Management at Consolidated Pastoral Company (CPC) understands that looking after the health and wellbeing of workers makes good business sense. Its employees are geographically spread across remote locations covering 3.6 million hectares in northern Australia down to Brisbane.
CPC developed good relationships with existing services to roll out a strong health and wellbeing program to all its employees, including:
- OzHelp – provide health checks through the Workplace Tune-up Programme.
- Psychs on Bikes – provide health checks to target what they refer to as the four silent killers (hypertension, diabetes, depression and alcohol).
- It’s a Bloke Thing Foundation – provided access to a prostate cancer awareness roadshow.
- Care for Farmers – raise awareness on mental health issues and suicide prevention.
- CPC annual gift of a shirt to all employees members this year is a Trademutt shirt, which is recognised as a conversation starter for mental health.
They also actively promoted and participated in awareness raising activities including Dolly’s Dream Day, RU OK day, Movember, World Mental Health Day and Women’s Health Week. CPC held a Mental Health First Aid Training course, and other training days focusing on topics such as bullying, resilience, physical health and wellbeing. CPC are working proactively towards accreditation to be recognised as a Mentally Healthy Workplace. They are developing a Structured Health and Wellbeing Plan with a 12-to-18-month outlook for the whole company.
What is most important to CPC are their people, people’s safety, wellbeing and feeling satisfied and appreciated in the workplace. The most recent CPC safety climate survey indicated positive results with 99 per cent job satisfaction, 86 per cent job engagement and 95 per cent safety behaviours. CPC is always working towards a safe work culture with an emphasis on developing their people emotionally and upskilling through training and support.