When you have over 17,000 employees who provide care to over 800,000 patients in 46 hospitals, it might be easy to presume the dynamics of the workforce are too complex and that a blanket approach is the safest bet.

David Savio, General Manager of Health, Safety and Workers Compensation at Healthscope, disagreed and recently presented his compelling reasons at a GB Client Forum on “Change Management – How can we empower workers?”

When David commenced at Healthscope three years ago, there was a significant number of changes that had occurred, they had recently listed on the Australian Stock Exchange and completed some mergers and acquisitions. “We work in a very a complex and dynamic environment that is constantly subject to a number of volatile factors”.

At that stage the general approach to safety was a traditional paradigm built on compliance and enforcement. While this approach served a purpose “I don’t think that this alone would have enabled us to mature our safety culture and performance”.

David saw the potential to align the approach to safety with the principles of hospitals patient care model, “it is built around the process of empowerment. Patient centred care is about providing health care that is respectful of, and responsive to, the preferences, needs and values of patients and consumers. So I thought why not apply this to our own workers and injured workers”.

Using the theory from D.H Pinks ‘Drive – The surprising truth about what motivates us’, David also focused on the empowerment approach of enabling workers to have: ‘Sense of Purpose, Mastery and Autonomy’.

David started with getting their General Managers (GMs) involved in claims reviews. At first they weren’t sure what to do, normally these are led by the Corporate Manager and the Safety or Injury Manager. So David coached the GM’s to better understand their ‘why’ – what’s in it for them, how does it affect their culture or impact their budget?

“We gave them autonomy by attending claim reviews and make decisions that affect their bottom line, we were simply there to catch and support them. Then we worked with them on honing the skills and confidence required to enable them to take over the decisions on the claim and running the reviews”.

Next they got the GM’s involved in managing incidents. In the past when an incident occurred the Safety Manager would lead the investigation and implemented new controls afterwards. “It was a real police officer approach” David said.

Now the GM also takes the lead, calls the regulator, preserves the scene, coordinates the investigation and utilises the experience of the Safety Manager to provide expert advice. Our philosophy for health and safety is simple: “empower our people to lead safely”. “I believe that this philosophy is realised when our leaders promote a positive and productive culture”.

Having the senior management so closely involved in decision making of claims and premium performance, has been one factor in why Healthscope has seen a six million dollar reduction in their premium costs, over the last three years.

Healthscope has also seen a 105% increase in hazard reporting incidents and the ratio of corrective actions have improved. David said this shows the culture too has changed “employees feel empowered to report and manage risks”.

Was there push back? “Yes, early on there was plenty of resistance, however you need to identify and manage the resistance to change by engaging and influencing the relevant stakeholders. We work in a large organisation and people need modelling behaviour; one takes the lead and others follow. It’s about the fear of the unknown, some people aren’t equipped to be resilient and to be adaptive to change, and it’s about building their confidence and capability”.