Sir Ken McKenzie, Head of Security Health and Safety, Auckland War Memorial Museum
High risk industry often struggles to manage safety risk and drive down Lost Time Injury Frequency Rates (LTIFR) across their workforce. There are numerous means of monitoring and supervising the frontline workforce (blue collar workers) but who and how are those monitoring the workers safety performance, being assessed as competent to manage safety risk?
As a result of the Glenbrook and Waterfall Train crashes in New South Wales, the State Coroner brought down findings that had a major influence over rail safety risk management. The NSW Rail Safety Act 2008 demanded that Rail Transport Operators and Rolling Stock Operators MUST be able to demonstrate the competence of their “Rail Safety Workers”.
For the NSW Rail Transport Construction Authority this presented a major challenge as to how this legal requirement could be benchmarked, delivered and demonstrated in a way that satisfied legal expectation and commercial performance capability of the Authority.
A systematic approach to safety risk management was the first step, and simultaneously a competency assessment framework and methodology was developed. The fundamental principle of the Health & Safety Laws in New Zealand is that Leadership must be accountable and responsible for Health & Safety in the workplace and demonstrate that.
Research with Latrobe University and a Registered Training Organisation resulted in a true definition of how to measure competency. Five elements were clearly identified that must be assessed to demonstrate true competency in safety risk management.
Skills – Knowledge – Experience – Behaviors & Attitude – Fitness
The result was the development and adoption of a Risk Based Competency Assessment Model that assessed the unconscious risk appetite of Rail Leaders (white collar workers) including Directors, Senior Project Managers, Project Engineers, Design Engineers & Technical Specialists and Health & Safety workers.
In 2010 the Authority was running an average LTIFR of 27 per million man hours worked. Following the deployment of the competency assessment framework, by 2016 the LTFIR had dropped to under 1 per million man hours worked, construction projects were coming in on time, in full, on or under budget with a focus on “what is best for project”.
The assessment model was tested by ASQA (Australian Standards Qualifications Authority) as robust, measurable & defendable. The assessment model was subsequently adopted as the assessment benchmark across all Australian Rail sectors and remains the benchmark today.
Key Takeaways
- How to increase safety in high risk industry
- How assessment will drive down LTIFRs in high risk industry
- What the assessment model explores
- How to effectively assess unconscious competence in safety leadership.
