Industry: Construction / Team Stadium / Sir Robert McAlpine
Location: 2012 London Olympic Site, Stratford, London
Alkoomi Involvement: The delivery of a full safety leadership and culture change programme
Date: 2008 – 2011
Context
At the outset, The Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) declared that worker safety would be a key priority for the construction of the London Games. The Team McAlpine consortium, led by Sir Robert McAlpine, were awarded the contract to design and construction the 80,000 stadium; to be known as Team Stadium.
Team Stadium saw an opportunity to contribute to doing something innovative in construction safety which would leave a lasting legacy from the London Games and deliver on the ODA commitment.
Alkoomi were asked in February 2009 to develop with them a Safety Leadership and Culture Development Programme which would impact across the whole Stadium.
Client & Alkoomi approach
At the Alkoomi Safety Leadership Team Launch Workshop Team Stadium declared:
“When the Olympic flame is lit in 2012 we will be proud to say for the first time in the history of the games that the stadium was constructed without the loss of a single life. Team Stadium is committed to everyone at the Olympic stadium coming to work and going home without injury.”
This declaration was the key driver behind the Alkoomi programme.
The Team Stadium leadership through personal and collective development, took on a joint commitment to eliminate injuries on the stadium site; they confronted and took on powerfully the perceptions of people in the organisation around safety, understood who they were personally around safety and got into action to deliver the elimination of worker injury.
The Programme extended into middle management, supervision, and workforce. At the peak of its construction, there were 6,499 people on site.
Outcomes and the London 2012 Legacy
With a total workforce of 46,000 working on the Olympic Park over the duration of the project and over 80 million man-hours worked:
- 30 periods of one million hours worked without a reportable injury, plus five periods of two million hours and two periods of three million hours
- Accident frequency rate of 0.16 – well below the average for the UK construction industry and comparable with the UK all-industry average (at the time)
- 126 RIDDOR-reportable injury accidents (ODA-recorded figure)
- No work-related fatalities
The main construction project for London 2012 was completed in July 2011, on time, within budget and with an exemplary health and safety record. It demonstrated that building projects on time and within budget did not mean compromising on the health and safety of workers.
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