Safeguard Health and Safety Awards 2008: the winners

A Manawatu shearing operation, a senior occupational physician and a retired plumber have taken the top honours in Safeguard’s New Zealand Workplace Health and Safety Awards 2008.
The awards, organised by health and safety magazine Safeguard and supported by the Department of Labour, were presented at a gala dinner attended by business leaders from around the country, at Auckland’s SkyCity Convention Centre on Wednesday April 9.
 
To mark the fourth year of the awards, a new category – the Air New Zealand lifetime achievement award – has been introduced, honouring those who have made a fundamental difference to occupational health and safety over many years. 
 
The judging panel, which included representatives from the Department of Labour, ACC, the Council of Trade Unions, and last year’s overall winner, the Ribbonwood Group, selected two outstanding candidates to receive the inaugural awards – Dr Bill Glass from Christchurch, who has been an occupational physician and a keen advocate for workplace health and safety for 50 years, and Ed Grootegoed, a retired plumber for Kelston, who has worked tirelessly to support the victims of asbestos-related disease and to campaign for tighter asbestos controls over the past two decades.

The Air New Zealand award for Best Overall Contribution to Improving Workplace Health and Safety was won by Paewai Mullins Shearing, a family-owned fourth generation shearing business based in Dannevirke.
  Company directors Koro and Mavis Mullins admit that they often employ the young people that no one else wants, but their strong company culture, founded on traditional Maori values, creates an atmosphere where workers not only acquire marketable skills but also learn to respect and care for one another.
  Safeguard editor Jackie Brown-Haysom says the judges were very impressed with the way the company has made the welfare of its workers a fundamental concern at every level of its operations.
  “Shearing is a very physically demanding job, but Paewai Mullins has made health and safety such an integral part of everything that happens that it quickly becomes the only way its workers know how to operate,” she says.  “As general manager Aria Mullins puts it, ‘health, work safety and whanaungatanga [family] are simply the way we do it.’”
Paewai Mullins also won the NZ Safety best initiative to encourage employee engagement in health and safety.

The Air New Zealand lifetime achievement award;
Ed Grootegoed

Ed and his late partner Lois Syret knew little about asbestos until Ed was diagnosed with an asbestos-related lung condition in the early 1990s. Soon afterwards, however, they both became active members of the Asbestos Diseases Association, travelling the country in a campervan to give whatever support they could to sufferers of mesothelioma and other asbestos-related cancers.
Ed also became a passionate campaigner, learning all he could about asbestos, and lobbying politicians, government agencies and industry groups for tighter controls, better research to determine the extent of the New Zealand problem, and effective strategies to deal with it. In 2000 Ed spoke at the Global Asbestos Congress in Brazil, sharing a podium with doctors, scientists, lawyers, academics and politicians from around the world.
Sadly Lois died last year, but Ed’s crusade continues, unabated.

Dr Bill Glass

In the 50 years since Dr Bill Glass qualified as an occupational physician, he has developed a reputation for challenging both his medical colleagues and government agencies to take workers seriously and accept that they know better than anyone – doctors included – when it comes to their job and way it affects them.
Bill’s interest in occupational medicine began at Otago Medical School in the late 1950s. He went to England to do a postgraduate qualification in the field before taking a post as deputy medical officer of health in Auckland.
In subsequent years he has worked in private practice, with trade unions and government agencies, at medical schools, and on a wide range of public bodies, including the panel of the Notifiable Occupational Diseases System and the National Asbestos Medical Panel, which he still convenes. He has also been a key player in medico-legal work, providing expert evidence in support of many people seeking ACC cover for work-related health conditions or gradual process injuries.

Category winners were:

Department of Labour best initiative to address a safety hazard: Manukau City Council, Auckland

• When verbal and physical abuse began to be a problem for library staff, the council assessed every role in the organisation to determine the workers most at risk of aggression. All at-risk staff received training to help them identify and defuse difficult situations, plan ahead to avoid risky situations, and respond appropriately if problems occurred.
• The number of violent incidents reported each month has fallen from 10 to two since the training was introduced, and there has been an increase in staff confidence.

 
EBOS/Ansell best initiative to address a health hazard: Siemens (NZ), Auckland.

• After three field workers suffered heat stress the company implemented an impressively comprehensive package of measures to prevent further problems. It provided chilly bins, ice, and electrolyte replacement drinks, implemented a fatigue management policy to encourage regular rest breaks during heavy work, and introduced lightweight protective equipment, including overalls, fall arrest harnesses, safety boots, vented safety helmets and cooling body wraps.

OfficeMax best initiative to improve employee wellness
Clutha Health First, Balclutha

• This community-owned rural hospital developed themed monthly wellness activities, not only for its own staff and their families, but also for staff and families from the various health providers that share its premises. This is a comparatively small organisation, with 85 staff, but has made a real effort to involve a wide group in its wellness activities. The judges liked this community focus because it can have real impact in a small centre like Balclutha.

NZ Safety best initiative to encourage employee engagement in health and safety: Paewai Mullins Shearing, Dannevirke.

• This family-owned fourth generation shearing operation deals with physically demanding work, unfamiliar worksites, seasonal job demands, high staff turnover, and workers who often have poor literacy and few job skills.
• Despite these complications, the directors take a personal interest in their employees, providing training and support to help their predominantly young workers gain skills and work safely. By treating their workers like family, the directors create a strong team culture where everyone looks out for one another.
• Health and safety is a key part of the staff induction programme, there are regular informal staff forums to discuss OHS issues, and photographs are used to demonstrate safe work practices, so the message can be easily understood by those who have difficulty reading.

SICK best design or technology initiative:
Action Tags, Hamilton

• Director Dean Wiki has used his own experience as a scaffolder to develop a scaffold tagging system that makes important safety information available at a glance. Colour coding and graphics ensure that messages are readily understood by those with poor literacy or limited English.

Air New Zealand best health and safety initiative by a small business: R&H Finch, Rakaia.

• Rachael and Hayden Finch are 50/50 sharemilkers with 720 cows and four employees.
• They have an OHS manual listing all hazards on their farm and the appropriate controls. This manual is revised whenever new equipment is purchased, and new staff get a condensed version of it during their induction.
• There is also a procedures manual setting out the safest, most effective way to do regular tasks, and this is used in conjunction with hands-on training and supervision.
• Monthly all-staff health and safety meetings allow issues to be dealt with as a team, while shared evening meals each night not only provide opportunities for informal discussion about work issues, but also ensure employees get nutritious meals to boost their energy levels.

• The bank conducted a major health and safety assessment, as part of a global initiative to review and coordinate OHS programmes. Incidents were analysed to determine whether they stemmed from non-compliance with procedures, or flaws in the bank’s safety management, and workshops set up to deal with key issues.
• New strategies, including a wellness programme, an industry-specific version of ACC’s Habit at Work programme, and a training course for bank-based employee health and safety reps, were developed – the last two in consultation with other New Zealand banks. As a result discomfort reports have reduced by almost a third, injury costs have fallen, and employee engagement has increased.

ACC best leadership of an industry sector or region:
Henshaw Group, Auckland.

• After a complaint from a contractor about working around electrical cables concealed beneath underfloor insulation foil the company consulted widely to develop a safety policy. It found the foil is widely used but there is often no way of knowing if it has been correctly installed or if the wiring has suffered subsequent damage.
• The company developed a policy stating that work must not begin until foil had been inspected and either removed or earthed by an electrician, and that new foil must be installed according to strict safety guidelines.
• Clients, contractors and employees were informed, along with regulatory and industry bodies, including the NZ Standards Association, the Department of Labour, the Electrical Workers Licensing Group and the Master Plumbers, Gas Fitters and Drainlayers.

Safeguard health and safety practitioner of the year:
John Smith, Fulton Hogan

• As group safety manager John Smith has been responsible for establishing a strong safety culture, introducing regular tailgate meetings, defensive driver training, the StaySafe behavioural safety programme, company-wide OHS leadership training for managers, and the First Day Back initiative, in which workers spend the day after a holiday break participating in safety training activities. John’s chief executive, Lindsay Crossan, credits him with responsibility for the company’s entrenched health and safety culture.
• John has also taken leadership roles with a variety of industry bodies, including the Bitumen Contractors Association, two Roading New Zealand committees, a Transit NZ review panel and a Land Transport NZ research and development team.

Ross Wilson/NZCTU most influential employee:
Geoffrey Reed, Alliance Pukeuri Meat Works, Oamaru

• Not only has Geoffrey been a hardworking rep, putting in long hours to consult with staff during the development of a company hearing protection policy, establishing effective communication with supervisors and managers about OHS issues, participating in site safety audits, and ensuring dozens of hazards and safety improvements received prompt attention, but he has also paid for himself to take a level 3 National Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety. This year he plans to go on to the level 4 certificate.

Judges’ Commendations were also awarded to:

•  Hamilton construction company Livingstone, which, after being put into ACC’s Workplace Safety Evaluation programme for employers with a high rate of injury claims, has quickly dealt with its problems and gone on to achieve secondary accreditation under the WSMP scheme and bronze accreditation in the Enviromark environmental safety programme.
• Brian Perry Civil, Tauranga harbour link, which designed and built a demountable cage for overnight storage of oxygen and acetylene cylinders. The cylinders were previously placed in a container when not in use, but a worker on the project came up with the cage after there was a potentially disastrous gas leak.

 
2008 finalists

2007 winners

2006 winners

Category sponsors