2014 Safe Work Awards
Winners and finalists of the 2014 Safe Work Awards - recognising innovation, leadership and commitment to making Queensland workplaces healthier and safer.
Brisbane Motorway Services, Bowen Hills - Winner - Best solution to an identified work health and safety issue
- Finalist - Best demonstrated leadership in work health and safety
- Brendan Gough - Finalist (Highly commended) - Best individual contribution to work health and safety
Brisbane Motorway Services (BMS) provides operation and maintenance services for the CLEM7 tunnel. During a disaster or emergency in the tunnel, BMS workers' ability to respond quickly and effectively depends on their knowledge and skills and familiarity with emergency scenarios.
FILM: Queensland Safe Work Awards 2014: Category eight finalist – Brisbane Motorway Services
Title Screen
Queensland Safe Work Awards 2014
Best demonstrated leadership in work health and safety
Finalist: Brisbane Motorway Services
Interviewee:
Brendan Gough
Operations and Maintenance Manager
Brisbane Motorway Services
I'm the Operations and Maintenance Manager for Brisbane Motorway Services.
I'm responsible for overseeing the operations and maintenance activities that are undertaken on a 24/7 basis on the CLEM 7 tunnel.
We've got staff working in live traffic, working with 33 KV electrical supplies, confined spaces, restricted spaces, working at heights, so there's a myriad of activities, all of which present a risk to my staff. So it's providing an opportunity to train and mentor and support the staff and giving them a safe and effective work environment to perform their duties.
For our operators and response crew, we've provided a twelve month training program for those staff to ensure their skills are maintained and provided a virtual simulation training environment for them, to provide a high pressure and yet safe environment in which to help hone their skills in providing effective response to incidents on the motorway.
We have a lot of administrative support staff so we've provided some holistic programs: subsidised gym membership, annual health assessments, risk assessments of work activities, so that the staff know that they have the right level of fitness and skills to perform. It's all about a team effort on this. It's not just up to me because at the end of the day I can provide the tools for the staff but they need to want to use them. If they're not implementing those tools at the coal face it just won't work.
You need to obtain staff input into the program. So through staff meetings, speaking with the staff one on one, looking at analysis of incidents that have occurred on this site, looking at what other sites do around the country in regards to operation and maintenance activities on motorways and trying to finesse that to come up with the right answer to what was going to fit here on the CLEM 7.
The culture here at CLEM 7 is something that has been evidenced through our extremely effective 1600 days LTI figure, but we just couldn't sit back and hope that the staff or that culture would continue on. That's what keeps me awake at night. So as a result of that we've got our management team together, and we've come up with a new safety initiative or reinvigoration program of 'Be alert, raise alarm, and work and play to zero harm'. To keep it ever present in the staffs' minds that management is there to support them in their day to day activities to make sure they're working safe, looking after their mate and doing something very simple such as doing a take five. So every individual right down to the cleaners here on site are empowered to stop work activities to make sure that it can be re-assessed at another time and undertaken in a more safe and effective manner.
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Copyright The State of Queensland (Department of Justice and Attorney-General) 2014.
Copyright protects this film. The State of Queensland has no objection to this material being reproduced, but asserts its right to be recognised as author of the original material and the right to have the material unaltered. The material presented in this film is distributed by the Queensland Government as an information source only.
The State of Queensland makes no statements, representations, or warranties about the accuracy or completeness of the information contained in this film, and the viewer should not rely on it.
The Queensland Government disclaims all responsibility and all liability (including, without limitation, liability in negligence) for all expenses, losses, damages and costs you might incur as a result of the information being inaccurate or incomplete in any way, and for any reason.
[Queensland Government crest]
Great state. Great opportunity.
Gay Constructions, Murarrie - Winner - Best demonstrated leadership in work health and safety
- Finalist (Commended) - Most significant improvement to work health and safety performance
Established in 1959, Gay Constructions is a privately owned small to medium enterprise specialising in steel fabrication. Gay Constructions' lost time injuries and reportable safety incidents were increasing, and due to the large number of claims, the company's workers' compensation insurance policy was close to being cancelled.
FILM: Queensland Safe Work Awards 2014: Category eight finalist – Gay Constructions
Title Screen
Queensland Safe Work Awards 2014
Best demonstrated leadership in work health and safety
Finalist: Gay Constructions
Interviewee:
Brett Mathieson
Managing Director, Gay Constructions
Gay Constructions is a privately owned company and our primary activity is steel fabrication and we supply to the market primarily in Queensland and New South Wales.
When I took over the management of Gay Constructions, the single greatest risk we had to this company not succeeding was not our ability to be able to produce a good quality product, but our very, very poor safety record.
Addressing the sort of problem we had was something that wasn't going to happen overnight so we took a very much long term approach where we had to create a cultural change and that was a step by step process where we had to get ownership by all the stakeholders, where we had to create the correct guidelines, where we had the communication set-up where people felt comfortable about reporting incidents and also about how we reacted to the incidents that came along.
In the early days there was a level of scepticism from the workshop floor about my commitment or seriousness to the outcome, so as a result basically on the first day here I made a requirement that I had to be notified of any first aid incident immediately and that included two o'clock in the morning for a Band-Aid. So they got the message very clearly that we were serious about long term, permanent change.
Initially the consultation was across the entire organisation. That was done through forums, at tool box meetings or paid meetings, where we discussed workplace health and safety and the implications of having lost time injuries with regard to our perception in the industry or in some cases our ability to actually be able to tender certain projects.
One of the key changes we made was that we re-inducted every person who worked in the company in 2010. It didn't matter whether they'd been here for six weeks or in some cases thirty years. Everybody was re-inducted so there was a clear understanding of the expectations, with regard specifically to workplace health and safety.
To me, the most significant improvement we've had, is that we have had not one lost time injury in over 680 days. We are now a benchmark as one of the best in our industry whereas four or five years ago we were at risk of losing our WorkCover premium cover because our record was so bad.
The safety culture at Gay Constructions has changed completely in the last five years. We've gone from a place where it was ok to have a minor injury as long as the guys came back after a few days to a situation where everyone takes every first aid incident and every incident seriously.
As a result we not only have a better safety culture but it has had huge flow on benefits to our productivity, profitability and the way we are perceived in our industry.
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Copyright The State of Queensland (Department of Justice and Attorney-General) 2014.
Copyright protects this film. The State of Queensland has no objection to this material being reproduced, but asserts its right to be recognised as author of the original material and the right to have the material unaltered. The material presented in this film is distributed by the Queensland Government as an information source only.
Islander's Board of Industry and Service, Cairns - Finalist - Best demonstrated leadership in work health and safety
The Islanders Board of Industry and Service (IBIS) is a chain of supermarkets located throughout the Torres Strait and Northern Peninsula area, with most stores managed by local Indigenous people.
FILM: Queensland Safe Work Awards 2014: Category eight finalist – Islanders Board of Industry and Service
Title Screen
Finalist: Islanders Board of Industry and Service
Interviewee:
Jo Oliver
Risk Officer
Islanders Board of Industry and Service
Ibis is the Islanders Board of Industry and Service. We're a supermarket group situated in the Torres Strait and Northern Peninsular area. We have around 160 staff spread between our administration office here in Cairns and our 19 stores up through the Torres Strait.
Our work health and safety system is primarily based on a self-assessment, just due to the remote location of all of our sites. We've set up a number of different self-assessment tools that store staff can use to identify hazards and issues in individual sites. They then send that information back and it can be coordinated and procedures put in place to mitigate any risk.
A lot of the training that we have has been custom developed by our training officer and our senior staff and tailored specifically to the needs of our stores and our employees.
We've set up a reporting portal which can be accessed from anywhere within the business which cuts down the issue of travel and geography. We have an executive team who are responsible for different areas within the business and they meet quite regularly and safety is always the number one agenda item for them.
The success of our system has been due to the fact that people have been educated as to why we do things safely rather than just what to do and when to do it. So the real commitment that's been coming from management has been educating people as to why we do things.
IBIS's safety culture ingrained into our everyday business, to the point where our safety system is not really seen as a separate system, it's just part of how we operate.End titles
Copyright The State of Queensland (Department of Justice and Attorney-General) 2014.
Copyright protects this film. The State of Queensland has no objection to this material being reproduced, but asserts its right to be recognised as author of the original material and the right to have the material unaltered. The material presented in this film is distributed by the Queensland Government as an information source only.
The State of Queensland makes no statements, representations, or warranties about the accuracy or completeness of the information contained in this film, and the viewer should not rely on it.
The Queensland Government disclaims all responsibility and all liability (including, without limitation, liability in negligence) for all expenses, losses, damages and costs you might incur as a result of the information being inaccurate or incomplete in any way, and for any reason.
[Queensland Government crest]
Great state. Great opportunity.
Hector the Erector, Wynnum - Winner - Best work health and safety practices in a small business
- Finalist - Best demonstrated leadership in work health and safety
Hector the Erector is a family owned business located in Wynnum, providing relocation solutions for heavy, sensitive and awkward equipment.
FILM: Queensland Safe Work Awards 2014: Category eight finalist – Hector the Erector
Title Screen
Queensland Safe Work Awards 2014
Best demonstrated leadership in work health and safety
Finalist: Hector the Erector
Interviewee:
Lynette Bernes
Accountant and Personnel Manager
Hector the Erector
Hector the Erector is a heavy lift specialist so we relocate anything that's heavy and sensitive into awkward or somewhat difficult positions.
Approximately two years ago we decided to focus on safety to set ourselves apart and to try and set industry standards and really create a benchmark.
Being in a high risk industry we have quite a lot that we have to take into consideration, but our top ones would probably be our safe work procedures, which is where we conduct internal training for all of our members.
We go to great lengths to ensure that our people are supplied with the right equipment for the right job. We customise our equipment and we customise our vehicles.
We also have a pre-task simulation system where we're able to take into account each customers individual specifications of their items and the individual area that they're wanting to move it to or from and we can actually simulate that particular process occurring so that we can identify any particular hazards or issues where it may not be able to fit when it's being twisted or moved in a certain manner.
Hector the Erector's management have been very pivotal in the creation of a very high safety culture, moving from a compliance based system to an intrinsically motivated system where everybody's embracing and wanting to be involved with safety.
That is reinforced consistently by a management review, by our safety meetings, by everyday discussing with the guys and telling them that it's ok to take that little bit longer to do a job to ensure that it's carried out safely.
We believe that everybody from every level of our organisation is able to contribute significantly to all of the measures that we implement. We will get an idea and we will go to them and see if anybody's got any additions or can think of any other ways that we may be able to improve or alter it. And it's a continual process that we do with all areas of our business.
We have seen a significant increase in revenue, a massive drop in our WorkCover premiums where we went from being double the industry standard to being less than the industry standard.
The safety culture within Hector the Erector has now become an embedded value that every member is intrinsically motivated to want to be a part of. It's not something that we are pushing in any way, it's something that everybody turns up to work and they are wanting to be safe. They are choosing to be safe when nobody's watching which is extremely important.
End titles
Copyright The State of Queensland (Department of Justice and Attorney-General) 2014.
Copyright protects this film. The State of Queensland has no objection to this material being reproduced, but asserts its right to be recognised as author of the original material and the right to have the material unaltered. The material presented in this film is distributed by the Queensland Government as an information source only.
The State of Queensland makes no statements, representations, or warranties about the accuracy or completeness of the information contained in this film, and the viewer should not rely on it.
The Queensland Government disclaims all responsibility and all liability (including, without limitation, liability in negligence) for all expenses, losses, damages and costs you might incur as a result of the information being inaccurate or incomplete in any way, and for any reason.
[Queensland Government crest]
Great state. Great opportunity.
Stanwell Corporation Limited, Rockhampton - Finalist (Commended) - Best solution to an identified work health and safety issue
- Finalist (Commended) - Best demonstrated leadership in work health and safety
Stanwell is the largest electricity generator in Queensland. Due to a high number of young worker injuries, Stanwell developed the YOLO (You Only Live Once) young worker safety intervention program.
FILM: Queensland Safe Work Awards 2014: Category eight finalist – Stanwell Corporation Limited
Title Screen
Queensland Safe Work Awards 2014
Best demonstrated leadership in work health and safety
Finalist: Stanwell Corporation Limited
Interviewee:
Ammanda-Jane Glazebrook
Health Safety and Environment Cultural Specialist
Stanwell Corporation
Stanwell is Queensland's largest energy provider. We employ 730 people across the state at ten different sites. Our sites produce electricity with coal, gas and hydro.
Our Y.O.L.O. program is designed for young workers. It's purpose built to address what's happening in the human brain. We realised we needed the Y.O.L.O. program because we had three injuries in three months at our Stanwell Power Station site. In a six month period, we had nine injuries to young workers across our corporation and that was enough for us.
Up until the age of about 25, the human brain is still forming. And what specifically is still coming into play is our ability to identify and address hazards, make decisions and plan. It allows us to acknowledge that young workers receive and process information differently than do their older counterparts. And with that knowledge we've created a program that allows us to connect and to capture the attention of our young workers in a way that's age appropriate and personal and really fit for purpose.
We give them tools to identify hazards and to control the hazards as well. We teach them the five specific questions that enables them to practically bring into play the hierarchy of control to efficiently control that hazard.
Specifically, we had the involvement of our Chief Operating Officer as well as our CEO. And on our Stanwell Power Station site the whole health and safety team were involved there in creating the program. We talked to our young workers about the type of things they would want to see in the program and their mentors as well, about the type of things they felt were needed.
After every session that we ran of Y.O.L.O. across our whole corporation we took feedback, we got feedback forms, and that was really significant in enhancing the way we ran our program.
Our senior management team has taken a great interest in Y.O.L.O. Our CEO has had a personal interest and he's been checking in along the way to see how we're going with each iteration of our Y.O.L.O. program. We've had general managers sit into the whole session, and of course on every site we've had our station manager introduce the session. And importantly, what our station managers do is that they share a story about their own experience as a young worker.
The key improvement that has been achieved through our Y.O.L.O. program is a seventy-five per cent reduction in injuries to young workers.
We're really proud of our Y.O.L.O. program and we can see it having widespread use throughout Australia. We're actively involved in sharing the program with others and helping others to develop their own Y.O.L.O. style program, that really takes into consideration the whole person, us as human beings, where we're at with our developmental stage and giving the tools that we need to create safety in our workplaces.End titles
Copyright The State of Queensland (Department of Justice and Attorney-General) 2014.
Copyright protects this film. The State of Queensland has no objection to this material being reproduced, but asserts its right to be recognised as author of the original material and the right to have the material unaltered. The material presented in this film is distributed by the Queensland Government as an information source only.
The State of Queensland makes no statements, representations, or warranties about the accuracy or completeness of the information contained in this film, and the viewer should not rely on it.
The Queensland Government disclaims all responsibility and all liability (including, without limitation, liability in negligence) for all expenses, losses, damages and costs you might incur as a result of the information being inaccurate or incomplete in any way, and for any reason.
[Queensland Government crest]
Great state. Great opportunity.
NOJA Power, Murarrie - Finalist (Highly commended) - Best demonstrated leadership in work health and safety
NOJA Power researches, develops, manufactures and supplies low, medium and high voltage switchgears.
FILM: Queensland Safe Work Awards 2014: Category eight finalist – NOJA Power
Title Screen
Queensland Safe Work Awards 2014
Best demonstrated leadership in work health and safety
Finalist: NOJA Power
Interviewee:
Neil O'Sullivan
Managing Director, NOJA Power
The company name is NOJA Power. We make electrical switch gear. We specialise in making high voltage switch gear and our customers are the electricity utilities of the world.
We have about 150 staff. Sixty per cent are our factory and production staff, and about forty per cent are our engineering and administration staff.
Our program is 'Safety is important, health is your life', and the reason why it came about was to invest in our employees. We consider our employees our most important asset, the human capital, and to invest in our employees is the reason why we took the decision to run the program.
Our program started four years ago, and it simply started with an immunisation and with an investment in the Bridge to Brisbane. Only two of us did the Bridge to Brisbane that first year, and progressively we've had people increase to now more than one hundred doing the Bridge to Brisbane this year.
We have other programs where we provide two pieces of fruit per employee per day. This year we implemented a program where we've had a doctor visit and that initially started with a doctor making a lecture for all staff that we made mandatory, and then we had optional one on one's.
Everything in the business is driven by the directive or the board and in particular our health and wellbeing program is very focused from the board down.
One of the things we do at NOJA Power is we have a health and safety meeting once a month. We have representatives from each department who sit on that committee along with three of the original founders and directors of the company, and we receive direct feedback from every department across the board in different ideas, different areas, not only from a health point of view but also a safety point of view.
The main result we're seeing is the decrease in personal leave. Originally when we started the program some four years ago had a personal leave in excess of nine days average per staff member, it's now at 4.6. So the difference in that personal leave reduction is actually funding the program.
End titles
Copyright The State of Queensland (Department of Justice and Attorney-General) 2014.
Copyright protects this film. The State of Queensland has no objection to this material being reproduced, but asserts its right to be recognised as author of the original material and the right to have the material unaltered. The material presented in this film is distributed by the Queensland Government as an information source only.
The State of Queensland makes no statements, representations, or warranties about the accuracy or completeness of the information contained in this film, and the viewer should not rely on it.
The Queensland Government disclaims all responsibility and all liability (including, without limitation, liability in negligence) for all expenses, losses, damages and costs you might incur as a result of the information being inaccurate or incomplete in any way, and for any reason.
[Queensland Government crest]
Great state. Great opportunity.