The People Programs at Action OHS Consulting and Safety Champion Software continue to provide impactful benefit for our team. As we transition from ‘start up’ to ‘scale up’ we are in a unique position where we have a clear people strategy that focusses on: (1) retaining our talent, (2) attracting top performers, (3) building our learning culture; and, (4) nurturing our values. Our people initiatives underpin our values and our guiding philosophy of ‘care over compliance’.
Our Pathways
We recognise the importance of investing in talent development and fostering a culture of growth within our business. We were delighted to introduce our new Career Pathway Program, designed to help our people navigate their professional journey and cultivate their skills. This program offers career planning, mentorship opportunities, and clear progression paths to empower our people and drive their career advancement. Four of our talented team members have been promoted through the program:
- Safety Champion Software has promoted Tom O’Hehir to Senior Sales Consultant & Business Development Lead
- Action OHS Consulting has promoted three Senior Consultants to Principal Consultants. Congratulations to Phil Neville, Janelle Corbett, and Christine Henaghan.
Our commitment to cultivating a supportive and empowering environment allows us to attract, retain, and promote top talent like Tom, Phil, Janelle and Christine. We are incredibly proud of their accomplishments and look forward to witnessing their continued success.
Effective leadership plays a pivotal role in driving our success. In response to this growing demand for managerial development, we were thrilled to launch our Manager Coaching Toolkit to our existing and new managers. This toolkit focuses on providing our leaders with the tools to effectively equip their team members to succeed in their roles, whether it be via our Feedback Loop, Stay Conversations or our ability to appreciate each other’s differences.
Bringing our People Together
We would like to extend our deepest appreciation to everyone who participated in our recent highly successful Annual Conference. It was an incredible event filled with insightful discussions, inspiring panels, exciting updates, collaborative activities, and the launch of our latest innovative People Programs. Let’s recap some of the the highlights.
We kicked off with our Keynote Speaker, James ‘Woody’ Wood from CNB Safe. James was pivotal in setting the scene for the conference, sharing his story about how one ‘choice’ changed his life forever. Through his emotive message Woody connected our people with what they do each day and our greater ‘vision’; “We want to see a world in which no one is hurt at work ever”.
Business Updates
Our leadership team shared important updates on our company’s progress, growth, and strategic initiatives. We celebrated significant milestones, highlighted successful projects, and outlined our vision for the future. These updates served as a reminder of our collective achievements and energised us to continue raising the bar in our industry.
Clients and Customer Panels and Interviews
We had the privilege of hosting esteemed clients and industry experts as panelists and interviewees. A shout out to Jayde Nicholson (T2), Richard Prust (Arup Group), Daniel Waixel (Patterson Cheney), Robbie El-Hayek and Moe El-Asmar (WIT Protection Services), Chris Samartzis (Master Pool Builders Association), Julia Whitford (CEO of the AIHS) and Stephen Russell (Barrister) for your insights.
Your invaluable insights and experiences provided our people with a deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities within the occupational health and safety landscape. The engaging discussions further strengthened our commitment to delivering exceptional services and solutions tailored to our clients’ needs.
Design Jam
The Design Jam session was a fun and interactive experience where our people came together to brainstorm and develop innovative ideas for enhancing our product, processes, and customer experiences. The creativity and enthusiasm displayed during this session were truly remarkable, setting the stage for exciting future developments at Safety Champion.
The Future of Safety Champion Software
During the conference, we offered an exclusive preview of the future enhancements and advancements planned for Safety Champion Software. Our people witnessed how these upcoming features will empower our customers to further streamline their safety management practices, improve efficiency, and create even safer work environments. The future of Safety Champion Software looks incredibly promising.
Launching Our New People Programs
One of my highlights of the conference was the official launch of new additions to the People Programs. These initiatives are designed to foster a supportive, inclusive, and growth-oriented environment for our people. Through our Mentoring Program, Career Pathways Program, Public Holiday Swap and Parental Leave Program; we aim to unleash the full potential of our talented team. Keep an eye out for a spotlight on our New Parent Hamper and the proud recipients!
As we reflect on the conference, we carry forward the insights gained, the connections made, and the inspiration received. Together, we will continue driving excellence, innovation, and positive change in the occupational health and safety industry.
I’m always available to have a chat about what makes us unique, our growth strategy and People Programs – don’t hesitate to get in touch at megan.drysdale@actionohs.com.au.
Megan Drysdale
Head of People
Connect with me via LinkedIn
Looking for our previous People Program updates? Scroll down! 👇
Hi! I’m Megan Drysdale, Head of People at Action OHS Consulting and Safety Champion Software. As we continue our journey, I felt this was a well-timed opportunity for me to introduce myself and provide you, our clients and friends, with an overview of what makes us who we are.
Our newsletter and website provide such great forums for me to share why we are, who we are, along with our Employee Value Proposition (EVP). I hope that in transparently sharing our initiatives, it will promote conversation with your teams, and elevate the other side of ‘HR’ that can often be overlooked. If you or your people wish to learn more about us or our initiatives – I am more than happy to share insights, and would welcome hearing from you.
Instead of winding back to December 2011 (the inception of Action OHS Consulting), the intention of this first update is to provide an overview of the impact that the people function has made since becoming a certified B Corporation. A link to why we became a B Corp can be found: Safety Champion Software Certified as a B Corp.
Care over Compliance
The mandate for our People Program has always been and will continue to be care over compliance. As a service-based business, we recognise that our people are our business, and the transition from start-up to scale-up will be a reflection of our people who take us on the journey. To support this, it was important for us to document our People Strategy. Not only does this provide clarity for our people and those who will join us in the future – it provides structure and a pathway forward.
Our People Strategy consists of the following quadrants:
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- Retain our Talent
- Attract Top Performers
- Build our Learning Culture
- Nurture our Values
The care over compliance sentiment has been a tenant of our vision, mission, and values. Our vision, mission and values define us. They are what the business reflects on continuously.
Our People-first Initiatives
Over the past 12 months, the following People-first Initiatives have been delivered to our teams:
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- ‘We Share’ Program – this is a profit share program that all employees are part of. This program is recognition of our employees being key to our success – so it only made sense to us to have them share in any profits made. The We Share Program has an additional element, where donations are made to charities.
- ‘We Care’ Program – this program is an initiative designed to support workers should they not be able to work due to illness or family circumstances. We don’t want workers to exhaust annual leave, which is designed to help them refresh – battling circumstances that are out of their control, and far from a holiday.
- ‘Better Together’ Referral Program – this program acknowledges that our workforce can be our best advocates when it comes to building out our team. If they help us, we want to show our appreciation to them and a charity of their choice.
- Rollout of HRIS that integrates with Safety Champion Software – this has allowed us to bring HR into the cloud and establish a number of online processes.
- Rollout of our Employee Assistance Program (EAP).
- Rollout of Employee Engagement platform – we’re chuffed to share that our engagement score sits at 8.7/10, and we thrive in areas of pride, relationships, and purpose.
- Establishment of a social club, that allows our team to meet out of the workplace, to build comradery – and realise that lawn bowls is a skill that takes more than two hours to master!
- Establishment of a series of Lunch ‘n’ Learns covering a range of topics from mental health, ergonomics and our BCorp journey, to conversations that create growth and Safe Work Month.
- Coordination of our All Staff Town Halls in May and November – this provides an opportunity for our Australian-based workforce to meet, work on business problems and build relationships face-to-face as opposed to over a screen.
- Piloting our Mentoring Program – the program has been designed to provide guidance, support and advice to our people who are seeking to develop their skills and knowledge in a particular area, regardless of their career level or expertise.
- Rollout of our ‘Feedback Loop’ – bi-annual check ins and 1:1’s encouraging staff to reflect, recognise and celebrate their achievements, whilst looking ahead for the next six months.
The coming months will see us finalise a selection of policies: (i) parental leave, (ii) remote work, and (iii) public holiday swap; whilst initiating the build of a leadership and graduate program. The graduate program will sit across both Action OHS Consulting and Safety Champion. If you have had experience in any of these, or would like to share your thoughts, I would be more than happy for you to reach out and collaborate.
In addition to documenting structure, we have also delivered on the following:
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- International Women’s Day – where we showcased four amazing women who have been part of our journey.
- Harmony Day – where we virtually toured Iran, Philippines, China, India, Colombia, Vietnam and Australia to learn about the foods that have meaning to our team.
Who we are
Our people metrics as at the time of this newsletter being published:
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- 41 employees
- 59% males vs 41% females
- 45% management roles are filled by females
- 41% Australian-born, 59% overseas
- 1/3 of our staff are under 30, 28% 30-40 years and nearly 40% are over 40
- Almost 1/3 of our employees work part time
- 100% of our people work flexibly!
Whilst always focused on finding the right candidates, as we develop products and solutions that cater to a diverse range of clients and users, we want to ensure that our workforce also represents a diverse range of perspectives and experiences. We will continue to reflect on these metrics, to allow us to be explicit in, and play a leading role on how we build our teams.
If you’re interested to learn more about any of the above, or find out about what a career at Action OHS Consulting or Safety Champion Software could look like – please feel free to reach out to me: people@actionohs.com.au.
Megan Drysdale
Head of People
Connect with me via LinkedIn
