With 477 academic staff and 160 professional staff across the Faculty, benchmarking Health and Safety maturity and effectiveness was essential for FEIT to understand what they were doing well and where they could improve.
The Project
Over a three-month period, Risk Strategies undertook a formal review of FEIT’s Health Safety and Wellbeing System to assess the maturity of its safety culture and identify improvement opportunities.
FEIT had three clear objectives in engaging us.
Create a clear methodology that can be replicated to ensure accurate, reliable and consistent measures are used in the future.
Provide a truly specialised, independent and objective assessment of performance and existing systems and controls.
Create a safe space for staff to openly share their thoughts, experiences and what is happening on the ground.
Consultation and assessment methods
Working with stakeholders of all levels, our in-depth review involved:
Confidential one-on-one interviews with 79 staff members from across the faculty;
A comprehensive review of existing HSW systems and programs;
Assessment of the adequacy of risk controls currently in place for high-risk areas and activities;
Assessment of the current level of adoption and implementation of these systems;
A review of current physical and mental wellbeing activities;
The health, safety and wellbeing risk management activities were then benchmarked against various recognised industry standards, including:
National OHS Audit Tool ver3
ISO 45001:2018
The Hudson Safety Culture Maturity Evaluation Model
Organisational HSW policies, procedures
OHS legislative requirements.
The outcome – a platform for measuring and monitoring
The ‘quantifiable’results of the review and the ‘qualifiable’information surrounding people’s perceptions of the HSW system and its current strengths and weaknesses were then used to:
Provide an overall assessment and evaluation of the maturity and effectiveness of FEIT’s safety culture.
Identify and prioritise improvement opportunities to inform the Annual Plan.
Create a benchmark for future assessment of maturity and performance that will enable FEIT to monitor, measure and track shifts and improvements in safety culture.
The value
For FEIT, the value of this exercise was multi-faceted. In addition to establishing a clear methodology and benchmark, it allowed the organisation to:
Demonstrate to staff that safety is important and that they care;
Drive engagement, interest and buy-in at an Executive level;
Establish clear priorities for the Annual Risk Management Action Plan;
Promote the importance of safety culture throughout the faculty.