Safety in the workplace is not just about PPE (personal protective equipment). While PPE can be vital to a safety process, safety in the workplace must stem from a culture that strives for zero harm says safety expert, Steve Edwards.
“Our ideal at Motion is that no worker should end the day in a worse state than they started – they should get home safely, every day,” explains the Motion Category Manager for Safety, Materials Handling and Storage. “And from our perspective, it’s not just about supplying ‘best in business’ products, but ensuring our customers have access to the most accurate and up-to-date information on the solutions available and their compliance to regulations.”
Which is why Motion has launched its inaugural Safety magazine – to share knowledge and provide readers with quality information about industrial safety solutions, best practices, and services. According to Grant Gray, the publication will be as much of an internal resource as it is an external resource.
“The saying ‘a person who stands in the river never stands in the same river’ is an apt one when we talk about safety. The safety journey is ongoing because the relationship between people and their work environment is constantly changing, especially in terms of the technology applied,” explains Grant, who is General Manager for National Sales at Motion. “This magazine will be a valuable resource to our customers, partners and our team at Motion because everyone needs to stay informed when it comes to safety solutions and developments.”
Another motivation for the publication is to highlight new innovations available to industrial businesses.
“We’re always looking at better ways to reduce or minimise harm. Whether that is better lifting equipment, better securing of load, better anti-slip surfacing, better protective eyewear, better respiratory equipment, better hearing protection. There is a myriad of solutions on the market, all that address very specific safety issues,” says Grant. “Our point of difference though – and this is important to understand – is that we work with our partners to gain an understanding of the changing working landscape, how this impacts risk and what the recommended process is.”
Further to having an understanding of evolving safety practices in industry – as well as the regulations that apply to workplaces – Grant says it’s critical to understand the requirements of an individual site.
“We take a very collaborative approach where we work together with the customer around the simple ethos of ‘is there a better way?’ and this is not achieved from behind a desk, it’s achieved from us going out there and doing a walk-through,” Grant elaborates. “And the benefit of having one of us come to site is we will have a fresh set of eyes across the landscape,
Grant notes that when the Motion team come out to customer’s sites they are coming with a high degree of exposure and experience.
“We’re continually in these environments. We’re going from site to site and are the recipient of inductions. Through these we’re gaining new understandings of how each of those environments works, which in turn, enables us to bring a wealth of knowledge and expertise to every workplace we visit,” says Grant. “In addition to that, we’ve partnered with what we believe to be the industry’s best in each interval, and we rely heavily on that partnership when we’re going to site.”
Importantly, Grant highlights the fact that customers have access to highly specialised knowledge and expertise through Motion’s partners.
“When it comes to safety, we’ll never purport to be an expert across all aspects of safety in an industrial business, but with our partners, we can provide collective specialisation across the field of safety,” he says. “For example, our partners have technical engineers in specific areas such as hearing protection or the use of respirators in mining applications. They have specialised solutions for specific applications and we can facilitate that for our customers, in addition to workshops and training out on site.”
Steve Edwards – who brings over 30 years’ experience of working with industrial safety products to the Motion table – adds that many customers are looking to consolidate their purchasing and know they can rely on the Motion team for advice on safety solutions in addition to other industrial parts needs.
“Industrial businesses tend to be time poor and at the same time they are under increased pressure to make sure they are complying with regulations,” says Steve. “They come to Motion as a one stop source for solutions and advice knowing they can trust the gear we have available and that it comes at a fair price.”
Additionally, Steve says there are various options and packages that customers can choose from, circling back to the fact that Motion is always striving to provide the best in business solutions.
“Customers have the choice of market-leading brands and supply packages that suit their needs. This can be done on a contract basis and even with onsite vending solutions,” he summarises. “Our goal is to not only meet our customer’s needs in terms of having the right solution in place, but to empower them with knowledge, which is of course a key motivation in producing this safety magazine.”
