Category four – Most significant improvement to work health and safety performance
Amart Furniture’s goal in 2015 was to reset on what safety really means, throw away all bad habits and focus on what matters most. This was ambitious with 72 sites across Australia, experiencing rapid growth and a high transient workforce. The main barrier was the ability to deliver a single consistent message to every single team member.
Amart’s reset began by introducing a new safety management system (SMS) and communicating this to all team members as quickly as possible (completed within three months). During the initial phases of the safety reset, Amart identified that some leaders did not appreciate the importance of safety or their responsibility to ensure their team knew how to self-solve most situations. This led to the development of a Safety Action Plan, involving leaders to take a hands on approach to engage their team wholistically.
In 2021 Amart decided to review their SMS again to streamline and simplify their documents and make sure all procedures used plain, easy to understand language. This was achieved by rebranding their entire SMS and incorporating a logo to help familiarise staff with the system.
Simplifying their SMS has improved Amart’s safety culture and reduced high-risk incidents, lost time injuries, and safety breaches every year. Amart see their SMS as being fluid and changes are made when and where required, improving their safety across the business to be ‘Better, simpler and cheaper’.
