ComfortDelGro Corporation Australia’s (CDC) company-wide focus on work health and safety has led to the roll-out of a comprehensive education program created to boost awareness during National Safe Work Month.
The transport company, which operates major government contract areas across six states and territories, as well as non-emergency patient transport services, prioritises safety year-round for the wellbeing of over 4000 staff members across regional and metropolitan locations.
CDC CEO, Nicholas Yap, said that the company planned its National Safe Work Month program to match its safety focus by working with leading Australian researchers and its own safety-focused staff to create informative webinars and videos.
“While CDC is heavily focused on the safety of its staff and customers, National Safe Work Month provides an extra opportunity for us to focus on this important topic,” Mr Yap said.
“This year we were determined to provide relevant and meaningful health and safety information while enhancing the way we engage with our staff – despite the complications created by COVID-19 restrictions – to help them be safe and heathy in and out of the workplace,” Mr Yap said.
CDC worked with numerous field experts to create a series of webinars which were broadcast live to each of its business units across Australia. It also shared recordings of the sessions with all workers who were not able to attend the live sessions.
CDC’s General Manager for Safety and Risk, Warren Sutton, said that the success of CDC’s National Safe Work Month program was due to the high-profile presenters they partnered with and the quality of content shared with staff facilitated by the National Road Safety Partnership Program.
“We worked with a leading sports physician and three internationally recognised researchers in the fields of aggressive driving, fatigue and mindfulness,” Mr Sutton said.
Physiotherapist and CEO of Preventure, Scott Coleman, demonstrated that lessons from sports injury prevention and recovery are relevant to the workplace. Dr Amanda Stephens, an expert in the psychology behind driver behaviour, discussed the triggers and dangers of aggressive driving and road rage. Associate Professor Clare Anderson shared her expertise on sleep, fatigue and how those factors affect and impair driving. Behavioural scientist, Associate Professor Sjann Koppel, shared her knowledge of safe mobility for road users.
“We were confident that when we had created an environment that allowed workers to share their lived experiences with National Road Safety Partnership Program team, we’d uncover some new and exciting opportunities to help enhance our safety programs.
“We’d like to thank Jerome Carslake, director of National Road Safety Partnership Program, who facilitated these great webinars and helped us to achieve such a great result.”
To provide an additional way of engaging staff on safety, CDC produced and shared a series of videos on the topic of safety.
“Our CEOs all showed their dedication to safety in an internal video that kicked off National Safe Work Month, while workers from all parts of our business participated in videos on the National Safe Work Month themes, Think Safe, Work Safe, Be Safe,” Mr Sutton said.
“These videos turned out well and it showed just how much passion there is for safety within CDC.
“We shared these internally and on our social media pages, to share with our customers CDC’s safety culture.”