When Seqwater formed in 2013 through the merger of three state-owned water businesses, we inherited a fragmented maintenance approach with inconsistent safety practices. Multiple supplier panels operated with varying degrees of safety management, creating an immature safety culture with high incident potential.

This presentation explores how our maintenance team became instrumental in developing a unified safety culture across the organisation. Working collaboratively with HSW, we implemented strategic contracting methods, developed simplified yet effective risk management processes, and established critical controls that dramatically improved safety outcomes.

I'll share our journey of transforming safety from a compliance exercise to a core organisational value - making safety genuinely everyone's responsibility through practical empowerment and decision-making authority at all levels.

• Addressing immature safety cultures following organisational merger
• Selecting maintenance contracting methods that enhance safety outcomes
• Building collaborative approaches to safety between maintenance and HSW teams
• Implementing critical controls and simplified risk management processes
• Developing strong safety culture through empowered decision-making

Critical Takeaways:

1. Benefits of empowering employees to select appropriate risk management tools for their activities
2. Framework for assessing organisational safety culture and identifying improvement opportunities.
3. Strategic role maintenance teams can play in driving organisation-wide safety transformation.