one of the ways to advance the business excellence agenda within the Tata group and to achieve this objective, the EDGE portal was created. A session on ‘EDGE Portal – A tool to share and learn best practices’ by Saurav Chakrabarti, TBExG, proved quite helpful in explaining the rationale behind the portal and how it acts as a bridge for sharing of best practices.
Dr Nitin Jadhav, Corporate Lead - Health, Tata Motors, provided insights about ‘Health Index - A measured approach to monitoring health in Tata Motors’.
The curtains came down on the two-day conclave with a session on ‘Safety & Health - an integral part of Projects in Siemens’ by Mahesh Hivarekar, Country Head of EHS - Energy Management Division, Siemens Ltd, India.
All the participants found the conclave extremely useful and were able to understand the Best Practices in Safety & Health from various Tata companies and other external companies.
A Safety Heads Meet was organised on February 1, 2017, at Vivanta by Taj - President, Cuffe Parade, Mumbai. Safety Excellence - Value addition to business was the theme of the meet. Eminent speakers like Sanjay Rajasekaran, Gautam Gondil, Suresh Tanwar and R Shankar shared their views on various facets of Safety & Health. The meet ended with an open house by the Safety Steering Committee and Senior Leadership members, S Padmanabhan, Executive Chairman - TBExG and Group Chief Human esources Officer, Tata Sons; Mukund Rajan, Chief Ethics Officer and Chairman - Tata Global Sustainability Council, Tata Sons; Jamshed Daboo, CEO, Trent Hypermarkets Limited and Andrew Page, Director - Health & Safety, Tata Steel Group.