Safety at O’Brien: A safe workplace is an effective and efficient workplace

How O’Brien^® keeps team members safe while working

Whether you’re one of our mobile Techs, Glaziers, Plumbers, Electricians or you work within our office – we all know that health, well-being and safety are important.

Why? Because we believe that when our people are safe, happy and healthy, so is our business!

How do we do this? We’re glad you asked!

Safe thinking exists at all levels within O’Brien^®

As you know, we offer a range of services in Vehicle Glass, Glazing, Electrical and Plumbing – all industries that can involve exposure to risk due to working with glass, electricity and water.

Each member of our growing team is an active contributor to both our company’s success and safety. That’s because there is a mutual understanding that everyone has a personal responsibility to make sure they’re engaging in safe work and having open conversations to drive greater safety, health and wellbeing outcomes.

This includes our Executive team; where the emphasis on its importance starts at the top and trickles down to every Team Member, no matter their level.

Bruno Fontenele, O’Brien^® Glazier and Team Member said, “I noticed straight away that O’Brien^® is a more safety-oriented business compared to the previous companies I’ve been with before. I feel confident and valued every day knowing that I work for such a professional company and that we all look out for each other so that we can do a good job and go home to our families.”

“From the moment I interviewed, to the week of induction through to supporting me to undergo certifications to do my job the right way, it has been obvious how important safety is with O’Brien^®. In my day-to-day role, I am provided with plenty of PPE and Safety equipment. With other businesses I’ve worked for, they only provide one set of PPE each month and then it’s your responsibility to make them last for 30 days. But with O’Brien^®, we have a drawer full of protective gear that you can grab whenever we need to,” Bruno added.

Our approach is simple, we collaborate with people at all levels in order to drive and embed workplace safety and team wellbeing initiatives. This is why we have our monthly Divisional Performance Reviews (DPR).

Our DPR includes our executive team, senior operational leaders and representatives from various branches, who all come together to take a deep dive into recent serious incidents and proactively come up with strategies to prevent them from happening again in the future.

“Safety becomes second nature once you start working with O’Brien^®. The management team is always making sure everyone has everything they need, including our own PPE and the right tools to avoid injuries.” Oliver Jones-Walker from O’Brien^® AutoGlass Cairns, tells us.

Empowering our people to voice their safety concerns

Our focus is to build structures and processes which make our people to feel empowered to voice their safety concerns before their work. That’s why we introduced initiatives such as our Job Hazard Analysis checklist and completing Safety Observations.

We recognise that every glazing job is unique and so are the risks. To help protect our people, we introduced a Job Hazard Analysis checklist, which our Glazing Technicians go through before starting their tasks. This lets them assess all safety and hazardous elements of the job and proactively consider possible preventative actions. With the help of this checklist, our Team Members can easily act or ask for help should they come across something unsafe.

As you can imagine, this also significantly reduces their risk of injury.

“We’ve been trained to be aware of our surroundings and notice the things that may cause injuries or mishaps when we’re about to do our job. The Job Hazard Analysis is a great way to raise awareness for things that we may not even realise could be a risk.” Bruno said.

Similarly with our Safety Observations, which encourage Managers to be proactive and gets them to complete regular checks on tools, staff performance and operational systems. Using a standardised checklist helps to we can ensure the importance the business places on safety.

Measuring our safety success

In our 90+ years, we’ve always understood that our people are our most important asset. That’s why workplace safety has always been one of our top priorities.

Our success with safety is not simply a subjective observation either. The Australian standard for measuring workplace health and safety performance is the Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR), and through launching our proactive safety practices and initiatives, our LTIFR improved by 24% in 2021 alone!

Is safety important to you too? Come & join us!

Are you just as passionate about your safety and wellbeing?

By joining us, you’ll always know that you’re in excellent hands, surrounded by a team who considers your safety and wellbeing as a priority every day.

So, if you want the opportunity to build your career in a company that values you, contact us today or check out what roles we have available by clicking here.