Muhammad Hamada, QHSE & Business Process Manager at ENGIE Solutions, on leadership-led safety, digital tools, and building a culture where every employee owns risk
ENGIE Solutions has achieved impressive safety milestones across the region, including zero lost-time incidents and over 20 million incident-free worked hours. What’s the foundation of your QHSE approach that has enabled these results?
Leadership visibility makes the difference. Our executives are on site, walking the floors and engaging directly with crews rather than managing safety from conference rooms. This approach sets the tone for everything else, as teams see leaders prioritising safety through action rather than memos.
We’ve built an environment where anyone can stop work without fear. A first-day technician has the same authority as a twenty-year engineer to call out a risk. This policy is practised daily and reinforced publicly. Beyond incident counts, we focus on prevention. Near-miss reporting is celebrated, and close calls are seen as learning opportunities. We constantly ask, “What could go wrong?” before starting work, not after something happens.
Those 20 million incident-free hours reflect real human experiences and a shared commitment throughout our organization. Everyone deserves to finish their shift and go home safely. The foundation of our industry should be visible leadership, empowered voices, and proactive thinking, all embedded in how we work.
Can you explain the ‘No Life at Risk’ campaign and its five pillars? How has this program transformed your safety culture across operations in the GCC?
‘No Life at Risk’ is our non-negotiable promise: no deadline, budget, or client pressure justifies anyone getting hurt. Five pillars guide our daily operations. Leaders personally own safety rather than delegate it. Everyone can stop work when something feels wrong. Risk assessment occurs before starting any task. Teams receive proper training and develop the necessary skills. Constant two-way communication ensures safety is collaborative, not imposed.
These pillars reinforce one another. You can’t genuinely empower work stoppage unless leadership supports it. You can’t identify risks effectively unless people are trained and feel comfortable speaking up. These actions reinforce our approach that completing the job matters, but getting people home safely matters infinitely more.
Near-miss reporting and open communication are key to preventing incidents before they occur
The transformation across our GCC operations has been profound. Safety has shifted from being the QHSE department’s responsibility to something every person owns, regardless of role or seniority. Backing the campaign with concrete action made the difference. When project managers publicly praised workers for halting high-value jobs over safety concerns, or when leadership delayed critical milestones to address hazards, scepticism disappeared and genuine belief took hold.
With rapid regional growth in data centre capacity and AI infrastructure, what are the key safety challenges and opportunities you’re preparing for this year?
Electrical loads now rival those of small cities, creating unprecedented arc-flash risks, thermal management challenges, and work in confined spaces filled with high-voltage equipment. Some facilities draw power levels we’ve never seen before.
We’re training teams for hyperscale environments, investing in advanced electrical PPE, and designing protocols for AI-driven cooling systems and battery storage that didn’t exist five years ago. Construction speed compounds the challenge; clients want facilities online immediately, which demands important conversations about not cutting corners as timelines compress.
No deadline, no budget, and no client pressure justifies anyone getting hurt.
Lithium-ion battery installations for backup power pose entirely new risks that require specialized fire suppression and emergency response strategies. Our focus this year is staying ahead of the technology curve so that safety measures evolve as quickly as the infrastructure itself. The opportunities excite me as much as the challenges. We’re pioneering safety standards for environments that barely existed a decade ago.
Technology seems central to any QHSE strategy, from mobile safety applications to automated risk assessments. How is digitalisation changing safety management in your operations?
Mobile safety apps let supervisors document site inspections with photos, timestamps, and GPS coordinates, instantly alerting our safety team and triggering automated corrective workflows—no more lost clipboard notes. We’ve eliminated days-long waits for incident reports; real-time dashboards now display safety trends across every site.
Leadership visibility and empowered teams are central to ENGIE Solutions’ safety strategy
Predictive analytics is game-changing. We can identify patterns, such as heat index spikes above 42°C, that correlate with fatigue-related incidents, enabling proactive schedule adjustments to prevent injuries. Teams appreciate that the technology simplifies their work rather than complicates it. Automated risk assessments mean less paperwork and more time for safety measures.
But we’re careful not to let technology replace human judgment. These tools enhance, rather than override, human instincts. This balance matters. Data-driven insights, paired with experienced decision-making, produce the best outcomes.
You’ve seen a 25% increase in employee safety observations, including positive reports. Why is this cultural shift significant, and how do you maintain this level of engagement?
That 25% jump represents a fundamental shift in trust. For years across our industry, people stayed quiet about safety concerns, fearing being labelled troublemakers or causing delays. Now, teams actively seek out things to report, including positive observations of safe behaviors.
Safety is about recognizing and reinforcing good behaviors so they become habits. We maintain engagement by making reporting easy through mobile apps and, more importantly, by closing the loop. When someone reports an observation, they see action within 24–48 hours and receive personal thanks.
We’ve incorporated positive reinforcement: teams with the highest-quality observations are recognized during monthly calls, and we share lessons across the entire region so everyone benefits. The cultural shift is profound: safety has moved from management-imposed requirements to a workforce-owned commitment. That kind of engagement becomes self-sustaining once momentum builds.
Operating in challenging environments—remote locations, extreme conditions, and complex multi-phase projects—presents unique safety challenges. How do you maintain consistent QHSE standards across diverse operational contexts?
We operate in remote locations and dense urban environments, from new construction to live operational facilities. The diversity is vast and represents one of our biggest challenges. Consistency comes from non-negotiable core standards that apply universally, whether on a remote wind farm or in a downtown district cooling plant. Fundamentals like permit-to-work systems, PPE requirements, and incident reporting remain constant.
Rigid one-size-fits-all approaches fail, so we empower local teams to adapt the “how” while maintaining the “what.” In extreme heat, mandatory cooling breaks and hydration protocols are required, but they don’t apply in climate-controlled facilities. Both sites meet our core health monitoring standards.
We rotate QHSE officers across project types so they continually cross-pollinate ideas and keep standards fresh. Monthly safety forums bring together teams from diverse projects to share challenges and solutions. For example, someone managing safety on a 50°C desert construction site might offer insights that help our confined-space data centre team.
Can you share an example of how your safety protocols and team preparedness were tested under pressure, and what it revealed about your crisis management capabilities?
Last year, a severe electrical fault during major facility commissioning could have been catastrophic. Our team’s training kicked in immediately. The site supervisor initiated emergency protocols within seconds, our crisis management team assembled within minutes, and specialized electrical safety experts arrived on site within an hour.
The incident revealed our preparedness in several ways. Scenario-based training investments paid off, as people acted with clarity and speed rather than freezing. Communication protocols worked flawlessly, with everyone from clients to senior management to emergency services receiving accurate, real-time information without conflicting reports.
Digital safety tools and proactive risk assessment are reshaping how organizations manage workplace safety
The post-incident review mattered most. Our team identified three procedural improvements we’ve since implemented across all regional electrical projects.
Such incidents show that crisis management capability is built through thousands of drills, tabletop exercises, and near-miss investigations conducted when everything is calm. The real test isn’t just surviving the crisis but learning from it and emerging stronger.
As we enter 2026, what emerging QHSE trends do you see shaping critical infrastructure and data centre operations in the Middle East?
AI and IoT sensor integration for predictive safety is advancing rapidly, including wearables that detect early signs of elevated blood pressure, heat stress, or fatigue before workers notice, and sensors that identify equipment degradation before it becomes hazardous. We’re piloting this technology now, though it raises privacy and data management questions we need to address thoughtfully.
The regulatory landscape for sustainability intersects with safety in new ways. Safe handling of novel refrigerants, battery technologies, and hydrogen infrastructure requires entirely new approaches. Mental health and psychosocial risks are finally receiving the attention they deserve. We’re recognizing that fatigued, stressed, or mentally unwell workers pose safety risks, prompting us to adopt more holistic well-being programs.
Labour shortages mean faster onboarding and more inexperienced workers on complex sites, which demand better mentoring systems and potentially augmented reality training tools. Climate change has moved beyond theory. Working safely in increasingly extreme weather, from unprecedented heat to unexpected flooding, requires adaptive protocols, resilient infrastructure, and business continuity planning.
The Middle East is at the forefront of critical infrastructure development. This presents both a challenge and an opportunity to set new global safety standards in this evolving landscape.
