Our ethics, values and behaviours are woven into every aspect of what we do.
To deliver our promise of enabling a switched-on world to flow, we need to define, grow and support the right culture within Arqiva. It is critical to the success of our strategy, and so we have three goals that shape our culture:
- Accountability – being accountable for the promises we make
- One Arqiva – working together as one team
- Curiosity – striving to look at things differently to discover a better way
Everything we do is shaped by those three goals, including health, safety and well-being.
At its core, our health, safety and well-being approach is simple: everyone goes home safely every day. Our teams work in some of the most remote locations in the UK, on complex sites, some of which include some of the tallest man-made structures around. We support companies delivering essential utilities and services to the UK. And while we would do everything possible to make sure our customers receive what they expect from us; we will never compromise our colleagues’ safety.
But it’s easy to say we take health, safety and well-being seriously. What’s needed is an approach that embeds the right culture into our organisation, that ensures everyone understands their responsibilities to themselves and their colleagues and drives the right behaviours.
And that’s what we’ve got here.
Everyone comes home – health, safety and wellbeing
Health and safety are vital, whether in the office or repairing an antenna on a 300-metre mast. We want everyone to come home at the end of every day, and we know that employees cannot operate to the best of their abilities if they do not feel safe.
We are committed to achieving the highest standards of health, safety, and welfare in our operations. Not just for our employees, suppliers and partners, but all those who may be affected by our activities.
There’re two reasons for that. Most importantly, it’s our responsibility as an employer. We are legally bound to keep our employees as safe as possible, and it’s also a moral obligation. No one comes to work expecting to have an accident, and the best way to avoid that is to create a workplace where risks are minimised.
Second, any incident, no matter how small, has an impact on operational effectiveness. If our workers aren’t safe, then that will affect our ability to deliver the service levels our customers expect.
We will never be able to remove all risks, but we can create a working environment that mitigates the possibility of incidents. Taking a colleague-led approach to health and safety, we can reduce downtime and maintain operational effectiveness. Not only does this ensure we meet our customers’ requirements, but it also means that our teams are not exposed to unnecessary risks.
This ties into a key part of health and safety: wellness.
We recognise and support whole-person wellbeing, based on five pillars:
- Physical
- Professional
- Social
- Financial
- Mental
We focus on supporting our people to be the best version of themselves at work so that they have the time and energy to live a full life outside of work. We believe that if our colleagues can be the parent, partner, carer, hobbyist, athlete, etc. they want or need to be in their personal lives, then they will bring more focus to work, helping them to be better employees.
It’s an approach that delivers tangible results:
- In 2023, 71% of our employees met recommended physical activity levels, up from 65% in 2022
- Work-life balance satisfaction increased to 80%, exceeding benchmarks by 15%.
- The proportion of employees who feel senior leadership values well-being rose from 58% to 78%
Safety in our hands
Health and safety is everyone’s responsibility. Our colleagues are empowered to stop work if they have safety concerns. We continually remind everyone their safety is the most important factor and to stop and report it if it’s unsafe to carry on.
To embed that, we have developed a structure that ensures everything we do is based on:
- Being responsible: This includes respecting the health, safety and wellbeing of everyone, and being consistent in our attitudes in that regard. It involves listening and learning from others and enabling everyone to share their observations and experiences so that we are continually improving. Praising and sharing good practice is a key part of this, as is having an environment where everyone feels supported in speaking up when something is wrong.
- Being informed: We ask our employees to understand the correct processes and procedures, be aware of the latest health and safety notices and keep their skills and knowledge up to date. We need them to be our eyes and ears, identifying where we can improve, and the best way to do that is to know what the right behaviours and practices look like, and asking questions when they are unsure.
We call this ‘Safety in our hands’, and it helps us to seek continual improvement. We want to learn from incidents, not blame people. We work with our colleagues who are doing the jobs to design the right solutions, based on their deep understanding of the risks involved.
By doing this, we will improve our practices and share what we’ve learned with our customers and the wider industry, playing our part to help everyone be and feel safer.
The Arqiva approach – our golden rule
It is all underpinned by a golden rule – Take 5. We want everyone to think about every task before it starts to make sure all employees are fully prepared.
A leading cause of accidents is rushing to get a job done without giving it the due care and attention it requires. That might mean trying to use a tool that’s not fit for the job but is closest to hand, or not having the right PPE because it will take longer to get kitted out correctly.
With Take 5, we want everyone to spend the time making sure they are fully prepared for every job before they start the task.
On top of that, for key hazards, we have our Absolute Rules which define what must be done to work safely. These apply to everyone: employees, contractors and visitors.
Covering work at height, radio frequency, electricity, asbestos, construction regulations and street works, compliance with our Absolute Rules is of paramount importance. Any breaches, near misses or accidents are fully investigated by our dedicated Safety Team.
Our Safety Team
We have a ten-strong team of health and safety professionals with more than 90 years of collective experience. Made up of business partners, radio frequency (RF) engineers, and improvement professionals, our team is highly qualified and committed to helping us work safely and effectively.
Equipping our employees
Health, safety and wellbeing are like any other aspect of work: without the right understanding, tools and policies, no one can be expected to operate effectively.
We ensure that every employee, regardless of role, receives the right health and safety training to fulfil their personal responsibilities at work. In addition, our teams receive regular training tailored specifically for their roles. For example:
- In-depth winter training for those working on-site
- Radio frequency awareness
- Mast rescue
- Mast climbing courses
- Awareness courses for fire, asbestos, construction design and management
- 4x4 driver training
- First Aid
We continually provide refresher and re-accreditation training to ensure that all our employees are fully up-to-date and qualified to do their work safely.
We also require all suppliers and contractors to be able to demonstrate relevant competence and training when working on our sites. Those without are refused access.
Certifying our credentials
To make sure that our approach to health and safety meets the required standards, we operate a robust integrated management system that is certified to ISO14001, ISO45001, ISO90001 and ISO270001.
We run our own accredited IOSH Working Safely training scheme for our engineers, and we collaborate with the union BECTU on an annual employee safety conference.
In addition, a range of professionally recognised qualifications are held by staff working across the business, including IOSH, IEMA, NEBOSH, and NVQ.
Arqiva’s health and safety in the real world – customers, suppliers and the wider industry
Many of our customers have ESG commitments that extend to their supply chain. Health, Safety and Wellbeing is a key tenet of our own ESG strategy. This means that our customers benefit from our commitment to safety.
Conducting our business fairly and ethically is critical to our success and relies on the interdependencies between our culture, people, technology, products and services, brand and partnerships including our supply chain. We operate a supplier code of conduct to encourage and support our suppliers to act responsibly, working in socially and environmentally sustainable ways including minimising any potential impact on the environment as a result of supplying goods or services to us.
As part of that, we run the Contractor Safety Forum, a way of engaging with contractors so that they are clear on our expectations and share their experiences. We run two virtual meetings and an annual in-person conference, with 60 attendees from key contractors at our last event in 2024.
We are also very aware of our responsibility to share learnings and experiences with the wider industry.
We are a member of the Masts and Towers Safety (MATS) group, which consists of organisations that own or manage masts and towers (including monopoles, gantries, satellite dishes and rooftops) and any other structure where there is specific and significant work at height and occupational radio frequency (RF) hazards.
The MATS Group aims to provide and share consistent industry information and guidance on:
- Safe working at height related to the infrastructure that the member companies own.
- Occupational RF issues associated with broadcast and communications antennas and equipment.
We are also involved with the IOSH Communications and Media Specialist Group. Through these industry initiatives, we can not only share our knowledge but hear from others as well. Ultimately, it benefits everyone for the industry to be seen as a safe and rewarding place to work.
Arqiva’s health and safety in the real world – delivering a major restoration project safely
Much of our work is focused on maintenance of our sites, but sometimes we have to undertake much larger projects. In August 2021 our Bilsdale site, one of the highest telecommunication masts in the UK at 685 metres above sea level, suffered a serious fire. The damage to the 314 metre tall mast, surroundings buildings, TV and radio transmitters affected more than 600,000 households in the North York Moors area.
We needed to restore the site quickly and safely. With a large variety of high-risk tasks to be completed within a short period of time, we deployed both a dedicated site manager and health and safety advisor.
These activities included:
- controlled demolition of the structure
- site clearance
- night working
- working through the winter
- 320 helicopter lifts
- deep excavations
- electrical work
- asbestos clearance
- installation of temporary 45 tonne bridge
- building a new 306m mast
All of these activities were carefully controlled and managed in accordance with relevant H&S rules, including the Construction, Design and Management Regulations.
Despite the number of high-risk tasks our team had to complete, more than 1250 days were worked on site without significant loss of time due to accidents. This contributed to the successful restoration of Bilsdale, with both customers and government stakeholders thanking us for our efforts.
Recognition
Our people are at the heart of everything we do. Being recognised for that work is not our primary goal, but when our health, safety and wellness efforts are praised it reinforces our commitment to ensuring every colleague feels supported, valued, and empowered.
In 2023, Arqiva was named Britain’s Healthiest Workplace- Large Business Category. The World Teleport Association also names us as no.2 Independent Teleport Operator and No.4 Global Teleport Operator.
In 2024, Arqiva won Best Health and Wellbeing Strategy at the HR Excellence Awards.
These awards are a testament to the collective effort of our colleagues who have embraced and shaped our approaches to health, safety and wellbeing.
Together, we’ve created a culture where everyone feels supported and empowered to be their best, both at work and in life.
Our sites can be challenging to work on in great weather, but what happens when we’re in the midst of storms?
Read how we keep our teams safe while maintaining service levels in this article on working in storms.
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