Safe and sound
Father and son team Ger and Paul Cummins have tapped into a need for more engaging interaction with staff on safety practices with their innovative solution
W ith 28 years’ experience in the manufacturing sector, Ger Cummins founded SeaChange in Naas, Co Kildare in 2005 based on his philosophy that a safety culture needs to be developed from the ground up in any organisation.
The company provides interactive lean management solutions with the aim of reducing the risk of accidents and claims, and ultimately allowing clients to get better insurance rates.
“We are very simply connecting the safety message with staff through our proprietary software and portal, which they can be trained and certified on and which we can remotely monitor and audit,” says Ger’s son Paul Cummins, SeaChange managing director.
“Instead of paying for a paper-based risk assessment that just sits on a shelf gathering dust, ours is a best practice system that allows clients to get a return on their investment.”
A research study as part of Paul’s PhD in organisational psychology and leadership tied in with the SeaChange concept and after he joined the company in 2010 he and Ger designed and scoped out the system.
“My research confirmed that the more you engage with staff with lean management practices that are visual and easy to understand and the more ownership you provide from the ground up, the better results you get,” he says.
“It is estimated that 80-95% of all workplace accidents are behaviourbased. Ticking a box on a form is never going to impact that, which we have proven.”
SeaChange is currently partnered with 600 sites in Ireland and mainland Europe including multinationals and clients in the retail, hospitality and healthcare sectors. A before-and-after analysis of 300 of these sites revealed reductions in accident rates (50%), frequency of claims (42%) and client insurance premiums (7%). At the same time, there was a reported 80% rise in staff safety engagement.
Paul says growth in the business has been “astronomical” since 2010, all driven by word of mouth. “A couple of big contracts helped us and proactive business owners and retail groups saw the benefits of best practice – especially in terms of how the system connects with staff and is easier to understand than a safety statement. We haven’t invested much in sales and marketing and still have a small sales team.” SeaChange currently employs 18 people in Naas.
“We haven’t seen anything like our system on the market. There are risk assessment solutions, but nothing that splits out visual job safety analysis and makes it local and specific to an organisation,” says Paul.
“We are currently developing an app which will take things to the next level. We also see the future as supporting partner clients around managing risk.”
“Instead of paying for a paper-based risk assessment that just sits on a shelf gathering dust, ours is a best practice system that allows clients to get a return on their investment”