Health, safety and wellbeing

We offer a Safety Leadership Programme which works on a set of concrete principles, delivered by our operational line leaders in an interactive, engaging two day workshop.  

Once leaders have completed the safety leadership programme and exhibit leadership behaviours and mindsets, they are ready to deliver the Power Up Frontline Programme to our workers and regular contractors.

Nothing’s more important than keeping our people safe, but with a very diverse team, sometimes it's hard to know whether safety messages are being understood. That's why our EHS team is making safety videos available in multiple languages. 

Learning Experience Designer Modi Chen produced the videos, and sourced translators from within the business. “As someone with English as a second language, I know that technical information like safety messages can be hard to understand. Working in EHS, it was really important to me to remove all barriers to understanding them.”

The first translated video, which features Puawai Waipouri, has Chinese, Hindi and Fijian subtitles, and Modi has plans to add more languages soon. You can watch the video here.

We have a partnership with Groov, which is seeing a passionate team led by Sir John Kirwan deeply embedding a culture of wellbeing across the business.

This starts with developing wellness leaders to understand and prioritise their own wellbeing, who then help their teams to do the same. 

MATES in Construction is a charity that exists to reduce the number of lives lost to suicide in the construction industry.

Our New Zealand International Convention Centre (NZICC) and Snells Beach Wastewater Treatment Plant teams are proud to be accredited with MATES.

To become accredited, at least 80% of site workers had to receive MATES’ General Awareness training. The sites also have to maintain a minimum number of people who’ve gone through the next stage of MATES training and become a ‘Connector’.

For the NZICC team, all of this means working to foster an environment where anyone can openly have a korero with their mates on how they’re going.

At the Snells Beach project, project manager Paul Ashcroft says he constantly sees evidence of the empathy and keenness to look out for each other when someone is in troubled times. “Achieving this recognition and support means we are stronger together to prevent suicide.”

Looking after our people is about more than just their physical safety. Increasingly, we are focused on how we can support the overall wellbeing of our teams, which has led us to partner with Groov and MATES in Construction.

To explore the idea of wellbeing in construction even further, we held an event with the AUT School of Future Environments. We hosted a panel discussion to look at what we can do to support the wellbeing of our teams, and what we can do as individuals too. Thanks to Kent Johns, Carla Tonks, Fiona Crichton and facilitator Charles Walker for sharing their insights.

We’re using a remote control roller in our work to repair one of the major slips in Coromandel (McBeth-Opoutere). We’ve built a retaining wall to support the road above, backfilled it, and the roller has just finished levelling.

The remote control roller is used in areas where we need to flatten ground near any steep drop-offs. This means if something did go wrong and the roller tipped off the edge, none of our people would be hurt in the process.

We regularly test our team members for drugs and alcohol on our projects and sites – and now in head office as well.

Being drug and alcohol free at work is one of our Life Saving rules, and this applies to everyone, regardless of role.

To show that no one is exempt, even our CEO Phil Boylen was a part of testing on the first day in Penrose (of course he passed!).

Life has become easier and safer all of our contractors, thanks to the creation of an online prequalification portal.

Until recently, contractors wanting to work with Fletcher Construction had to prepare and submit paper forms as part of the prequalification process.  Each new time they wanted to work with us, they had to provide that same information all over again. The new prequalification portal, called Mahi Tahi, means they now only have to apply once. They’re then become part of a central database that’s available to anyone in the business looking for an approved contractor.

As well as saving time, there is a significant safety element to Mahi Tahi. As part of the pre-qualification process, we are able to make sure contractors understand our safety requirements. Higgins GM Brian Kirtlan says it’s about keeping everyone on site safe – staff and contractors. “This new pre-qualification system is part of our broader safety re-set which is about us all working together to keep ourselves safe.”

When our teams want to eat lunch or enjoy a cuppa on a site where there are no facilities, ‘port-a-smoko’ has them covered.

Brian Perry Civil’s southern wellbeing trailer, a self-contained, lunch-room-cum-office-on-wheels, provides the kitchen and comfort facilities they need when they are working on construction sites with no amenities.

The trailer includes a kitchenette with a fridge, microwave, fresh water and a dining table for six. There’s also an office desk with shelves and a white board for facilitating meetings, a first aid kit, fire extinguisher and a heat pump. The front deck is designed to house a port-a-loo and there are external hand-washing facilities.

Brian Perry Civil Works Manager Brian Tunnell says the trailer concept is ideal for short-duration projects where there isn’t time to establish a port-a-com unit onsite, or for the early stages of projects before kitchen facilities are set up.

While there are similar welfare vans available to hire, it was BPC’s initiative to create its own unit in 2019.

Brian describes the wellbeing trailer as a modern-day site caravan that can be towed where it’s needed for immediate use.

“It’s a super-positive initiative. Our teams appreciate somewhere to get out of the cold in winter, or the heat in summer to take their work breaks.

“It means they can sit down to enjoy their time out, rather than sitting on the side of the highway in their vehicles.”

The facility is secure so they can lock their personal items in it. Teams also benefit from having somewhere warm, dry and clean for their team meetings or complete paperwork.”

“Good facilities are important to support good planning and help start the day right,” Brian says. “It’s not ideal to be sitting hunched over  in your ute trying to complete your paperwork.”

The welfare trailer is in hot demand, and is often booked out 3-4 months at time and is in use more than 80 per cent of the year. That sort of use supports the possibility of future investment in additional welfare vans. The Higgins team has been watching this development with interest too, They’re cooking up plans for something similar for their sites at the moment.

The team at the New Zealand International Convention Centre (NZICC) has shown they’re no quitters. That’s in all areas except one: smoking. With the help of on-site occupational nurse, staff are getting invaluable help kick the habit.  

The NZICC team is very lucky to have the support of nurse Liz Taylor, who’s on-site 2 days a week to offer the team health support. While doing lung function tests on-site, found up to a third of workers are smokers. She decided to focus on helping people quit.

One person who took up her offer was Medgar Lumanglas. He’s a scaffolder from the Philippines who’s been smoking for about 12 years. After doing his lung function test, Liz offered Medgar help with quitting, and he went back to see her for a special session. He was smoking about a dozen cigarettes a day, but with the support of Liz, and nicotine replacement therapy, he kicked the habit. Medgar’s been able to send the extra money he’s saved home to his wife and three kids in the Philippines.

Tracey Smith’s face says it all! She’s a Health, Safety and Environment Advisor for the Liveable Streets team, who have just been given MATES in Construction accreditation.

Liveable Streets is the team from Higgins and HEB who look after the roads in South Rural Auckland for Auckland Transport and MATES is a charity that exists to reduce the number of lives lost to suicide in the construction industry.

For the Liveable Streets team to become accredited with MATES, at least 80% of site workers had to receive MATES’ General Awareness training. The site also has to maintain a minimum number of people who’ve gone through the next stage of MATES training and become a ‘Connector’, as well as someone who has the more in-depth ‘ASSIST’ (applied suicide invention skills) training. In the Liveable Streets team, that’s Tracey.

She says it’s great to be acknowledged as a workplace that takes mental health and wellness seriously. “I’m proud that our team knows they have a team of people that are there to support and guide them when they need it.”