Designed and prototyped a robotic arm to place and retrieve road cones. Able to be mounted on any flatbed truck it engineers out a key risk of staff standing on moving vehicles and leaning near passing vehicles.

Realising that focusing on keeping lead exposure below standard wasn’t enough, the company focussed on creating a healthy workplace through changing processes, redeploying machinery and dividing the workspace into zones, greatly reducing exposure to hazardous airborne substances.

Reimagined the site entrance for the Tauhara geothermal power station construction as a Wellbeing Reception staffed by wellbeing coordinators. Provided on-site nurses and clinics along with services including budgeting advice, pastoral care and crockpots of soup. Involvement of local iwi in site inductions and throughout the process helped build whanaungatanga and a sense of belonging.

Used the High Performance Engagement model to develop a four stage ‘Safety Scrum’ – crouch (get the team together), pause (identify the problem to solve), touch (experience the situation), engage (brainstorm) – to successfully address risks and engage teams. Each scrum has a sponsor who can clear the way for Capex or Opex approval. Scrum topics have included winter de-icing, falling objects in cargo handling, and cabin temperatures while aircraft are on the ground.

Designed and developed a food scraps bin to reduce musculoskeletal injuries for rubbish collectors. Anthropometric data and 3D digital models were used to develop ergonomic design guidelines with AUT. No musculoskeletal injuries have been reported so far.

Learning teams, HOP principles and the 4D questions were deployed to understand safety issues where workers in trolleys operate alongside high-speed kiwifruit conveyors, with insights used to redesign the trolleys and how work is performed. Frontline workers are more engaged and generate more conversations about how to make work better. They now view the safety team as adding value and as a conduit to enable change. 

Collaboration with wineries and trucking firms saw interventions including a QR code linked to a GIS map of previous grape spill points and road works developed to enable driver planning and reduce spills, which require urgent road crew intervention. The collaboration extended to creating an industry standard for grape truck drivers. The collaboration has been so successful it is now being extended to cover truck movements for forestry operations. 

A shift from a tactical to more strategic risk focus has seen higher leader engagement, executive team deep dives and site visits, and a shift from compliance to better understanding of the executive’s collective impact on H&S.

CHASNZ has taken a strongly evidence-based approach to data and research and has dedicated itself to raising the health and safety competence of construction workers and their supervisors. It is promoting safety by design and is developing better measures of safety performance. This broad capability was recognised by being invited to conduct the independent review of health & safety at Ports of Auckland. 

Kurt has delivered workshops on HOP, Safety-2 and learning teams to people at all levels, and introduced a human factors approach into ICAM investigations. Using a ‘virtual bus tour’ he brought critical risks, controls and challenges to life for the board. His influence in bringing new thinking extends beyond the company to embrace its many contractors. He has brought a strong focus on critical risks, created a safe space for people to report concerns, and launched a regular online health & safety briefing that has proven very popular.  

Kate developed an improved risk assessment tool for frontline staff and improved training resources for project managers, while leading better H&S performance and assurance reporting, resulting in increased frontline engagement. As well as her achievements with NZTA’s transport services unit, in her previous role with CHASNZ she developed a Pregnancy in Construction guide, helped with sponsoring frontline workers into safety leadership training, and ran the Tōtika prequalification programme. 

After identifying that night shift workers didn’t have fall protection gear, Matthew notified the project manager and issued a red card to stop unsafe work. Challenged by the project manager, he escalated the issue and got it resolved. It took courage and leadership to issue a stop work card and then to escalate the matter to KiwiRail leadership and health & safety team. He worked constructively with this group to clearly establish an unacceptable risk and to quickly get agreement on a safe way forward. 

Josh leads the innovative and highly engaging Whanaungatanga Programme, which with the help of researchers is an evidence-based attempt to identify organisational factors and interventions to promote trust, connection, value and belonging. The Programme has achieved high engagement with firefighters and commanders. 

A transformative leader, Gavin challenges the notion that traditional risks cannot be eliminated and has collaborated with and inspired others to develop new technologies and work methods to achieve this. He has led a new focus on wellbeing and has built a collaborative, high trust model which has changed the culture from blame to learning. He led projects to remove staff from wharves during log loading and has championed changes to shift patterns to reduce fatigue and give certainty. He has encouraged collaboration and knowledge sharing with all parties.

Recognising that testifying in the Coronial Enquiry into the Christchurch mosque attacks was a potential source of psychological harm for its team, Hato Hone St John developed tailored support plans and implemented a range of measures to support staff throughout the hearing and afterwards, enabling them to feel valued and return to work when ready.

The judges were impressed to see the project to introduce food scrap bins take seriously the most common type of significant work injury – strains and sprains – and work with ergonomics researchers and rubbish collectors to establish the design parameters to minimise manual handling risk. It is pleasing to see industry partnering with academic knowledge and taking a human-centred approach to design out problems.