MAMA'S BOYS

BECAUSE MEN LISTEN TO THEIR MOTHERS, BILFINGER BERGER IS HANGING LIFE-SIZE PORTRAITS ON THE WALLS AT WORKPLACES IN NORWAY.

Mothers’ smiles shine from the walls wherever Bilfinger Berger’s Norwegian subsidiary BIS Industrier is at work. In dozens of workshops, factories, refineries, industrial buildings and offshore installations, they look down benevolently from their gilded frames. The portraits are part of a health and safety campaign developed by Kirsti Gerhardsen. The accompanying brochures say it all: “Think carefully about everything that could happen. Love, Mom.” Safety manager Kirsti Gerhardsen has traveled as far as Paris to present her campaign: “We don’t use models, these are our employees’ mothers. That really hits home.”

Gerhardsen had photos taken of fifteen women at home on their sofas or at the dining room table. Nothing has been touched up: “Mothers are friendly, but they’re firm. They care,” she explains. “That’s the message we want to get across: Take your work seriously and pay attention!”

Text: Bernd Hauser, Photos: Antonia Zennaro, BIS Industrier
Bilfinger Berger Magazine 2/2011