National recognition for Southern Ports’ safety leadership

Southern Ports’ commitment to leading the way in safety across its four sites in Albany, Bunbury, Esperance and Perth was recognised at the 32^nd Annual National Safety Awards of Excellence hosted by NSCA Foundation in Sydney last week (23 October).

The regional WA port authority’s Field Leadership Program won the Best Safety Leadership Initiative up against major engineering and logistics companies including JF Hull Holdings, Spark North East Link, and Toll Group. 

Southern Ports Chief Executive Officer Keith Wilks said the award recognised the impact its tailored safety program is having across its port communities, having driven a shift in mindset towards putting people first.

“Our Field Leadership Program has been built from the ground up. It is about empowering our people to constantly improve our safety culture and it gives our staff the tools to be able to interact with everyone working across our sites to improve safety outcomes,” Mr Wilks said.

“An important part of the program is critical control verifications and leadership interactions to promote greater awareness of surroundings and risks across our workplace, which ultimately leads to safer workplaces. 

“And importantly we’ve made these processes easy to carry out through digital systems and field devices that can be used anywhere across our four sites.”

Southern Ports was also one of five finalists in the Best Continuous Improvement of a WHS Management System category for its safety transformation over the past five years.

“On top of Field Leadership program being recognised nationally as the best leadership initiative, being named a finalist in the continuous improvement category reinforces that our positive intentions are creating positive outcomes,” Mr Wilks said.

“We have repositioned safety as a number one priority, taking challenging safety results in 2019 and turning them into an opportunity to improve and create a workplace that firmly puts people first.”

For more information on the National Safety Awards of Excellence visit nationalsafetyawards.com.au