Our Wellington team recently held a 'Stop for Safety' event in February where New Zealander of the year Mike King joined us to korero about looking after ourselves and destigmatising mental health.
Malcolm Stewart, Regional Manager – Southern said “This event is a great opportunity for us to take time to refresh our critical risks and ensure we understand the risks of complacency, time pressure and human limitation. Experiencing these influences in a safe & fun environment provides our people additional tools to manage risk in their day to day jobs.”
We work closely with Wellington Electricity (WE*) to create a safe environment for our employees and members of the public.
Greg Skelton, Chief Executive of WE* had this to say:
"Great to hear from the New Zealander of the year – recognising how important the conversation has become around mental wellness. It was a presentation full of energy and wonderful anecdotes from someone who has walked the walk.
My take aways were making sure the next generation, our children, know that it’s OK to fail and talk about the mistakes we all make every day. Everyone fails at some stage, it’s how you accept the failure and quickly take the next step forward to readjust that’s important.
The second point is that we can all be more encouraging and less judgemental – so if something goes wrong & needs to be put right, deal with it, but also tell the person of the 90% of stuff they are doing really well."
A big shout out to presenters from our Southern team who did a fantastic job. Shaun Godfrey (trainee jointer), Izzy Elsmore (trainee jointer), Wayne Hart (traffic supervisor) & Nathan Heyburn (fitter) assisted the leadership team in presenting activities tied to each of our most critical risks. This was a great opportunity for our emerging talent to showcase their presentation skills.
Congratulations to our all the folks in our Southern region who are 'owning the outcome' and working together to protect each other and the community.