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.”

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.”