It’s been a huge year on the safety front, with December being no exception. While many businesses are winding down for the Christmas and holiday period, many farms (and ALA) are getting ready for the biggest season of the year.
Statistically, December is the most dangerous month of the year for workplace deaths so it’s absolutely vital we remain even more vigilant than usual to make sure we keep ourselves and our colleagues safe.
Over the last few weeks, the safety team have been working closely with clients and their safety personnel to assess job sites and their safety processes. This critical part of our business has been developed and refined to ensure that we ONLY work with businesses that make staff safety of the highest priority. We simply will not compromise on this issue and there are times that we are unable to move forward with some clients due to their unacceptable safety standards. It might not always be the most popular decision, but we know it’s the right one.
The safety team has also been busy developing Safety Training for our Account Managers. This training is aimed at building on our staff’s existing safety knowledge and equipping them with better understanding across hazards and risks, injury response, inspections, compliance, onboarding and more. Our motto is ‘Nobody can ever know enough about safety!’
Over the last twelve months, the safety team undertook 78 site inspections, made a lot of process changes and introduced some great new resources to the safety space. We have developed and implemented our Injury Hotline Australia wide, which provides 24/7 access to ensure our workers will receive fast medical treatment no matter where they are.
We have also formed a partnership with ‘Recovre’ for occupational rehabilitation services. This service provides specialised support for injured workers to help people return to work at full capacity sooner by ensuring they receive the best treatment from specialists.
Finally, as we enter into the summer holiday and major harvest seasons, we want to highlight some of the key safety issues:
- La Nina weather event – increased rain fall – flooding, mosquitos and dangerous driving conditions. Remember – if it’s flooded forget it!
- Holiday drivers – increased drink drivers on the road. Please be aware!
- Temperature – heat exhaustion and dehydration especially for those working outside. Hydrate!
- Fauna and flora – Snakes, spiders, breeding season for some attacking birds and hay fever
It’s everyone’s job to keep strangers, those you know, work with and love safe. Please remain aware at all times and enjoy a wonderful and SAFE holiday season!
