A Western Australian employer that invests heavily in training and retaining employees and subcontractors - even when work is scarce - has slashed its injury frequency rate by 81 per cent.
Several years ago, Park Engineers founder Giulio Azzalini and his son Gary realised their health and safety system "wasn't up to scratch", and spared no expense updating it, the company's workshop and HSE manager Geoff Collins told OHS Alert.
Collins says that after professional consultants were engaged to develop and implement a customised system, he was granted the freedom - and the budget - to fine-tune it.
The resulting system was announced the best private-sector safety and health management system at Western Australia's recent Work Safety Awards.
"I've got an unlimited budget," Collins says. "If there's a safety thing or a new initiative out in the market there's no questions asked. I'm allowed to just go for it. When you've got your support from senior management like that, it makes your job so much easier."
These days, the company places a strong emphasis on training employees and subcontractors and encouraging staff to come forward with concerns.
When a hazard is reported, "no matter how big or small", it is taken seriously, and the employee is congratulated. When Park Engineers won another safety award last year, thank-you jackets were given to all workers, including contractors and office staff. The company also provides benefits such as prescription safety glasses.
In the past six years, accidents and incidents have dropped significantly and morale has improved, Collins says. The injury frequency rate has dropped from 31.7 per million hours worked to 6.1, workers' compensation premiums have dropped from 7.75 per cent of payroll to 2.25 per cent, and days lost have fallen from 38 to 5.
But "the biggest benefit" for the company, he says, is the low turnover of staff and subcontractors.
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