Year 2007 - Winners
The WorkCover NSW Safe Work Awards were held on the 25th October 2007 at the Homebush Convention Centre, with more than 450 guests attending the black tie gala dinner.
Cutting edge solutions to workplace safety, including a protection device for a bandsaw, effective injury prevention strategies and creative hazard identification systems, were among the innovations at the 2007 WorkCover NSW Safe Work Awards.
The event began with the Master of Ceremonies, Mr Brian Dawe one of Australia's favourite satirists hosting a thoroughly entertaining evening, together with the introduction of guest speakers and the announcement of the award recipients.
Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industrial Relations, Virginia Judge MP, tonight presented four awards and two ‘highly commended’ certificates to successful entrants at the fourth annual Safe Work Awards at Homebush Bay.
There were a record 111 entries with 17 finalists in this year’s awards from which six recipients were announced in front of over 450 people.
The annual awards showcase innovation and excellence and recognise best practice by highlighting industry achievement in workplace safety and Ms Judge said it was encouraging to see such a high standard of entries with ingenious solutions developed by employers and workers as part of their commitment to create safer workplaces.
Congratulations to all winners and finalists you should be very proud of your efforts and commitment to providing solutions and awareness to occupational health and safety in the workplace.
Award winners were chosen following a rigorous judging process, by a panel made up of WorkCover representatives, unions, employer groups and specialist OHS bodies.Winning entries from the WorkCover NSW 2007 Safe Work Awards will automatically be entered into the Australian Safety and Compensation Council’s National Safe Work Australia Awards in 2008.Entries were received from a wide range of industries, including retail, food, construction, health, education and local government. Such a diverse range of entries in this year’s awards demonstrates our collective commitment to helping ensure that our workplaces are among the safest in the world.
The award recipients were:
Category 1 Winner of the Best Workplace Health and Safety Management System
Catholic Schools Office – Dioceses of Broken Bay
Catholic Schools in the Diocese of Broken Bay exist to educate and form young people in Catholic discipleship, offering them experiences of following Jesus as members of the Catholic community.
The Catholic Schools Office, Dioceses of Broken Bay, is responsible for overseeing the management of 36 primary and seven high schools in an area stretching from Willoughby on Sydney’s lower north shore to Lake Munmorah on the Central Coast. Catholic schools in the Diocese of Broken Bay employ 1,700 staff and provide quality Catholic education for around 15,000 students.
Initiative
The Broken Bay Catholic Schools Office demonstrates a commitment to a health, safety and wellbeing culture across all of its 43 schools. This commitment extends beyond its own geographic area through an online occupational health and safety management system, accessible by more than 800 other schools and church communities.
The Office has systematically developed and implemented a safety improvement process since 2002, achieving compliance with Australian Standard 4801. This Standard requires an organisation to put in place comprehensive hazard identification, control and elimination systems.
The Broken Bay Catholic Schools Office Health System (CSOHS) is proving to be a dynamic vehicle that is driving improvements in the safety of 43 Broken Bay school communities. Through CSOHS Online a further 22 external organisations, as well as more than 820 other Australian schools and church communities, are able to comprehensively manage their health, safety and wellbeing. The injury frequency rate has decreased by 10 per cent in 2006-07, CSO’s premium has decreased by 40 per cent and the return to work rate has been kept stable for several years at 99 per cent.
Judges’ Comments
This is a unique working environment that poses many complexities in implementing an integrated OHS Management System. The Dioceses of Broken Bay demonstrates a sustained and comprehensive commitment to OHS, not only to their staff and students within the Diocese, but to all schools who request it. It is a very impressive system that has widespread application to all schools and with the potential for use in childcare centres and disability services. The ongoing commitment to share their knowledge with others to improve OHS outcomes is outstanding.
Category 2 Winner for the Best Solution to an Identified Workplace Health and Safety Issue
NSW Rape Crisis Centre
NSW Rape Crisis Centre was established in the early 1970s by a group of volunteer women. The Centre now is funded by the NSW Department of Health but remains a not-for-profit community group managed by a group of committed community-minded women. The centre employs counsellors who are professionally qualified and have extensive experience in the area of sexual assault.
NSW Rape Crisis Centre is a statewide, 24-hour telephone and online crisis, support referral service for women who have experienced sexual violence. The centre is committed to upholding the rights of women to live in a socially just, equitable and non-violent society. Counsellors work in partnership with women to expand their choices, facilitate healing and encourage personal growth.
Initiative
Vicarious trauma is the psychological injury suffered by workers who, in the course of their work, hear traumatic stories. The NSW Rape Crisis Centre has recognised that their counsellors will experience vicarious trauma and require extensive and ongoing support. The Centre uses the occupational health and safety hierarchy of control to direct its multi-pronged approach to monitoring and managing the impact of vicarious trauma. This work is embedded in all aspects of counsellor support and quality assurance. Tools include employing qualified and experienced counsellors, providing extensive orientation and support, having clear guidelines and directions for counselling work and ensuring all counsellors participate in regular formal supervision.
The Centre ensures that the levels and types of support are dynamic through ongoing professional development, determining vicarious trauma indicators and monitoring vicarious trauma levels against those indicators, and implementing a personalised self-care plan for each counsellor.
The initiative has achieved tangible benefits since its introduction six years ago. Firstly, by confirming that vicarious trauma is a tangible injury, it can be acknowledged, diagnosed and treated before it impacts on the worker. Secondly, there have not been any compensation claims for vicarious trauma since its introduction.
Judges’ Comments
This is a systematic and best practice approach to controlling a known hazard, protecting the health and wellbeing of counselling staff and preventing psychological injuries. This solution is outstanding, with potentially broad application across large and small health and community services. This service demonstrates a very high level of awareness of an commitment to OHS in general. It sets an excellent example for other organisations.
Category 3 Winner for the Best Workplace Health and Safety Practices in Small Business
Sharpe Bros (Aust) Pty Ltd
Sharpe Bros. is a leader in the roads industry, developing and providing viable solutions and technologies to improve the quality and safety of local and state government road networks. Sharpe Bros. has been family owned for more than 50 years and started with development and building construction on Sydney's Central Coast.
The company began asphalt operations in 1970 and has a reputation for providing innovative services for road surfacing and maintenance operations throughout Australia. Sharpe Bros. has developed an award winning series of road edge repair technologies, called Sidewinder, to improve road safety. This technology successfully addresses the issue of decaying road edges that result in narrowed pavements and hazardous edge drop-offs that pose a danger to motorists.
Initiative
Sharpe Bros. identified a key issue in maintaining health and safety in their work practices - complacency. They wanted a simple, bold and novel way to promote occupational health and safety around their worksites and to visually reinforce their health and safety guidelines. Through consultation with staff and management, they developed a visual memory aid called “Safety Bro” to remind workers and others of the need for safety at all times including time for exercise and relaxation.
Safety Bro playfully uses the Sharpe Bros company name combined with a reference to the iconic character from the novel “Nineteen eighty-four”, Big Brother, who is always watching you. Safety Bro is a champion of safety in the workplace who encourages important safety and injury prevention through a fun and effective way of saying, “Safety Bro is working with you” and “What would Safety Bro think?” A range of stickers are prominently displayed around worksites. Safety Bro also has a dedicated website and MySpace page, which are used to issue regular text messages and OHS announcements.
The introduction of Safety Bro has resulted in renewed enthusiasm for safety issues that involves all employees. The ever-present safety message in all of the company’s workplaces has undoubtedly contributed to no serious reportable injuries or fatalities in more than 50 years in the construction business.
Judges’ Comments
This is a great small business application of an awareness campaign, involving their staff in the development, gaining ownership by the workers and involving their families through the web and events that encourage further safety awareness. This is an innovative response to complacency in the workplace, while maintaining genuine enthusiasm and a family business feel through integration of safety into their work.
Highly Commended
Pure Hair Pure Body
Pure Hair hairdressing salon was established in 1986 in Wollongong. In 1999, they expanded to Castle Hill and introduced a range of beauty services to offer their customers. Pure Hair Pure Body has incorporated state-of-the-art equipment in new purpose-built premises, using the latest environmental conservation and consumption methods available.
Initiative
Pure Hair Pure Body hairdressing salon was designed from the ground up with a focus on creating a safe business for both staff and clients. The salons implemented various occupational health and safety solutions such as an entrance ramp for disability access, safe workspaces and safe equipment, with the aim of having the best physical environment for their workers. Weekly staff OHS meetings, a dedicated OHS Officer, a comprehensive new staff safety induction program and personal protective equipment such as gloves, apron and masks are just some of the many systems and procedures Pure Hair Pure Body has implemented to minimise risk and danger to its employees and clients.
By addressing health and safety issues from the design stage of their salon, Pure Hair Pure Body has been on the front foot in its new premises from before the day it opened for business. As a service business, having productive and happy staff is recognised by the director as the vital ingredient for their success. Staff morale is high with a high number of applications to work in the salon, and they report a reduced number of incidents and less time lost due to injuries.
Judges’ Comments
A great range of controls were used in this hairdressing salon, including products with low reaction levels, personal security alerts for staff, chutes for wet towels to minimise manual handling, just to name a few. The salon has a great induction for new workers, continuous communication with staff and provides all small businesses with an excellent example of how to integrate OHS into daily work.
Category 4 - Public Sector Leadership Award for Injury Prevention and Management
- There are no award receipients for this category
Category 5 Winner for the Best Individual Contribution to Workplace Health and Safety
Jason Painter, Woolworths Supermarkets
Woolworths Limited is Australia’s and New Zealand's largest retail group, with more than 3,000 stores and 180,000 employees. The company prides itself on supplying some of the most recognisable and trusted brands in retailing for its millions of customers every day. Woolworths’ retailing operations extend into food and grocery, liquor, petrol, general merchandise and consumer electronics.
Initiative
Jason Painter, a Woolworths butcher, recognised the risks involved in cutting meat using a bandsaw. He used his initiative and experience to develop a practical and innovative solution to this risky task, a sliding bandsaw table. The table has a physical barrier that stops the operator’s fingers coming into close proximity to the bandsaw blade. Jason’s contribution to the organisation has been recognised by his appointment to a project manager role focusing on the development and implementation of safety systems and procedures.
The design has reduced injuries by 80 per cent and the cost of injury by 67 per cent. Feedback from employees was that they were happier now that the product had been introduced and their productivity also increased, as they felt safer.
Judges’ comments
Jason’s contribution and innovation has made a huge difference to the workplace. This solution has a high potential for the meat industry to adopt the same guarding for other bandsaws and more broadly for dangerous machinery of the same nature. Jason shows individual enthusiasm beyond the call of duty and has made an outstanding contribution to Woolworths and the welfare of his colleagues by improving productivity and providing a safer work environment.
Highly Commended
Chris Stevens – Mirvac Hotels, Quay West Sydney
Mirvac is a leading integrated real estate group, listed on the Australian Stock Exchange, with more than $26.3 billion of activities under control across the real estate funds management and development spectrum. Established in 1972, Mirvac has more than 30 years of experience in the real estate industry and owns hotels and resorts in 25 locations throughout Australia.
Initiative
Chris Stevens is the Chairperson of the Health Safety Environment Committee and has inspired and galvanised the Committee to implement a range of workplace health, safety and environment initiatives. These initiatives have been implemented in the Quay West property and have been adopted by other properties across the hotel group.
The initiatives implement by Chris and the Committee included measures to eliminate or substantially reduce risks related to: manual handling (supporting the OHS national improvement strategy), electrical, paint waste, loading dock safety, falling objects, access, waste handling and materials recycling, and staff security. Overall, the control measures implemented are outstanding examples of safety in action at the ‘grass roots level’ and their implementation has corresponded with a 75 per cent reduction in the lost time injury frequency rate for the hotel.
Extensive staff and management consultation has been a particularly successful element of Chris’s work and the great OHS results including positive workplace safety culture further reinforces the benefits of a proactive HSE Chairman and Committee.
Judges’ Comments
Chris has successfully negotiated OHS improvements, despite a busy workload as concierge. This initiative has the potential to be a case study for the whole hospitality industry and Chris has demonstrated outstanding leadership and vigilance in reducing risks at the Quay West in Sydney. Mirvac Hotels - Quay West Suites Sydney.
