Health & Safety Programs

• Above-the-line messaging with the health & safety motto.
• Health & Safety included in digital myCareer templates.
• Health & Safety included in PDs, Job ads and onboarding emails.
• Expansion of the Stay Safe UNSW ap for on-the-go reporting.
• 2023-2025 Health & Safety Strategy published.
• Salus – the new safety management went live.
• Faculty/Division psychosocial risk assessments completed.
• Faculty & Division Health & Safety Plans.
• Safety brief card for including health & safety in team meetings.
• 2-Be safe posters.
• Safety Recognition program.

• SLT Positive due diligence plan – Q2
  

• Get up and Move program – Q3
  

• Maturity Matrix – Q4

• Health, Safety & Wellbeing month (October)

• Psychosocial health & safety plan – ongoing

• Training uplift – ongoing

• Policies, procedures and guidelines review - ongoing

View and download the UNSW Health & Safety Strategy 2023 below.

We appreciate feedback and input from across the university to support our efforts in lifting the culture of health and safety. Please let us know if you would like to discuss any aspects of the Safety Uplift and the projects within it. 

Contact 

Jo Cassidy – Program Manager

safety@unsw.edu.au

Health and Safety is a priority at UNSW, it's a collective responsibility. Having regular discussions and goals focussing on safety keeps everyone engaged and actively thinking about health and safety. To continue to build and maintain a proactive safety culture at UNSW, it's important to embed it in all that we do across the lifecycle. 

These conversations and goals should consider all aspects of safety, both psychological and physical. Having these regular discussions and actions makes safety achievable, keeping everyone engaged and actively thinking about health and safety.

How can you include it: 

• Complete all mandatory training in the first month.

• Have active conversations about health and safety where you might have observed either positive or negative behaviours.

• Understand how to make reports to the safety system.

• Downloading the StaySafe UNSW ap and completing the training on the SPEAK Up card.

• Increase reporting of hazards, near misses or incidents.

Leaders: 

Expectations:

1. Actively participating in the health and safety annual plans specific to their work area.

2. HS is to be a standing agenda item for every staff meeting and reflected in the minutes with awareness of how to raise up issues of safety as required.

3. Support staff and team members to feel safe in raising HS issues. 

4. Assist staff members in creating HS goals and embed them via the MyCareer discussions.

The purpose of the Speak Up for safety card is to give all staff, including contractors, the authority to step in and intervene in any unsafe work practices (hazard, or near miss), that could lead to an incident, in real-time, no matter who it is without fear of repercussion.

The Speak Up for safety card is available as a digital card via the StaySafe UNSW app and there will be hard copy cards, branded specifically for Canberra and Sydney, these are on the way and will be provided to staff as soon as possible.

If you have utilised the Speak Up for safety card, you will need to make a report in the system, it could be a hazard or a near-miss.

Please see the video here on how to use the card Speak Up for Safety.

Here are some examples of where you can use the card (this is not an exhaustive list):

• if you see someone on the roof not using a harness
• if you are in a lab and someone is doing something that could cause harm e.g., having food in the lab
• if someone is not wearing appropriate PPE
• if there is any unsafe safety behaviour in a maker space.

We also want to highlight positive safety behaviours, for example, having a supportive conversation about workloads.

 Digital card

The digital card can be accessed through the StaySafe UNSW app. If you have the app already downloaded you may need to select Preferences & Feedback, and Data Update.

When you go into the app you select the Speak Up for Safety button. 

It will bring up the card as below.

If you have an iPhone or Android, you can click the card to make a report in the system.

View and download the UNSW Switch on for Safety Powerpoint below.

We recommend including Health & Safety in team meetings across UNSW. This supports safety as our number 1 priority and shared responsibility.

An option to do this for in-person meetings is to have a safety brief at the beginning of the meeting, outlining where the evacuation points are, what to do in an emergency, the location of toilets, first aid kits, defibrillator, etc. Additionally, reviewing and sharing any safety events that might have happened recently and identifying what has been learnt or put in place to minimise the risk of it happening again.

Please see some tips for how to have proactive and meaningful Health & Safety conversations with your teams and colleagues.

If you would like a Safety Brief guide or poster please contact the H&S team at safety@unsw.edu.au and we can provide them for you.

Safety Recognition Toolkit

E-note templates:

• Thank you
• Great job
• Congratulations

Safety Recognition Certificates:

• Taking action to prevent incidents (Sydney and Canberra)
• Shift in trend (Sydney and Canberra)
• Innovation (Sydney and Canberra)
• Improvement in knowledge or resource (Sydney and Canberra)

Special Mention Form

The Get Up and Move program complements the UNSW Uprise program to promote a holistic approach to both mind and body. 

Long periods of sitting and standing at our desks, in our labs, and in other work areas is of increasing concern. This type of sedentary behaviour can lead to a variety of musculoskeletal and psychosocial health risks. Our program aims to encourage staff to incorporate regular movement and mindfulness into their day, reducing the risk of muscular disorders, cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes and improving our ability to think clearly.

It is important to take 2 minutes to consider what hazards or risks could be associated with the task you are about to complete.