What Centrica say..... January 2010

CEOL have been using PsychaLogica to provide consultant safety services for a number of years.  The company has been involved independently as part of the due diligence process when acquiring a number of our stations, and so knows our business pretty well.

Early in 2005 our safety performance was poor and PsychaLogica helped us to develop a Safety Leadership Workshop in an attempt to address this issue.  They were instrumental in helping to deliver eighteen of these two-day workshops over a period of four years.  Excellent feedback was received from the vast majority of workshop delegates, with many commenting specifically on the workshop presenter's input and presentation techniques - using humour and role-play - whilst not afraid to challenge individuals about their attitudes/beliefs.  The PsychaLogica presenter definitely adds an extra dimension to what can be quite dry, difficult training events and ... certainly gets people thinking 'outside the box' with a style which is relaxed to help facilitate discussion.

We are currently using PsychaLogica to help deliver a new workshop based around human interactions and major accident scenarios.  We ran two pilot workshops with them in the final quarter of last year and got very good feedback from those who attended.  Our plan is to run a minimum of four of these workshops a year.

The training approach with PsychaLogica has, in my mind, definitely made an impact and has influenced a number of our senior managers in a new approach to tackle old problems.  Following the first series of workshops, our safety performance improved markedly and I certainly think that this is in some way connected to the workshops held.  A number of our station managers have used PsychaLogica to address specific local issues, and they have supported a number of training events at our Windsor head office at the request of the Director of the Power Business Unit.

PsychaLogica was also heavily involved in our last (full) Safety Climate Survey across the power fleet - they devised the questionnaires, analysed the feedback and made recommendations for improvements.  It is our intention that we engage with PsychaLogica when we plan to conduct a repeat survey in 2011.

Phil Mitchell
Principal H&S Adviser - Power Business Unit
Centrica Energy