Leading Caterpillar dealer WesTrac has been recognized for its cultural and safety transformation program in this year’s Australian Workplace Health and Safety Awards. The company, which services customers across WA, NSW, and the ACT, received the national award from the Australian Institute of Health and Safety for the best enterprise health and safety initiative.

For the past two years, WesTrac has been working with culture partner Interchange to identify a roadmap to improve safety performance and overall team member engagement.

A discovery phase identified an opportunity for WesTrac to make a difference in safety performance and team member engagement, leading to a focus on several key behaviors aimed at shifting workplace culture.

Using a human-centered design approach, WesTrac and Interchange co-designed and developed the cultural and safety transformation program, known as the Built By Us Program, with the goal to create a workplace that was safe, productive, engaged and customer-focused.

The program involved a series of five phases, which included a range of engagement and learning activities, and for leaders, a series of coaching sessions. A key element of the program was the embed phase, which relied on WesTrac continuing to implement a range of initiatives to support further improvements to company culture and safety performance.

Chief Executive for WesTrac WA Jarvas Croome said since the implementation of the program, there had been a visible change in culture.

“I am proud to see a shift in our culture, with our team members embracing Built By Us, looking out for each other and displaying our values in action,”

Mr. Croome said.

“With the mindset that culture is a driver and safety is an outcome, we are also seeing a decreasing trend in lagging measures such as TRIFR and increased quality in leading measures since commencing the program.”

NSW/ACT Chief Executive Greg Graham said engagement scores across the business had improved, with WA seeing a 21 percent lift and NSW an increase of 16 percent over a 12-month period.

“We can already see the shift in our culture and look forward to continuing in the direction we’re headed,”

Mr. Graham said.

WesTrac was also nominated as a finalist for two other awards including best health and wellbeing initiative, and health and safety innovation, which Mr. Graham said was a demonstration of WesTrac’s strong commitment to improving safety and wellbeing for all team members.

Source: WesTrac