Health and Safety for Families, Youth, and Community
Authors: McTague T. , Mitchell S. , Brice Marie , Costelloe K. 
Published: April 2008

In our own "search for sustainable excellence," we look at how one leading service company addresses health and safety for families of their employees. We examine management processes, social support, and extension of these methods for Youth and Community.

The Past: The Missing Link

In the oil and gas industry, most people would agree that, since the beginning of the business, expatriate employees and their families have been well cared for. Employees on transfer, now as in the past, generally head off to their new job and leave the family behind to arrange their move with the company or relocation contractor. Before leaving for the job site, the company probably gave the employee some printed material to review. He would be educated about health risks, such as Malaria; warned not to drink the water; and given other security details about his new home. This information he tucked into his (and in the past, let's face it, it was usually "his") suitcase for reading later. In the new location, the employee arrived at his office or job site and promptly received a briefing about health and safety. Off to work and busy with the new job, employees would often neglect to share any of that vital information with their spouses before the big move. Left to their own resources, expatriate spouses commonly refer to their employee partner as the "missing link" when it comes to getting health, safety, and security information about their own moves.

Today

Companies are improving and beginning to recognize the value of the family as a stakeholder in the relocation process. In the case of a leading service company, spouses are considered a highly valued resource, a partner in the relocation experience. Quality, Health, Safety and Environment (QHSE) and Human Resources (HR), have collaborated with the spouses themselves to develop standard management guidelines for working with the company's volunteer spouses association. This association is now 20 years in existence. For this service company, relocation experiences for families are a top priority. Welcoming and compassion for the needs of the relocating family are core values. Consequently, with buy-in at top management levels in the company and dedication by a revolving global board of spouse volunteers, spouses find solutions to common problems for themselves and each other, have a strong bond with management at both global and local levels, and are even proving to be a useful communication medium for QHSE to get health and safety information to employees via alternative communication channels.

Our Future Together

Dedicated to a continuing commitment to assist employees, contractors, and spouses with the unique difficulties associated with a mobile, global workforce, the company plans to use QHSE expertise developed for the employee to create new health and safety programs to educate and train 11- to 18-year-old children of employees as well as local children in communities where the employees work and live. This health and safety program for youth will use, maximize, and redevelop existing resources and will tailor additional resources in youth-related health and safety education. It will also reflect broad-based research and current facilitation models and methodologies to empower this particular age group. The program is founded in the company's global citizenship focus areas and will begin with injury prevention, followed by personal security, malaria, HIV/AIDS prevention, road safety, and water and climate change.