Last night, Sasol and Unplugged Communications had a clean sweep at the annual International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Gold Quill Awards, claiming three prestigious awards for the petrochemical company’s Safety, Health and Environmental (SHE) programmes implemented across Southern Africa. 
 
The three programmes awarded were Sasol’s SHE Representative Learning Progamme, Sasol Permit to Work Programme, and Sasol Safety and Environment Legal Compliance Training and Awareness Programme.
 
“We’re thrilled with this acknowledgement,” said Sasol SHE Academy Learning Manager, Ludwig von Benecke. “We’ve received favourable comments by well-travelled international attendees who have rated the programmes as the best they have seen in the petrochemical industry worldwide. An official endorsement by an international body of the standards of the IABC is very gratifying. This was a team effort and congratulations also need to go to our various experts in the area of content and strategy, including our world class team of live learning practitioners who bring the work to life in the training sessions.”
 
A feature of all the award winning work is the use of soap opera based drama. This is a product of a creative and strategic recipe that uses Emotional Quotient (EQ) based storytelling to open the door to Intelligence Quotient (IQ) content.
 
While Industrial Theatre innovators, Unplugged Communications have delivered in terms of the creative platforms and high end video production values, the Sasol SHE Academy provides the science and learning methodology.
 
“We tap into the four quadrants of the brain using the Herman Brain Dominance Instrument model (HBDI) which heightens the use of both left and right sides of the brain creating a holistic approach and understanding of the SHE/HSE requirements,” said von Benecke.

Annually, the SHE Academy trains in excess of 172 000 permanent Sasol personnel and service providers across Southern Africa.
 
Rick Melvill, Creative Director at Unplugged Communications said, “Winning awards for mere creative sake has its own satisfaction but the challenge in terms of IABC requirements is that you are measured on both creative impact and documented proof of performance. The entries were certainly helped by Sasol’s outstanding safety performance during the period.”
 
The IABC represents 16,000 communication professionals working for blue chip companies worldwide. The annual Gold Quill competition is the summation of the best of their projects worldwide. The entries face a rigorous judging process by a panel of experts who span across global industries and are checked against the strict IABC seven-point scale of excellence.
 
The awards were presented to the winners at the IABC World Conference in Toronto, Canada.

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For further information, please contact Nadeema Noorbhai on 011 709 6710 or nadeema.noorbhai@ogilvypr.co.za