Buildcorp’s Proactive Safety System has received the industry’s highest honours in winning the 2021 Master Builders Association (MBA) National Award for Excellence in Workplace Health and Safety Award – Commercial.
The National award adds to previous industry recognition for the game-changing system, including the MBA NSW 2021 innovation award, icare CASE Award and a benchmark profile from the Federal Safety Commissioner.
Re-framing safety to innovate
Our Proactive Safety System was developed over a seven year journey, driven by our values of continual improvement, preparedness and creative thinking to shift how we understand and measure safety to prevent risk.
The real innovation lies in the re-framing of safety management, moving away from the industry standard measure of Lost Time Injury Statistics (LTIFR) which is a ‘lag’ indicator of accidents after they happen. Unsatisfied with this approach, Buildcorp’s safety team set out to understand the positive ‘lead’ indicators of preventative behaviours to avoid accidents altogether.
By harnessing invaluable insights from our safety data, the team developed a ‘Proactive’ rating criteria which our sites use to assess, measure and monitor their safety performance. The data highlighted a range of areas where incidents are most likely to occur and the proactive actions best suited to prevent them. Monthly audits confirm on a proactive rating scale how our teams are performing in these areas and highlight where extra attention or support is needed.
Since its inception, the system has created widespread outcomes and the data shows a direct correlation between projects that are rated in the ‘proactive zone’ consistently and a low to zero LTIFR.
People and culture
The system is also more than just data and measurement. At its core is people and culture; a proactive safety culture means our people work together to develop and share Proactive Safety Initiatives each month to design-out risk. These initiatives then become standard in our system, which creates continual improvement and helps ‘raise the bar’ to a proactive level of safety.
The team also created a Safety ‘why’ induction campaign that uses film and noticeboards to remind people about the personal reasons we keep each other safe. Encouragingly, the combination of our proactive culture, data and risk management helped us achieve a new record low for lost time injuries (LTIFR) in FY2021 which was 40% lower than the industry benchmark.
Federal Safety Commissioner David Denney said: “Monitoring lead indicators is essential to detect problem areas before an LTI or MTI happens. I’m pleased to see one of our longstanding accredited companies successfully integrate these innovative practices to help ensure every worker goes home safely every day.”
Buildcorp Managing Director Tony Sukkar AM said: “Buildcorp’s mission to ensure ‘everyone on every site goes home safe every day’ couldn’t rely on LTIFR, so we harnessed the power of our safety data to develop lead indicators and create a proactive site culture.
“This award is powerful recognition that our pioneering approach is helping protect people, projects and partners. It also provides a strong case for change for the industry as it looks to understand the potential for positive performance mechanisms in future safety management.
“We are incredibly proud of our people and partners for taking a leadership role in driving our safety journey forward to transformative outcomes.”