CULTURE: Commencing in May, Ernst & Young (EY) on behalf of the RBA conducted a Safety Maturity Assessment across NPA to gauge the level of safety integration into NPA's day to day operations. Our HSE Manager Chris Lait received the results of the assessment in late July, sharing that the results were extremely pleasing.
As opposed to a traditional style of audit of safety metrics, the decision was taken to measure our safety culture using five areas of focus, which was extremely timely given the culture survey which was being undertaken in a similar timeframe.
"The most pleasing finding is that NPA is considered to be advanced in terms of safety culture and operational integration across each of the five areas, and the EY auditors noted that this was quite unusual for organisations that they conduct this assessment with which reflects a very strong understanding and ownership of safety across the business," says Chris. "The areas NPA was reviewed on are Strategy and Plan, People and Engagement, Assurance and Reporting, Risk and Opportunity, and Systems and Structures."
Safety awareness and thinking, and decentralised ownership has been at the centre of Chris' focus for the more than seven years he has been here and those efforts, combined with the support so many people across the business have given in regard to safety, as well as the recent focus on cultural change over the last 18 months, has worked together to create an environment in which safety can be considered an embedded part of our culture.
The report states that at the Advanced level, the consistent presence of safety structures, practices and behaviours related to Workplace Health & Safety are a demonstration of high levels of shared trust and knowledge flow between staff members, health (physical and psychological) and safety receive considerable attention, leading to a clear positive contribution to business performance.
"NPA is in a very good place in regard to safety. Being rated as advanced in each of these categories shows how seriously our business takes safety and how aware and how front of mind this issue is for our workforce. The key for us moving forward will be to maintain this culture and make incremental improvements," says Chris.
"Safety truly is one of our key values at NPA and the fact that so many of our people insisted on it being included as part of the values refresh shows the level of importance toward this expectation our workforce has."
Like every review, there are learnings and improvements that can be made. EY made several key recommendations for areas of future safety focus for NPA including how to take the next step in gaining increased value from our safety metrics, continuing to provide clarity for safety accountabilities and responsibilities in roles, and increasing our use and leverage of technology to further drill down to the key areas which may be impacting specific areas of the business.
"The audit was quite a lengthy process but seamless and smooth experience for the auditors which reflects the level of competence when discussing safety across the business. This is good validation from EY in regard to our safety aspirations. I'd like to thank all of the staff at NPA who participated in this process as well as the wider NPA workforce for their ongoing commitment to keep themselves and their work mates safe," says Chris.