Safety starts with me

The Monadelphous Worley Joint Venture (MWJV) team have recently received a high commendation from Santos for their safety initiative, ‘Safety starts with me,’ at the Jim Robinson Jr Awards in November 2021. This is the most significant safety award in Santos.

The ‘Safety starts with me’ campaign was developed following an increase in incidents, both minor to serious between June 2018 to July 2019. Not consistent with MWJV’s proven safety performance, the site team reached out to the wider Monadelphous and Worley businesses seeking leaders to carry out a cold eyes review of the operations. Leaders were encouraged to give formal feedback on how to help get the team get back on track and achieve the previous high standards they were accustomed to.

Manager for Monadelphous Worley Joint Venture Jared Gilchrist said It was agreed that we
needed to have an open, honest, and candid review of our safety performance and culture, in
order to get to the bottom of what had happened to their performance.

“We had meaningful discussions with members of the expat and local workforce to allow them to provide valuable insights,” said Jared.

Following the review process, it was clear that a common contributing factor to the serious
Incidents had been a significant lack of situational awareness.

“We needed to get back to the basics and encourage and embed safety ownership within the
team. Our teammates needed to understand and acknowledge that the choices they make dayto-day affect themselves, their teammates and can affect their family and friends,” he added.

To help drive home the message the campaign was personalised and made visual using posters
and photographs of team members with slogans written in Tok Pisin, a native PNG language.

The slogans drove home ownership and responsibility, including ‘Safety starts with me,’ ‘Make the right choices,’ ‘The choices YOU make can affect your family,’ and ‘The choice is in your hands.