At Wesfarmers Industrial and Safety, safety is the number one priority. The division maintains a relentless focus on providing safe workplaces — measuring safety performance and driving initiatives to mitigate fatal risk, prevent injuries, and promote team member physical and psychological wellbeing.

The division’s safety performance during FY24 demonstrates its commitment, with improvements achieved across its business units.

The Division has adopted a Safety Interaction program which promotes visible safety leadership, engagement, and behavioural improvement. Safety Interactions have provided the senior leadership team with a measurable program that supports the safety agenda by facilitating team member conversations, coaching and risk mitigation opportunities.

During FY24, the division conducted a deep dive into various data points to assist with psychosocial risk management project planning. Insights were garnered through business-wide risk assessments, engagement survey results, grievance registers and employee assistance program (EAP) reporting. Psychosocial risk management within WIS is driven as a People and Safety collective collaboration underpinned by its frontline leaders. WIS continues to leverage the expertise of its strong Mental Health First Aid community together with targeted Mental Health awareness sessions.

Underpinning its safety performance is the division’s First Aid First program — a robust early intervention and recovery program that has had a positive impact on both team members and the business. Feedback from team members is that they feel supported in the workplace, with appropriate treatment provided and improved recovery rates for First Aid-treatable injuries.

Central to the program is the annual delivery of internal support training for the division’s 170 First Aid officers. The training reinforces the basic principles of First Aid and aims to improve First Aid officers’ confidence and capability to treat and monitor many soft tissue injuries in-house. Soft tissue injuries are the most common forms of workplace injuries among the workforce.

WIS empowers its First Aid team by developing Injury Profiles for the most common workplace injuries. Each profile covers a single injury type and provides information on signs and symptoms, causes, recommended First Aid, pain management, expected recovery times, and additional tips and suggestions. WIS continues to expand its Injury Profiles based on feedback from team members and displays them with First Aid officer details on dedicated First Aid noticeboards at larger sites.

Further reinforcing its commitment to early intervention, WIS delivers yearly internal frontline leader Injury Management training, so that leaders are also familiar with the division’s First Aid First approach and how they can support. WIS also hosts live learning events with internal and external experienced guest speakers, which give staff an opportunity to discuss injury situations and to take them from merely a theoretical possibility in a textbook to real-life experiences from longstanding First Aiders.

WIS’s First Aid First community is supported through a variety of tools such as quarterly newsletters and lanyards with a three-step quick reference guide to dealing with a workplace injury.