Improving by “living the vision”
Our HSEQ programme «Living the Vision» is one of the most important tools Solvang has to achieve our vision and putting our core values to life every day.
In the programme, crew and office staff work together to improve our activities related to health, safety, environment and quality. All employees know they must work hard every day to maintain the standard and achieve the set goals in the company.
The idea has its origins in 2008. It started with the training programme «Safe Sailing» – an initiative to improve the reporting of incidents and accidents in the fleet, further improve our vetting results and reinforce our safety culture based on Maritime Crew Resource Management (MCRM).
After different initiatives following «Safe Sailing», the benefits of establishing a new platform to unite our HSEQ work were evident. «Living the Vision» was launched in 2013. It started with an overall plan for quarterly focus for HSEQ, specific topics each month and weekly onboard meetings – all followed up by the onshore organisation.
Ship visits, surveys and interviews are used regularly to monitor the programme and get input.
Since then, «Living the Vision» has been developed and fine-tuned along the way. Ship visits, surveys and interviews are used regularly to monitor the programme and get input. The seafarers also give monthly input on what the onshore organisation should do to improve on each topic. The onshore organisation gives feedback through the monthy newsletter on each topic. In addition, the office staff review the seafarers’ input in quarterly meet-ups where they give direct feedback and plan the meeting content for the upcoming three months.
The working process of Living the Vision
Living the Vision has 12 “fixed” topics each year which are decided in December. Still, we have the opportunity to rearrange and replace topics if necessary – if something comes up and we want extra attention on a specific topic. This proved beneficial this year when the pandemic brought unforeseen consequences necessary to deal with in Living the Vision.
In recent years, the seafarers have had three meetings on each topic.
The seafarers decide ship-specific actions for improvements each month and share these across the fleet. Organisational learning is ensured through the monthly “Living the Vision” newsletter. The recent years, we have also incorporated content from Shell’s programme for Maritime Partners in Safety, including Reflective Learning and Resilience, into “Living the Vision”.
