Andriy Kotykhov: championing WHS in process and practice

Andriy Kotykhov recently won the Australian WHS Champion (CEO) of the Year (less than 1000 employees) for taking a strong and effective approach to leadership of WHS across the business

Andriy Kotykhov served as former CEO of Machinemonitor, an independent consultancy group with experience in the management of electrical rotating machines and stationary equipment involving design, troubleshooting, specialised field testing, repair management, condition monitoring and risk management services. Kotykhov is an electrical and mechanical engineer with more than 25 years of industry experience in the mining, oil and gas sectors. He joined the company in 2012 as regional manager for the Queensland region, before moving into the COO role and then CEO in March 2020.

Machinemonitor is engaged to conduct business activities across multiple client sites including power generation sites, mine sites and electrical motor rebuild workshops in Australia, New Zealand and surrounding countries including PNG and Fiji, according to Matthew McBean, group HSE and compliance manager for Machinemonitor.

“Machinemonitor has earned the reputation of being a leader in supporting clients to achieve complete confidence in their high voltage electrical assets. Planning and overseeing all aspects of electrical asset management and has resulted in continued compliance on ISO accreditations covering 45001,9001 and 14001, client trust, and ease of client pre-qualification,” said McBean, who explained that Kotykhov has led machinemonitor with year-on-year improvement and growth while ensuring safety comes first in everything the business undertakes.

This has been underpinned by the development and implementation of the business plans since Kotykhov became CEO, and these plans have resulted in increased knowledge of work health and safety, lowered staff turnover and reduced safety incidents within the business.

“There have been zero lost time incidents, zero medical treatment injuries and zero first aid injuries during this time,” said McBean. “Near miss reporting is encouraged and expected, which allows all near misses to be reviewed and corrective actions taken. By using a live digital platform near misses and incidents are reported to senior management in real-time, allowing immediate action if required.”

Reinforcing safety through values and culture

Since becoming CEO, McBean said Kotykhov has implemented a focus on eight values in the company – the first of which is safety and a commitment to ensuring the health and safety of all employees, contractors and customers. This value is followed by others including purpose, talent, respect, honesty, teamwork, trust and customers first.

McBean said Kotykhov has implemented a strong safety culture which is embedded in every activity undertaken within the company. “Andriy has ensured that each employee has a feeling a sense of purpose and achievement and a feeling of value to the business, ensuring strong mental fitness or lessened stress and anxiety – often achieved by training and correct workforce numbers,” he said. “Each employee has a level of empowerment in deciding their employment pathway, more skills (which means faster advancement – critical for younger employees, and this also allows some control in contributing to the selection of pathway.”

This has resulted in a positive work environment, better outcomes and cohesion as a team. “Andriy and the senior management team continue to develop a health and safety culture that shows that everyone in the workplace shares a common value: that health and safety is a priority by anticipating unsafe acts and correcting them before any harm is done. Prevention is key, but all employees are taught that the business takes ownership and assists in stopping unsafe acts, as well as suggesting and implementing corrective actions,” said McBean, who explained that safety is elevated to the forefront of all employees’ minds through:

• Training
• Supervision and mentoring in the workplace
• Continually reviewing and consultation on workplace procedures
• Reviewing, auditing and amending the machinemonitor WHS management system
• Introducing specific workplace health and safety-related programs and initiatives
• Monthly team safety meetings
• Encourage the reporting of near misses and include them in the IMS monthly report and discussed at the monthly safety meeting.
• Sharing of safety bulletins, public programs such as Safe Work Month and national road safety week

Leading process and practice

Machinemonitor’s senior management team also have a monthly management meeting where the first three agenda items are safety-based. Regional managers must also present an HSE management plan showing statics on health and safety performance for each quarter, according to McBean.

“As CEO, Andriy leads from the front, coming off the tools within the business allows the CEO and senior management team to know the technical procedures which are written in a way that promotes safety knowledge. Andriy makes himself available to all employees to have open discussions on any topic presented. Should he not know an answer, he will seek the answer from a technical expert and respond with the correct information,” he said.

Driven by safety as the number one value in the business, Kotykhov has implemented the following initiatives:

• Appointing a full-time QHSE and compliance coordinator
• A stop work policy, which enables any employee of machinemonitor to stop work if they view something as unsafe or becoming unsafe and seek guidance from their manager on how to proceed.
• The machinemonitor learning academy, which allows for the completion of high-risk activities involved in electrical testing. This internal training process teaches employees technical procedures, teaching competence and confidence.
• An employee wellbeing program, with ongoing interactions with all employees to determine mental wellness and overall wellbeing in their role.
• A “Be-Heard” app, which helps manage any psychosocial hazards in the workplace if they arise. “Our commitment to our employees is to provide a platform to confidentially discuss any concern or seek assistance without any negative actions towards them. The information supplied is only viewed by the HR team,” said McBean.
• Ongoing compliance through policies and procedures, available via a digital document storage library with multilevel security permissions.

Consultation and engagement

Machinemonitor offers internal mentors opportunities to build and nurture working relationships and celebrate learning outcomes and reaching individual targets. Internal units have also been developed to target employee learning outcomes with the knowledge required for machinemonitor core business activities, according to McBean, who said employees are consulted using a number of different tools on WHS issues and procedures including:

• A monthly safety meeting with direct interactions between managers and the QHSE coordinator
• During consultation on work health and safety employees identify hazards and risks, employees are asked to assist in making decisions on ways to eliminate or minimise risks, propose changes to technical procedures and the adequacy of equipment, PPE and overall facilities required to complete assigned tasks safely.
• Employees are consulted and notified of any changes to technical procedures and workplace policies that will affect workers' health and safety.
• Workers are trained at both external registered training organisations and in the internal machinemonitor academy where the course components include agreed workplace safety procedures which allows constant delivery of content and therefore the expectation is that all employees should have consistent knowledge of workplace health and safety.
• All records of meetings and consultation is documented and record in the machinemonitor digital document storage program.

Originally published by Australian Institute of Health & Safety (AIHS) 10.2023