Are there any plans for Safer Together to bring Health Safety & Environment Representatives together from across the industry? This was a question posed by the frontline workforce to our industry’s senior leaders in 2020. In response, a year later on 31st August the inaugural Safer Together Health Safety & Environment Representatives (HSER) Forum was held in Perth.
The HSER Forum Morning Session
- 51 HSERs attended from 17 companies
- Made 17 prosthetic hands for landmine victims in developing countries
- Heard from Derrick O’Keeffe from NOPSEMA about current industry performance and challenges, the important role of HSER’s in preventing accidents & resources available through NOPSEMA.
- Heard from industry HSERs Bec Thompson from Woodside and Mark McDonough from Monadelphous. Bec and Mark outlined the Safer Together HSER Framework & Engagement Toolkit and shared some practical tips on being an effective HSER.
- Keynote address from Neville Carrington (Vice President Operations, INPEX and Safer Together WA/NT Safety Leaders Group Operator Co-Chair) endorsed the commitment by industry senior leaders to support the HSERs in their critical role at the front line.
Outcomes:
- The HSERs explored:
- What is going well;
- What is most challenging; &
- What do you need help with.
- The HSERs recognised that improvements had been made and that more tools were available the HSERs also highlighted Time, Training and Line Management Support as key areas where more help was needed.
- Unanimous agreement from the HSER’s for Safer Together to maintain the communications, facilitate networking and promote sharing between HSERs.
The HSER Forum Afternoon Session
- The HSERs and Senior Leaders came together in the afternoon for an Industry Safety Forum
- Theme – Engaged and Connected with a focus on how industry could support the HSER community.
- We heard from Mathew Bowen (Cognicent), who provided a very interesting insight into the functional aspects of the brain with regards to engagement and communication
- 8 booth sessions were held on topics that could assist HSERs covering:
- Assist & Assure – Frontline Leadership Skills Program;
- Contain It – Major Accident Hazard Awareness Training;
- Fitness to Work (FTW);
- Health & Wellbeing;
- HSER Engagement;
- Industry Safety Induction (ISI);
- NOPSEMA;
- Uniform Non-Conformance Reporting (UNCR)
- A summary of the collective feedback from the morning’s HSER forum (summary slides) was presented by Mark McDonough, HSER from Monadelphous, to the senior leaders. Appreciated the improvements that have been made to support HSER’s and highlighted Time, Training and Line Management Support as key areas where more help was needed.
- The feedback was acknowledged, and a commitment made by Neville Carrington, Operator Co-Chair of the WA/NT Safety Leaders Group (SLG) to review and revert back to the HSER community.