A Health & Safety Program: Courageous Safety Conversations

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A Health & Safety Program: Courageous Safety Conversations

Courageous Safety Conversations: Building the Skills & Tools to Address Worker Safety in the On-Hire Industry

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak.
Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
~ Winston Churchill

Overview

Strong relationships are the foundation to successful recruitment and on-hire firms. It makes sense that an on-hire firm and their people want to protect those relationships. However, sometimes this can come at the cost of workers’ health and safety.

As an on-hire manager or recruitment consultant, your legal responsibility is to, so far as reasonably practicable eliminate or minimise the health and safety risks an on-hire worker may encounter. We must ensure our people feel empowered to have conversations about safety, and in doing so, know they have the full support of the business.

It’s not uncommon for an on-hire business to be so focused on developing and completing their WHS paperwork that they forget the human element of ensuring the health and safety of workers. The risk for on-hire firms is that the paperwork becomes more of a tick and flick process – and a belief that as long as the paperwork is completed, our duty is done.

But from the Regulator’s perspective, there is much more to compliance and ensuring the safety of workers than just completing a checklist.

Courageous Safety Conversations within our industry need to come from all parties throughout the on-hire life cycle.

The consequences of not having these conversations include unreported health and safety issues, unidentified changes to the original assignment, compliance breaches, and worse, worker injury or death.

Instead of allowing fear and reluctance of speaking up to place workers at risk, we need to know how to have courageous conversations about safety while maintaining client and worker relationships.

As an Industry, we can use Courageous Safety Conversations to inform and educate people of the expected standard of safety, and when it is and isn’t acceptable to take a certain path.

Why On-Hire Firms are Reluctant to Have Safety Conversations:

Pulling a client up on safety non-conformances and identified or reported issues can seem like an overwhelming and concerning task.

The perceived barriers to safety compliance and worker protection include:

• Relationship breakdown
• Challenging authority
• Losing business/clients
• Compliance burden
• Lack of confidence to deal with health and safety matters, and potential to break ‘unspoken’ rules
• Worker requests for confidentiality or non-reporting

These reasons can stop us from having the important conversations that are required to ensure the health and safety of workers, and to meet compliance obligations.

While there may be fear of damaging client relationships or losing contracts, the loss of a person’s life or impact on their health and safety is much more damaging. The injury or death of a worker not only has an impact on that worker, but can significantly affect the emotional and mental state of everyone involved. So, how can we have Courageous Safety Conversations when faced with health and safety risks?

The Video Workshop in a Nutshell:

Courageous Safety Conversations is the most practical and engaging risk management program available today in the on-hire and recruitment space throughout Australia and New Zealand.

We use a different, engaging approach that people actually participate in – especially managers and consultants who want to do the right thing, but are just not sure how to do it.

As businesses operating within the industry, we have a moral obligation to constantly push the envelope and strive for continuous improvement in the area of health and safety at work.

The workplace health and safety leaders within our industry and business are those who influence the attitudes and behaviours of others. Sometimes they do this through their formal role, and sometimes by their personal influence.

The workshop challenges senior leaders and their staff to move to a culture where boundaries are clear and people take responsibility for their actions and omissions.

We will explore:

• The reluctance to deal with safety issues as they arise
• The benefits of making feedback a regular, casual exchange
• Actionable methods to be transparent, reach out, and soften the power cues
• Closing the loop by being perceived as open, interested, and willing to make changes
• Pushing the envelope through Courageous Safety Conversations

Outcome:

This program will inspire and challenge you and your team to have conversations about safety with clients, and engage with workers to promote a culture of consultation and collaboration.

You’ll learn practical ways to have Courageous Safety Conversations, and how to support workers to speak up, rather than believe their concerns won’t be acted upon.

Participants will leave the program with a new approach to speaking up about safety, by going beyond the norm to out-of-the-box thinking, stretching the boundaries of what’s possible, and raising the bar a little higher.

Meet the facilitator: AMY TOWERS - Speaker | Trainer | Mentor | Coach

As a Health and Safety Risk Management Expert, Amy helps senior managers and decision makers to navigate compliance and intelligently manage their unique core risks, so health and safety is entwined into the business - and not just a side hustle.

With 15 years’ experience solving complex health and safety problems, Amy delivers the most practical and engaging risk management programs throughout Australia and New Zealand.

Instead of focusing on surface level issues, she help leaders see their unique opportunities to dig deeper and address high claims, absenteeism or presenteeism through their own commitment to safety culture.

15 Years' Experience: Principal Consultant, Safety & Risk Consultant, Work Safety Consultant, OHS Coordinator and OHS Advisor

Specialties: System Design & Implementation, Risk Management Programs, Senior Management Due Diligence and Coaching & Mentoring

Delivery:

A live video classroom learning experience that is delivered to you anywhere in the world via virtual platform using Zoom.

Please note the times listed are displayed in Australian Eastern Standard Time - Melbourne Time / Sydney Time

Two days prior to the scheduled training date, each attendee will be sent an email which contains a Zoom participant instructions and also the unique Zoom User Log-on Link.

The live training session is not recorded, therefore will not be available to view post the scheduled date. Any no-show attendees will be marked absent and will be considered as a non-refundable transaction.