Find out about the Growing our Safety Culture programme “We saw the safety culture programme as a great mechanism to initiate and develop our safety dialogue.” Robert Green, CEO, Timberlands Limited
This programme was developed specifically for the forestry industry. It helps businesses create a workplace culture that supports good health and safety.
Email info@safetree.nz to sign up for the programme and get a list of approved facilitators.
See how Port Blakey has benefited from investing in growing its safety culture Watch the video Read the story
You can get a taste of the programme from the resources used in it. These resources contain really useful information to help you improve your workplace culture, whether or not you use the programme. Shown them to your teams and discuss the questions contained in the resources. See the resources
What is the Growing our Safety Culture programme? How will it help my business? What does the programme involve? What will happen? What’s the investment? Why are the reports confidential? How was the programme developed? Can I run the programme myself, using the resources on the website? Can I choose my own facilitator? Download this information
This programme helps you understand the true state of health and safety in your business, and what’s really going on in your teams. It helps you harness the expertise in your teams to identify ways of improving. It also enables you to reap the wider business benefits of having motivated teams engaged in health and safety.
The programme will help you:
It involves:
The programme is not an audit. It’s about identifying practices that support or undermine health and safety, then supporting team members to come up with improvements.
Ideally the programme should be done by all teams in the business – not just crews. It has three parts:
Project administration: $300 Printing of assessments and resources: At cost; depends on numbers involved Facilitation: $800 – $1,000 per day, with a maximum of three workshops a day. (Indicative only. Final amount to be decided between client and facilitator.) Growing Our Safety Culture report: $500 per report (per crew or team)
For the assessments to uncover what’s really going on, people need to be able to speak freely. So, the programme includes measures to ensure confidentiality. That’s why each team’s report is confidential to them. However, they can choose to share it with bosses and forest owners. Experience to date is that all crews have been willing to do this. Participants are asked to agree to their reports being used by Leading Safety to develop an anonymised sector-wide report. This report will identify what safety culture areas are supporting or hindering safe, healthy forestry operations.
The Growing our Safety Culture initiative was originally developed by the forestry industry and Leading Safety. In 2017 it was updated and piloted by several forestry businesses to ensure it meets current industry needs. It was rolled out to the industry in 2018.
Testing has shown that businesses get much more out of the programme if they use independent facilitators. Staff talk more freely to someone independent, and the facilitators are trained to draw people out, and guide the conversation in the most useful direction.
Facilitators operate to this Code of Conduct (PDF 62KB)