Safety Leadership - National Freight Business

A national freight business with 1700 employees that provides tailored transport and logistics solutions.  With nearly 600 million tonne of freight carried each year it is one of Australia’s largest freight carriers by volume as well as a leader in freight transportation logistics.

The Challenge:

With a 12 month rolling average Lost Time Injury (LTI) rate of 23 in early 2009, it was clear that the business needed to challenge its core beliefs and attitudes about safety. It was critical that a cultural shift occured and positive belief in the achievability of zero harm was created before someone was seriously injured or killed.

The Solution

The Process

Conexus partnered with the customer to design a Zero Harm workshop that would be delivered to all employees across the business.
The Zero Harm Belief workshop fundamentally shifts people’s relationship with safety by ensuring that everyone is empowered and skilled to make the best choices for themselves and others.

Leaders
Business leaders were the first to attend the workshops to ensure that they were aligned with the company’s safety strategy and able to drive zero harm beliefs internally.
Strong, visible leadership of Zero Harm by management was critical to demonstrate that the business was committed to the safety of their employees both in the workplace and at home.

Co-Facilitators
Internal co-facilitators were idenitified to partner with Conexus consultants during the facilitation of team workshops. Co-facilitators allowed the business to create internal champions and continued to build ownership of the Zero Harm process.

Methodology
Zero Harm Belief workshops were created using the Core Fo

Results:

There was a significant reduction in the Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR) with a sustained improvement in their 3 month rolling average down from 30 in early 2009 to 0 by the beginning of 2011. The company’s 12 month rolling average was also reduced from 23 in 2009 down to 4 by early 2011.
Despite the company’s workforce being reduced to 1300 employees, the number of Safety Interactions significantly increased up from 500 per month in early 2009 to 2250 per month at the beginning of 2011. The increase in the number of Safety Interactions resulted in a decrease in the company's LTIFR.

Conexus continues to work with this organisation, and has recently reviewed and redesigned the Belief workshops to reflect changes in the business.
The strong safety performance of this organisation has been sustained to date.