Dear managers,
2024 has brought us many business successes, and 2025 is shaping up to be a promising year. However, when it comes to Health and Safety, we must confront a stark and sobering reality: four work-related fatal accidents have occurred in the last ten months.
This is unacceptable, and it demands more than reflection. We must act, individually and collectively. The upcoming Global Safety Time Out on 28 April 2025 offers a vital opportunity for us to step back, assess how we run our operations, and ask ourselves a fundamental question:
Are we truly running our business safely? If not, what must we change now?
Your leadership role
As Project Directors, Managers, Operational Leaders, General Managers, and Affiliate Directors, your role in animating this initiative is critical. This event is the perfect opportunity to reset, realign, and recommit across every level of our operations.
We ask for your active participation in the following ways:
At Business Unit or Affiliate level
- Convene a Safety Time Out session with your leadership team;
- Align on your Health & Safety objectives, improvement plans, and how you will measure progress and accountability throughout 2025.
At Project or Site level
- Host a session with your management team, and include partners when relevant, focusing on your ability to choose and use H&S data and leading indicators to boost your improvement plans;
- Organise an operational Time Out with front-line supervisors, workers, and subcontractors, focusing on strict adherence to the Life-Saving Rules most relevant to your current activities and risks (e.g. Rule 1, 2, 3 or others as appropriate).
Supportive materials & resources
To support your efforts, the Group QHSE Department has developed a complete Safety Time Out kit, including posters and slide decks available in English, French, and Dutch. You’ll receive this kit in the coming hours.
Additionally, this is a moment to bring our four fundamental Safety Principles and Safety Pledge to life through visible leadership and clear, collective action.
Learn from experience: use the ROX Module in OASIS
To deepen the value of this initiative, we strongly encourage you to consult the Return on Experience (ROX) module, now available in OASIS under the “Improve” tab. Click here to open the ROX module. This library contains the best practices and lessons learned from crisis notifications and high-potential incidents from across the Group. The most critical ones are flagged for your best attention.
Implementing these learnings is essential to improving our risk awareness, preventing future incidents, and protecting our people and our business.
If you do not yet have access to OASIS, please request it via oasis-help@besix.com.
Please also ensure that your Safety Time Out events are registered in OASIS, including number of participants, key improvement actions and summary of discussions. If OASIS is not yet fully deployed on your project, submit your records to your referent QHSE Manager.
This is a pivotal moment for us all. Our collective safety performance must reflect the same excellence we pursue in every other part of the business. This Time Out is the right moment to lead with purpose and urgency.
Let’s make 2025 a turning point for how we act, think, and lead on safety.
Thank you for your leadership and commitment.
Pierre Sironval, CEO BESIX Group
Geert Aelbrecht, Chief People Officer BESIX Group
and Alexis Laroche, Director QHSE BESIX Group
