In recent years, Australia has witnessed a significant increase in the demand for health and safety professionals. The ever-evolving regulatory landscape, heightened awareness of workplace safety, and a growing emphasis on employee wellbeing have all contributed to this surge in demand. Businesses across various industries are recognizing the need to invest in health and safety, not just as a legal requirement but as a crucial aspect of their corporate culture. As this demand continues to grow, businesses are exploring innovative solutions like Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) to meet their safety professional needs efficiently.

To meet the growing demand for health and safety professionals, businesses may explore alternative solutions such as outsourcing health and safety services to industry known organisations such as FEFO Consulting who can provide expert advice on matters of health, safety, environment and wellbeing.

Let’s take a look on what might be the factors behind the increasing demand for BPO in Australia:

1. Record-high Demand for HSE professionals: The demand for HSE professionals is still climbing. This growth trend, although somewhat stabilised, still continues to rise by the country’s commitment to workplace safety and environmental protection. Various industries, from construction to mining and healthcare, require professionals to ensure compliance with safety standards.
2. A Shift Away from the Big 4 Accounting Firms: One significant catalyst for the growth of BPO is the reputational damage inflicted on the broader external consulting sector by the Big 4 accounting firms. This damage has prompted many businesses to explore alternative solutions such as outsourcing. Smaller consulting firms and BPO providers have emerged as trusted alternatives, leading to a surge in demand for their services.

Industry Leading Practices

Within the safety industry, outsourcing risk, safety and wellbeing services is becoming an effective alternative for many organisations due to skill shortages, technology enabling access to external talent, and the increasing level of acceptance to work remotely “on demand”.

FEFO Consulting continues to partner with a diverse range of organisations across Australia and New Zealand to deliver exceptional health and safety solutions. Our BPO experience includes large scale retained services across a range of industries and disciplines, e.g. labour-hire, events & leisure, and heavy industrial equipment.

• Assurance – Independent recurring assessments 
• Incident Response – “On call” and available to support incident response and critical incident investigations  
• Risk Assessments – Large volume, transactional work 
• Workshop & Training – Facilitation and training sessions.

Tips for Outsourcing

Here are a few tips when outsourcing health and safety activity: 

1. Strategy – Be clear on your strategic choices to improve health & safety activity. 
2. Segment Work – Group work into segments, e.g. strategy & innovation, core business, transaction processes, independent verifications.
3. Resourcing – Evaluate resourcing options based on capacity and capability now and in the future. Be clear on your selection criteria, e,g., share values, capacity and capability fit.
4. Measure Success – Be clear on how you will measure and know your resourcing choices are successful and celebrate success!

Resourcing with FEFO

Is your current risk, health and safety resource model effective? Could you benefit from outsourcing Health and Safety?

FEFO Consulting is proud to deliver innovative solutions and effective outcomes.

Contact us to discuss your needs and how we may be able to help.

New Team Members

Amelia Simony
Associate Director, FEFO Consulting

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Amelia Simony as Associate Director at FEFO Consulting based in Brisbane, Queensland.

Amelia is a passionate advocate for improving safety culture through authenticity and trust. She is an industry-trusted health and safety professional and brings with her a diverse range of health, safety and environment expertise. Amelia will sit on the FEFO Consulting Senior Leadership Team leading our service delivery in Queensland.

Amelia has experience across a diverse range of high risk industry including construction, energy infrastructure, services, intensive agriculture and manufacturing for industry leading companies such as Lend Lease, Alstom, Downer, Teys and Spaceframe Buildings. Her expertise includes WHS and environmental risk management, systems, governance and contractor management. She is a member of the Master Builders Queensland WHS and Environment Policy subcommittees. 

Connect with Amelia on LinkedIn or arrange a short video conference meeting by contacting her directly at:

Ally Simpson
Copywriting and Marketing Coordinator, FEFO Consulting

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Ally Simpson as Copywriting and Marketing Coordinator at FEFO Consulting based in Sydney, New South Wales.

Ally is currently studying a Bachelor of Communications majoring in Writing and Publishing at the University of Technology Sydney. With experience working in mental health advocacy and education, Ally brings her knowledge of health and wellbeing to the forefront of her writing for FEFO’s blogs, social media and newsletters.

Ally reports into the Operations Manager supporting the FEFO Marketing Strategy and Communications Plan.

Ally is passionate about mental health and works as an advocate with Batyr, running educational programs in schools across NSW, as well as teaching youth with disabilities in public schools as a Student Learning Support Officer.

Australian Small Business Champion Award Finalists

FEFO Consulting are excited to announce our latest achievement as Australian Small Business Champion Award Finalists!

With over 4,500 entries into the Australian Small Business Champion Awards, FEFO Consulting is honored to have placed as one of the finalists for the second year in a row.

Additionally, our tool the Health and Safety Index also placed as a finalist. We are looking forward to attending the presentation night on Friday 28^th of April 2023 at the Star Event Centre.

A massive thank you to everyone in our team who contributed to this project, we are eager to see what more we can offer our clients and the wider community through the success that comes from this.

Education Piece

SafeWork Australia – Australian Work Health & Safety Strategy 2023-2033

In February 2023, SafeWork Australia released the Australian Work Health and Safety Strategy 2023-2033 which sets out ambitious outcomes for work health and safety in Australia for the next 10 years.

At a glance, one target is to reduce worker fatalities caused by traumatic injuries by 30% and another is to build capability of PCBU’s, regulators and workers to ensure management of psychosocial hazards at work.

To help understand how psychologically safe your workplace is, the Health and Safety Index  has developed an organizational assessment tool to help companies understand what’s working well, blind spots and areas for improvement.

To learn more about psychosocial risk, go to our blog to download ‘How to complete a Psychosocial Risk Assessment’ Factsheet.

Click Here

Verification of Competency

Verification of Competency (VOC) Webinar

Terry Swanton and Amelia Simony from FEFO Consulting to deliver a risk-based approach in establishing a Verification of Competency (VoC) program that meets legal requirements and enables effective risk controls and a high-performance culture.

A Verification of Competency or VoC is a method of assessment which typically ensures that workers operating plant, equipment and other tools on work sites remain competent to do so – to keep themselves, others safe and solvent.

Learning Objectives

• Understand your legal obligations for VoC, including operator competency vs assessor competency
• Understand how to demonstrate due diligence and minimise risk of personal liability – facts vs myths!
• List options for taking a risk-based approach for establishing VoC safe systems of work
• Gain an understanding of leadership principles and methods of building a high-performance culture

Download 6 Steps to Verification of Competency (VoC) and contact us for training.

Download Now

Partner Spotlight

Mates

Here at FEFO Consulting we have partnered with MATES in Construction, using our complimentary expertise to educate our clients and community on mental health and suicide prevention.

MATES in Construction is a charity established in 2008 aimed at reducing the high level of suicide rates among Australian construction workers. MATES provide suicide prevention through development programs within the community, by supporting workers in need through case management and a 24/7 hotline.

They work across Queensland, New South Wales, The Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia.

To learn more about MATES in Construction, contact them here

Dates for the Diary

Hear are a few exciting dates for the diary in 2023!

April

• NZ National Health & Safety Leaders’ Summit
  27-28 April, Auckland
  
• Contractor Safety Facilitated Online Training
  18 April, 12.30 – 4.30pm (AEST)
  
• Bullying & Harassment Online Facilitated Training
  19 April, 12-1pm (AEST)
  
• Verification of Competency Online Facilitated Training
  20 April, 1 – 5pm (AEST)

M: +61 (0) 417 570 143

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Psychosocial Risk

FEFO Consulting collaborated with several partners to deliver a 4-part webinar series of psychosocial risk. These webinars outlined options to identify psychosocial hazards and manage associated risks.

Our expert facilitators provide insights into Health and Safety Index benchmark results, industry trends and a range of psychosocial resources.

This webinar is part 1 of 4 and outlines the key differences between ISO 45003 and   SafeWorkAustralia:Model Code of Practice.

For a summary of video content, refer to our blog   psychosocial risk webinar series.

To download  the factsheet “How to complete a Psychosocial Risk Assessment”, click the button below

VoC

Verification of Competency (VoC)

Terry Swanton will leading an online training course on Verification of Competency (VoC) fundamental requirements, myths, failures and methods to build high-performance on 31 Jan 2023.

Terry will be sharing learning on:

• Material risk
• VoC Facts vs Myths
• Verifying Competency vs Critical Controls
• Compliance vs enabling High-Performance

To download the factsheet “VoC: Shifting from Compliance to High-Performance”, click the button below

To register for this training click here.

Click here to read more about VoC.

Chain of Responsibility Funding $4M

CoR Funding $4M

FEFO Consulting  was recently published in the Institute of Quarrying (IQA) Quarry magazine outlining Chain of Responsibility (CoR) tips. This article focused on ‘Turning Threats into Opportunities’ shifting mindsets from being Compliance focused to effective Leadership.

This CoR article also provides a link to the  Heavy Vehicle Safety Initiative (HVSI) funding for over $4 million supporting new project to deliver a safer heavy vehicle. Submission close 20 February 2023.

To access this CoR article, click here.

Our Social Impact Goals 2023

Our Social Impact Goals 2023

FEFO Consulting is a purpose driven advisory firm. This year we have set ourselves a goal of sponsoring 12 young girls and boys through Plan International. Our sponsorship aims to support their education and to become self-sufficient. If you would also like to get involved click here to donate!

Meet the Team

Senior Leadership Team

FEFO Consulting’s Senior Leadership Team kicked off 2023 with our first strategy session of 2023 and aligned on our metrics that matter.

Firstly, our Senior Leadership Team grew in 2022 and were excited for 2023 and partnering with you. Come meet our Team;

• Mark Wright – Managing Director,
• Terry Swanton – Director,
• Rebecca Crompton – Director and
• Rachel Fitzgerald – Operations Manager.

As a business, we believe that setting Objective Key Results (OKR’s) that are both ambitious and verifiable are a great way to effectively support Business Strategy.

If you want to learn more about OKR’s and how they could identify potential opportunities in your business, check out our OKR vs KPI blog.

Leaders’ Summit

Leaders Summit (NZ)

Rebecca Crompton (Bec) is excited to be invited to be an opening speaker at the Health & Safety Leaders’ Summit in Auckland on 27-28 April.

Bec will be expanding on previous Balanced Scorecard OKR vs KPI  webinars to outline reliable methods of measuring health & safety performance informed by research and evidence related to resilient performance.   

Dates for the Diary

Hear are a few exciting dates for the diary in 2023!

Jan-March

• Verification of Competency (VoC) Online Facilitated Training
  31 Jan. 1-pm online (AEST)
  
• Mental Health & Wellbeing Awareness Online Facilitated Training
  16 March, 12.30 – 4.30 (AEST)
  
• Chain of Responsibility Online Facilitated Training
  30 March, 1pm – 4pm (AEST)

April

• NZ National Health & Safety Leaders’ Summit
  27-28 April, Auckland
  
• Contractor Safety Facilitated Online Training
  18 April, 12.30 – 4.30pm (AEST)
  
• Bullying & Harassment Online Facilitated Training
  19 April, 12-1pm (AEST)
  
• Verification of Competency Online Facilitated Training
  20 April, 1 – 5pm (AEST)

M: +61 (0) 417 570 143

E: info@fefo.com.au

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Webinar Series

Psychosocial Risk Series

This October, FEFO Consulting is partnering with myosh to deliver a series of Psychosocial Risk & Change Webinars. This 4-part webinar series will outline different methods of identifying psychosocial hazards and managing risks.

Our expert facilitators will provide insights into Health and Safety Index benchmark results, and options for identifying hazards and effectively manage psychosocial risks.

4 Webinars:

• ISO 45003 vs Model Code of Practice – 19 October
• Change Management – Managing Psychosocial Risks – 26 October
• Mental Fitness – Opening up Conversations – 9 November
• HR vs Safety – Psychosocial Ownership – 16 November

Safety Leadership Workshop

Facilitating Safety Leadership Workshop

FEFO Consulting was recently engaged by Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL), a global property construction company to deliver a tailored Safety Leadership Workshop in Victoria. This focused on Great Leadership, a core module in FEFO’s Leadership Development Program to build safety leadership awareness and knowledge.

A key feature of this was the Health and Safety Index providing insights to each attendee’s safety leadership via the Self-Assessment tool.

‘Terry and the FEFO team once again delivered this project ‘at speed’ and really catered to the audience’

To learn more about our Leadership Development Program and how we could tailor a safety leadership program AT SPEED for you:

WHS Codes & Information

WHO Guidelines on Mental Health at Work

In September 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) recently published The WHO guidelines on mental health at work. This guideline provides evidence-based recommendations that cover:

• Organisational interventions
• Training managers
• Training workers
• Individual interventions
• Return to work
• Employment – people living with mental health conditions

The purpose of this guideline is to improve the implementation of evidence-based interventions as well as enable people living with mental health conditions to thrive in work.

To help understand psychosocial hazards and risk management, join FEFO consulting 4-part webinar series on Psychosocial Risk – during October and November partnering with myosh:

M: +61 (0) 417 570 143

Subscribe: Click here

New Code

New Code of Practice vs ISO 45003: Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work

In July 2022, SafeWork Australia released new Model Code of Practice: Managing psychosocial hazards at work. This new Code of Practice outlines psychosocial factors in the workplace:

• Design or management of work
• Process and system
• Working environment
• Plant and equipment
• Interactions, cultures, values and behaviours.

For more information on this new Code of Practice and comparison to ISO 45003, refer to our blog, ISO 45003 vs Code of Practice: Psychosocial hazards at work.

For a detailed comparison, download a copy of our Psychosocial Hazard Factsheet: ISO 45003 vs Code of Practice:

Contact us to understand more or request a demo of our Psychosocial Diagnostic (Dx) Survey.

OKR’s

Facilitating Safety Strategy with OKR’s

FEFO Consulting was recently engaged to assist a large organisation going through significant growth with a Health & Safety Strategy. This involved a series of site visits and workshops to engage frontline operations in the development of Objectives and Key Results Areas (OKR) and actions for improvement.  

To learn more listen to our webinar on OKR vs KPI: Measuring Health and Safety Metrics that Matter or contact us.

M: +61 (0) 417 570 143

E: info@fefo.com.au

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Strategy at Speed

Agile Health & Safety Strategy 2022-23

To take advantage of the strategic benefits of speed, organizations need to marry fast strategy to fast execution.

In a tempo-driven organization, everyone’s attention is focused on the strategic Objectives and Key Results (OKR) and how to achieve them effectively at speed.

For more information refer to our Agile Health & Strategy blog or download our OKR template by clicking below.

Sacrificing Safety. When the strategy goes wrong.

Grosvenor coal mine explosion in Queensland in 2020

When the strategy goes wrong.

Anglo American’s Grosvenor coal mine explosion in Queensland in 2020 is ultimately attributable to overwhelming production pressures. Underground coal mining is a particularly dangerous activity, requiring delicate engineering judgements to manage a variety of hazards in an ever-changing geological environment. These judgements need to be protected from commercial pressures.

However, Anglo had set production targets and provided incentives to reach and exceed these targets, which inevitably corrupted judgements about how to produce coal safely. The Grosvenor explosion demonstrates how disastrous these targets and incentives can be in highly hazardous environments.

Sacrificing Safety draws on the Board of Inquiry Report into the Grosvenor accident, and also on insights from other hazardous industries, particularly the oil and gas industry. The author was originally appointed to the Board of Inquiry, but withdrew, in circumstances that are explained in an appendix. Source: wolterskluwer For more information, refer to Professor Andrew Hopkins new book Sacrificing Safety: Lessons for Chief Executives

M: +61 (0) 417 570 143

E: info@fefo2025l.kinsta.cloud

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Is your health & safety strategy right for 2022-23?

Contractor Safety

How much is too much?

FEFO Consulting recently is introducing new contractor safety assurance services to assist clients with ensuring effective procurement of services. To support these services, we are leading a 5-part webinar series on contractor safety in partnership with myosh. The 5-part webinar series covered:

1. Selecting & Engaging Contractors
2. Mobilising Contractors
3. Managing Contractors
4. Verifying, Learning & Improving

For more information on Contractor Safety refer to:
• Contractor Safety Blog
• Success Stories• YouTube Channel

M: +61 (0) 417 570 143

E: info@fefo.com.au

Subscribe: Get updates from FEFO

Building Leadership Talent: Chronic Unease

How to create a healthy sense of chronic unease?

Chronic unease is the feeling of discomfort and concern about the management of risk. Having a healthy level of chronic unease can help identify weak danger signals, reduce complacency, and improve alertness. And just because a catastrophic event hasn’t happened, doesn’t mean it won’t!

Examples of weak danger signals can include:

• Unexpected maintenance results
• Variations from good practice that has become tolerated
• Noticing a colleague is distracted while carrying out a critical process
• A decision to carry on that we think was made too quickly.

Check out the above video on more about chronic unease, or contact us to understand how we can help build leadership talent in your organisation.

M: +61 (0) 417 570 143

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Critical Control Management – Unintended Consequences of Getting it Wrong!

Critical Control Management (CCM) is an internationally recognised approach for organisations to improve the management of potentially fatal and major unwanted events.

Is a CCM program relevant for you?

• Are your metrics driving the right behaviour?
• Are you overly reliant on injury statistics?
• Are you focused on quantity of activity, rather than quality of controls?
• Do your operations have a health level of chronic unease?

But where do you start?

Often organisations struggle to understand how to get started, how to deploy effective programs or avoid unintended consequences. By nature, critical controls are critical, so understanding how to manage CCM is often a key strategic priority for most organisations.

This 6-part series will provide simple and effective tips on how to deliver a CCM.

This will include case studies, shared learning, and guest speakers from several multinational organisations eg, Lockheed Martin, Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) and Natural Resource Australasia.

M: +61 (0) 417 570 143

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Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is a practice in which an organisation engages a third party to perform projects, tasks, handle operations or provide general services, e.g., subcontractors performing essential business operations in lieu of using internal staff.

While many businesses have used external service providers, including freelancers, independent contractors and large-scale third-party enterprises at some point, the use of BPO has continued to expand. 

“Thanks to its many benefits and ease of access, I believe business process outsourcing is here to stay and will be adopted by businesses of all sizes.” – Mark Thacker, President of Sales Xceleration

A recent article from Grand View Research, would suggest there is an increasing trend for businesses using BPO in the coming years.

Although outsourcing had been viewed as a way to lower costs and gain efficiencies, it is increasingly becoming a strategic tool for organisations for many others reasons, including: 

• Speed
• Flexibility 
• Efficiencies
• Specialist expertise
• Diversity of thinking
• More effective outcomes

Effective BPO enables organisations to focus on core business activity and strategic priorities – smarter ways to achieve effective outcomes.

Industry Leading Practices

Procter and Gamble (P&G) are world renowned pioneers of outsourcing. P&G seriously started outsourcing their Global Business Services (GBS) in 1999 – yep, last century. The P&G journey has evolved to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) such as bots for non-core, low-value transactional activity. 

Within the safety industry outsourcing risk, safety and wellbeing services is becoming a real option for many organisations due to skill shortages, technology enabling access external talent, and the increasing level of acceptance to work remotely “on demand”. 

FEFO Consulting continues to partner with a diverse range of organisations to provide risk, safety, and wellbeing services. Our BPO experience include large scale retained services across a range of industries and disciplines, across Australia and New Zealand, e.g. labour-hire, events & leisure, heavy industrial equipment.

• Assurance – Independent recurring assessments 
• Incident Response – “On call” and available to support incident response and critical incident investigations  
• Risk Assessments – Large volume, transactional work 
• Workshop & Training – Facilitation and training sessions. 

Outsourcing Safely: Client Interview

Interview with Trent O’Hara, Group Manager Workplace Health and Safety from Belgravia, on the benefits of outsourcing.

1. As HSE Manager, why is a verification process important to you?

A verification process is important to ensure high standards of auditing are being carried out at local level. The verification process allows us to spend valuable time with local level managers, in supporting, training and helping managers understand how best to undertake and answer their audit questions, ensuring that the work they have done on their WHS Audits meets the benchmark standards we set for every site.

2. You recently engaged Fefo to conduct a verification review program – what was the driving factor for this project?

The driving factor was to ensure that we reach the highest possible WHS auditing standards to ensure the safety of our staff and members of the public is at the forefront of how we operate our business.

3. What are the key benefits of the verification review process 

The key benefits of the verification process include ensuring we meet our ISO 45001 WHS Management System Certification criteria and providing our local managers with the guidance and support necessary to understand how to correctly audit their sites and reach the highest safety standards.  

4. Why did you engage Fefo Consulting?

Fefo Consulting were engaged as they have an outstanding reputation within WHS circles and have experience in many industries, including ours being sport and leisure management. They have excellent customer service and are really flexible with our needs and requirements to execute the program. 

5. What are the benefits to you / Belgravia to outsource health and safety services?

The verification audit program adds to our existing self-auditing and 3^rd party ISO auditing programs, which form our fortification of safety pillar system. Having an external eye to verify any gaps and issues we need to work on is a key part of the program to eliminate any internal bias. Having a trusted organisation such as Fefo Consulting overseeing our program, gives us the confidence that we are meeting our WHS legislative duties of ensuring high levels of safety within our organisation auditing operations.

Tips for Outsourcing

Here are a few tips when outsourcing health and safety activity: 

1. Strategy – Be clear on your strategic choices to improve health & safety activity. 
2. Segment Work – Group work into segments, e.g. strategy & innovation, core business, transaction processes, independent verifications
3. Resourcing – Evaluate resourcing options based on capacity and capability now and in the future. Be clear on your selection criteria, e,g., share values, capacity and capability fit
4. Measure Success – Be clear on how you will measure and know your resourcing choices are successful and celebrate success!

Resourcing in 2022

Is your current risk, health and safety resource model effective and ready 2022?

FEFO Consulting are proud to deliver innovative solutions and effective outcomes.

Contact us to discuss your needs and how we may be able to help.