Richard Kelleway
We’re all proud of our strong safety culture – but in busy workplaces like ours, it’s important to step back, remind ourselves of our shared safety goals, and tell our colleagues that ‘we’ve got their back’.
This January, in a symbol of their commitment to safety, the Visionstream business paused for an hour – starting the New Year with a targeted focus on our most important priority.
Many Visionstream operations commence the year with a toolbox talk to remind our teams to be alert and get ‘back in the zone’. The Pause for Safety was a small, extra step where all parts of the organisation came together, stopped working, and attended briefings led by senior managers.
The theme for the day was ‘a moment is all it takes’, and employees held discussions about how they were going to keep each other safe in the year ahead.
In just a moment a normal situation can become a critical situation which can cause a permanent impact to someone’s life.
Visionstream CEO Richard Kelleway said the Pause for Safety was an opportunity to not only stop and focus our minds on safety – but also for employees to speak up about ways to improve performance or highlight risks that need to be reassessed and managed.
“Ultimately, the core of our safety system is us,” he said.
“What keeps us safe every day is the care for ourselves and our workmates and speaking up when we see something that could get someone hurt.
“We are all safety leaders. We all set the safety culture and standards – with our words and procedures, but most importantly with our visible actions.
“Together, we must come together and commit to building a safe workplace for our people and the communities we support.”
The event followed an earlier Visionstream ‘stop work for safety action’ event in mid-2018, which resulted in an improved focus on incident reporting and reinvigorated the team’s focus on hazard awareness.
