2022 HSR of the Year Finalists and Overall Winner

The finalists for the 2022 HSR of the Year Awards and this year's winner.

Tinaya Whaanga-Burton has been with the Ministry of Social Development for just on three years and is based at John Wickliffe House, home to Dunedin's Community Link, where she is an inspirational Case Manager. In her short time with the Ministry, Tinaya has made a major impact in her workplace, not just in her Case Manager role, but in all the associated work portfolios she is involved with.

Tinaya has embraced her passion for Health and Safety by stepping up and representing her colleagues not only as an elected H&S Representative, but a PSA union delegate too – all with the aim of maintaining healthy and safe workplaces. She has been critical to ensuring that compliance activities are not only met but exceeded.

John Wickliffe House, in which MSD operate from, is a complex facility with a range of other ministry business units occupying three levels and each level has varying needs in terms of health, safety, and security approaches.

Tinaya has been instrumental in delivering on two Health and Safety related projects within John Wickliffe House in the past 18 months - lockdown processes within a multi-agency location, and contractor management within the same realm.

She has demonstrated a high level of professionalism in coordinating that all aspects of the site wide Health & Safety Committee tasks are carried out with effective engagement and communication. These efforts are reflected in the efficient and practical approaches that have been applied across the site to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our staff.

Tinaya is also strongly dedicated to building all her colleagues Health and Safety capability and is regularly heard emphasising that Health and Safety is everyone’s responsibility, encouraging everyone to actively engage in maintaining Health and Safety.

Anastacia is the Programme Lead Operational Policy and Performance in the National Compliance Team based in Department of Conservations Wellington National Office and leads the National Compliance Team’s H&S group.

Anastacia Identified that the team, with members distributed around the country, would not get the same level of representation through the local ‘Safe Home Committees’ (H&S Committees), and actively promoted and lead the establishment of a ‘Safe Home Committee’ for the team. This was to better enable the team to identify and resolve health and safety issues relevant to them. She then agreed to become the National Compliance Team rep on the National Safe Home Committee to enable escalation of any unresolved issues and to link the National Compliance Team into National Health and Safety discussions and programmes of work.

Anastacia has identified the health and safety gaps in relation to Compliance Team’s work, put together a Safety plan to identify the H&S priorities, address the gaps and manages a comprehensive tracking to identify and ensure work gets completed.

Anastacia writes many of the Compliance Team H&S Standard Operating Procedures and reports, has a fantastic understanding of evidence-based decision making and will provide constructive feedback on national health and safety policies back up the chain, and communicates well across all levels.

Her nominator said,” She really is the glue that holds H&S together for the National Compliance Team, she works so hard and really deserves this award.”

Working as a civilian in the New Zealand Defence Force, Ann has become an integral part of the health and safety practices with the 2nd Engineer Regiment at Linton Army Camp. With an open-door policy, Ann encourages her team to ask questions and raise concerns and is happy liaising with management as things arise.

Alongside her day job, as an Health and Safety Rep Ann undertakes site visits, publishes newsletters, and facilitates Toolbox Talks to encourage open discussion of health and safety. Ann attends weekly Unit brief meetings to be the voice of her colleagues and has set up regular health and safety committee meetings for her unit, which she also chairs.

One of her most significant and rewarding achievements in the role has been the increase in reporting from staff, and their openness and willingness to discuss any safety concerns or ideas. She has found it rewarding to see the mind set change and can see that the team now care about not only their own health & safety, but also that of their colleagues.

Ann’s manager, Major Michael Spicer, notes Ann has worked incredibly hard in her role while also looking after a very ill family member. He believes she is more than worthy of recognition.

Wing Commander Kelvin Read, Acting Director of Safety, also endorses this nomination, saying “Ann has demonstrated a willingness to consistently exceed the requirements of the role, performing a valuable support function to the unit in the management of safety. The most pleasing element is the positive change to safety culture in the unit where safety conversations are now commonplace, and staff feel comfortable to raise issues for discussion at all levels. This in turn has ensured that the unit, and all others that come into contact with the unit, consider safety in everything they do to ensure that both workplace health and safety and operational safety concerns are taken into account”.

Dianne has been nominated for her significant work in the wellbeing space of the Auckland Transport Operation Centre (ATOC). Dianne is described as committed, passionate and proactive, someone who always adds value and who leads by example.

Dianne leads the Wellbeing group at ATOC (which she set up a few years ago) and initiates and/or supports all HSW activities delivered. In the past year – when Auckland experienced 100+ days in lockdown – she has made a huge effort to support the wellbeing of ATOC staff and this work has been highly valued by all.

Of particular significance to her colleagues, Dianne has been a vocal advocate for improvement in all areas of Health and Safety at ATOC, with a particular focus on wellbeing of our control-room based staff (who amongst other things regularly witness and respond to traumatic incidents such as fatal crashes and suicides on the transport network). Dianne also created a new Wellbeing ‘wiki’ (via MS Teams) so all ATOC staff have a ‘one-stop-shop’ of key Wellbeing resources – and continues to update and improve this fantastic new site.

A proactive contributor at monthly ATOC H&S committee meetings, Dianne is described as a Health, Safety and Wellbeing role-model – prioritising her own and others’ health, safety and wellbeing and sharing her experiences to inspire others. Dianne went to great lengths to keep her colleagues upbeat, updated, and connected during the lockdowns, and is well deserving of her nomination.

Josh is an elected health and safety representative and is part of the Fox Glacier Safe Home Committee (H&S Committee) and has also taken up a national role as a verifier for the Critical Risk Verification programme as part of the Department of Conservations roll out of its critical risk verification process.

Josh is diligent and consistent in carrying out verifications and writing reports. As this new programme has been rolled out, Josh has led the way in working out effective processes to enable the verification to take place. This includes gathering and analysing data from the GPS system, Fleet maintenance and Department of Conservation learning systems. He also interviews a cross section of drivers and managers at each site and his manner and process of interviewing has elicited quality feedback.

Josh has been described as a leader in this piece of work - getting the verifications completed takes commitment and Josh works hard to complete these. The nomination noted that “Of all our verifiers across our 8 critical risks, Josh has completed the most verifications. Through Josh's hard work, the culture and quality of health and safety has significantly increased, and he has helped embed improved safety practice and culture across the Region”.

Melissa's nomination came with glowing references from both her colleagues and her PSA organiser. In her work with Oranga Tamariki as a Workplace Administrator, Health and Safety Rep and PSA delegate, Melissa has been described as professional, inspiring, diligent and enthusiastic; an innovative problem solver; an effective and respected advocate for workers; and 'a human I want to be when I grow up".

Melissa has taken an active role in promoting H&S on site and has brought a number of activities to raise awareness of themes and issues that have been raised through engagement. She has also actively promoted National movements such as Pink Shirt day and NZ Shakeout. Melissa was part of a team that prepared the Angelsea office for an ACC Accredited Employers Programme audit, a mammoth task.

Melissa is noted as being very approachable and knowledgeable around H&S and communicates in a way that suits all diversities. She is seen to be going above and beyond to support a busy supervisor/social work team to be guided in the health and safety area when there is already enough to do.

Her positive attitude and hard work are highly respected across the two sites Melissa works across, and she has made a significant impact in the health, safety and wellbeing of all her colleagues.