ALL ABOARD! Greyhound’s journey to improve safety

ALL ABOARD! Greyhound's journey to improve safety

KERRY-LEIGH DYER: So when we first started with Greyhound, they were managing quite a lot of claims relating to workplace injuries.

JUSTIN DOWSETT: Two years ago, when we started the, the program, I think we were double the state average.

Swing gates should also move easily and have secure catches, without nip points that may require additional exertion to shut them.

KERRY-LEIGH DYER: But since the IPaM program, they've reduced that number by a huge amount.

The program is designed to identify where improvements can be made, and work with the workplace to make those improvements.

JUSTIN DOWSETT: Being part of the program has given us a really good structure to follow.

KERRY-LEIGH DYER: There is a safety vibe that's infected Greyhound.

KERRY-LEIGH DYER: I haven't seen anything like it before.

ON SCREEN TEXT: ALL ABOARD! Greyhound's journey to improve safety

KERRY-LEIGH DYER: When I first came to work with Greyhound, they had a lot of injuries on their books, and they'd also just come into new management.

KERRY-LEIGH DYER: The safety culture at the beginning of the program was quite poor.

JUSTIN DOWSETT: Management commitment is, is imperative to a, a strong safety culture. So buy-in from the leadership team, starting with the CEO, is very important.

NEIL TAYLOR: One of the issues I believe we faced [background noise], when I came in, is that whilst the company had a decent record on safety, it wasn't nearly as good as it should have been.

KERRY-LEIGH DYER: Most of the injuries were musculoskeletal, and related to manual tasks.

JUSTIN DOWSETT: Through reviewing our injury statistics, we attributed a lot of our injuries back to our old vehicles. So, s-, poor seats, clutches …knee injuries, and back injuries, left shoulders, from our gear levers…and lifting up the, the bin doors.

JUSTIN DOWSETT: So, Greyhound has made significant investment in new fleet.

NEIL TAYLOR: We actually were able to engineer out a lot of the safety issues we were getting, by significant improvements, say, in the way that we configure the bin doors; in the way the, the drivers now are set up to actually drive the buses.

WILLIAM SKINNER: Welcome aboard one of our new coaches.

The new drivers seats are all air operated, to stop bumps coming through to the driver… makes it a lot more comfortable for the driver, less wear and tear on their back as well.

The new coaches don't have a clutch… the automatic transmission takes the wear and tear off your left leg… and the controls within very very easy reach, and very very easy to use.

The bins doors well they're all remote controlled, no more heaving heavy doors up in the air anymore.

KERRY-LEIGH DYER: I think prior to the new General Manager and the new Safety Manager coming on board, Greyhound had a lot of policies in procedures in place, but they weren't really enforced.

JUSTIN DOWSETT: Before we started the advisory program, Greyhound safety culture was, was a, a bit poor.

JUSTIN DOWSETT: I think a lot of it was to do with communication and consultation with the workforce.

JUSTIN DOWSETT: We were seeing poor reporting of incidents; poor in-incident and injury investigation.

JUSTIN DOWSETT: Lack of commitment to training throughout the business, has al-also been a problem.

JUSTIN DOWSETT: We conducted manual handling risk assessments throughout the business.and from that, we then identified some tools that we could implement into the business that would reduce manual handling injuries.

One of the tools was a grab stick.

ALAN BIBBY: Hooks, so we can actually grab the bags and pull 'em out, so we don't climb inside the bins.

MITCHELL TEASDALE: Bump caps for the guys who, who are hitting their head. They got a cool new baseball type cap, with a reinforcement in the, in the head there. I think that's a, that's a really good idea.

JUSTIN DOWSETT: We im-implemented a torque multiplier, which reduced the injuries related to undoing wheel nuts.

ALAN BIBBY: Which saves us a lot of back breaking, tryin' to crack the nuts. This thing does it so easily.

NEIL TAYLOR: We didn't just buy new buses [background noise]. We made sure that it came with a comprehensive training program, of which a large part of that was around safety.

NEIL TAYLOR: We've moved from an ad hoc training plan to a very consistent training plan that people deliver, and have scheduled.

NEIL TAYLOR: We 'have' to go out and talk to people. We 'have' to run training sessions face to face. And that's probably the best way of doing it.

JUSTIN DOWSETT: What flowed on from our review of our safety management systems, was improvements to policies and procedures.

JUSTIN DOWSETT: We have a stringent incident reporting system, which is operational 24 hours a day; a simple phone call to an ops control coordinator who will put into our electronic management system.

MITCHELL TEASDALE: It's not, 'injured; game over' ... it's, 'injured; what are we going to do about it?'

JUSTIN DOWSETT: So it's important to have an effective and efficient return to work program to bring back our employees into the business as quickly and as seamlessly as possible.

MITCHELL TEASDALE: Then to assist in making sure that injury doesn't happen again through implementing safety initiatives in response to the injury.

[PAUSE - BREAK]

NEIL TAYLOR: One of the issues that we have as a business is, because our drivers come in, they get into a bus and they drive, they're actually quite hard to communicate with.

JUSTIN DOWSETT: Improving safety culture's all about communication.

JUSTIN DOWSETT: We get the word out to the workforce by holding a toolbox meeting; keeping our safety notice boards full of, of relevant information.

NEIL TAYLOR: We have messages that go on payslips. People do read their payslips.

MITCHELL TEASDALE: Every workplace or work area is entitled to elect a safety representative, who can speak and voice concerns and issues, and raise issues, safety related, on behalf of that work area.

MITCHELL TEASDALE: The group of those reps will come together every three months, and form a safety committee,

JUSTIN DOWSETT: 'Safety starts with me', is Greyhound's safety motto.

KERRY-LEIGH DYER: I contribute the huge drop in injury rates to the change in safety culture; the improvement in safety culture at the workplace.

JUSTIN DOWSETT: A lot of the workers come up with the, the initiatives that we're implementing. The grab pole and the torque multipliers come from the workforce. So it's, it's, again, it's proving that Greyhound is listening to their workers, and we're taking them seriously.

KERRY-LEIGH DYER: And now they're really keen to participate in toolbox meetings, they're really keen to participate in safety training, and you can just feel it, when you visit the workplace, that there's a change.

JUSTIN DOWSETT: I don't think Greyhound would be where they are, if we'd never become part of the program.

NEIL TAYLOR: One of the things the program did at the start, was give us a bit of a road map of where we needed to go.

[PAUSE - BREAK]

JUSTIN DOWSETT: So the journey has begun, but we have a long way to go.

NEIL TAYLOR: Whatever your baseline is, you can get better.

MITCHELL TEASDALE: I'd like to say it's an easy journey. It's definitely not. It's one that requires a lot of hard work.

KERRY-LEIGH DYER: The journey's never over with safety. It's always about continual improvement.

ONSCREEN TEXT: Work safe. Home Safe.

ONSCREEN TEXT: Please visit www.worksafe.qld.gov.au for more information

ONSCREEN TEXT: Workplace Health and Safety Queensland thank Greyhound Australia and the following people for participating in this film:

Kerrie-Leigh Dyer
Neil Taylor
Justin Dowsett
Mitchell Teasdale
Rajnesh Roshan
William Skinner
Alan Bibby

Visit www.worksafe.qld.gov.au

RUN TIME: 6 mins 29 seconds