1. Art and Diseño

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CASE STUDY
CATHOLIC HOMES
“Valuing your employees is good
for people and for business
”
The Organisation
Catholic Homes is a not-for-profit organisation in the aged care
services sector. It provides residential aged care, retirement living
and respite care to approximately 1300 seniors in the Melbourne
area and has 800 staff and volunteers. Aged care facilities
are the biggest arm of its business with 11 sites. Recently the
retirement living sector has seen growth and Catholic Homes is
working towards an integrated approach for retirement living,
aged care and community services, by providing a continuum of
care. Catholic Homes also provides independent living support
for people in need.
Typical work tasks involve nursing care of older people, including
physical tasks such as resident transfers between beds and
chairs, showering and toileting residents, as well as moving
residents in wheelchairs and beds. Other tasks include feeding
residents and assisting with diversional therapy sessions. There
are also office tasks to be completed by nursing staff as well as
office-based positions.
Key Initiatives and Achievements
Tips
and
Tricks
Suggestions from
Catholic Homes to
other organisations
Value your employees
Your employees are key assets to your
organisation. Your job as an employer is to
genuinely look after them. By making the
health and safety of your employees your key
outcome, you are ultimately going to make your
workplace a happier and more productive place.
Good systems
A good system around health and safety allows
everyone the chance to know how to keep
themselves and their workmates safe. It gives
you the opportunity to be proactive about
injuries and it also means that you can look for
trends in reported incidents and do something
about risks before they become a problem.
Management
Leadership must be driven from above and if
your executive is committed to change and
make the health and safety of employees the
key focus, without exception, then staff will
follow suit. New thinking and commitment
to the wellbeing of all staff has to be driven
from the executive and ingrained in the
organisational culture.
Published by Safe Work Australia: February 2015
www.swa.gov.au
Catholic Homes made work health and wellness a key priority for
its business after a spike in workers’ compensation claims in the
late 2000s. The executive decided to strengthen the work health
and safety committee and place dedicated people into key roles.
Prior to this, work health and safety services had been delivered
by third party providers. The new key roles include a Quality and
Risk Manager, Occupational Health and Risk Coordinator and
Health and Safety Representatives at each site. As a result of
the changed executive focus, the workplace culture has shifted
to one characterised by staff members having a great deal of
commitment and buy in to health and safety.
Major Themes
Organisational commitment to safety and return to work
It is one thing to talk about taking safety seriously but quite
another to shift a business with 800 staff to implement this
ethos. The first step for Catholic Homes was recognition by
management of the need to strengthen the focus on safety.
The second was the appointment of dedicated staff members
to manage work health and safety. Through the organisational
commitment to worker health, safety and wellbeing, Catholic
Homes has successfully reduced its injury and incident rate,
decreased workers’ compensation premiums, and increased staff
engagement and retention.
The role of Health and Safety Representatives was also
strengthened across the organisation in response to the cultural
shift. Health and Safety Representatives attend a compulsory
five day training session before they take on their role, followed
up by annual refresher training. Additional work hours are also
allocated for Health and Safety Representatives to follow up on
incidents and hazards with staff and management.
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CASE STUDY
CATHOLIC HOMES
themselves needing to take time off work if the burns
became infected. Catholic Homes deployed a number
of strategies to manage and prevent injuries caused
by minor burns. The first was early intervention; which
included the provision of treatment as soon as a burn
had occurred. Catholic Homes would then support the
worker in seeking medical assistance beyond first aid (if
required). The worker would also be offered a range of
suitable alternative duties, so they could return to work
as soon as possible. The second strategy was to conduct
a risk assessment to identify how the risk could be
managed. New policies and procedures were written up,
staff were trained on burn prevention and an awareness
campaign was run throughout each site to prevent further
injuries.
Staff on the health and safety team are the first to
respond to all reported staff, contractor, volunteer or
visitor incidents/injuries. This may include the provision
of first aid, discussions with the doctor and establishment
of suitable duties. All staff members injured at work
are offered the option of having someone from the
organisation accompany them to the doctor. Good
communication between the health and safety team,
management, the worker and any third party service
providers ensures injured workers are looked after and
returned to work as soon as possible.
The change in focus is illustrated by the experience of one
worker who reported that when she was injured 14 years
ago she was not allowed to return until she was ‘fully fit.’
She felt disconnected from the workplace and worried
about her ability to return to work. However, when
her second injury occurred she was able to return and
recover at work. She felt connected to her work peers,
felt that the employer (Catholic Homes) cared for her and
was given the opportunity to learn a range of new skills
due to the design of the suitable duties plan.
“14 years ago I wasn’t allowed to come back until I was
100% fit but I got bored and I wanted to come back. Now
when I had an injury I could come back, and I got to learn
new things because I got to try new jobs”
Minimising risk
The health and safety committee drives improvements
across the business and has both an early intervention
and incident prevention role. When an injury occurs it is
dealt with immediately and there is a proactive approach
to managing the claims. Catholic Homes considers a
problem dealt with immediately will stay a small problem
rather than being exacerbated through delay.
Minor burns are an example of this approach. In the past
a lack of correct first aid resulted in further complications
due to poor management of the injury. Some even found
Published by Safe Work Australia: February 2015
www.swa.gov.au
If an injury does occur within Catholic Homes it is seen
as an opportunity for further improvement. In another
incident a minor injury occurred through the incorrect use
of bed slings, indicating staff and residents were at risk of
injury. The team trialled a new way of using the slings, and
wrote a clear process around sling use. Incidents related
to sling use have ceased.
Another example is an injury caused by a broken
trolley wheel. Firstly, the worker was assisted through
early intervention procedures, such as engaging their
nominated treating doctor, being offered suitable duties
and being provided with timely treatment to return
to work as soon as possible. The second step was to
conduct a risk assessment which identified that all trolley
wheels were at risk of breaking and were a potential cause
of further injuries. All trolley wheels were immediately
replaced and regular safety inspections are now carried
out as part of the environmental audits and maintenance
‘walk-a-rounds’.
“You need to minimise risk and do the best that you can”
Retaining an ageing workforce
The Workability Project within Catholic Homes is an
initiative to retain older workers in a working environment
that can pose risks due to the unpredictable nature of
working with patients. The average age of the workforce
in Catholic Homes is between 40 and 50 years and staff
retention is high. One of the areas of focus has been
‘flexibility’ in shift work. The rationale is that flexibility in
the length of shifts as well as the amount of physical work
undertaken during the shift, or a combination of both,
may reduce the possibility of injury for older workers.
Catholic Homes reports that “being flexible around shifts
and tasks are key components of successful return to work
outcomes”
“We need to change the way we think”
In another initiative, Catholic Homes looked at combining
a variety of suitable roles in sites across the business
including retirement care, lifestyle management and
community care. The various branches of the business
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CASE STUDY
CATHOLIC HOMES
Looking after everyone
Staff and the health and safety team not only work
closely together but also run a number of fun activities to
engage staff. This includes ‘Feel Good Days’ that involve
all staff engaging in a fun day around health and wellness
and quarterly visual displays that target one area of
learning, such as first aid for burns or manual handling.
Visual displays have been a key risk reduction technique
given the high proportion of workers with English as a
second language. Visual displays are placed in high staff
traffic areas, such as the common staff room and feature
one issue a month. Analysis is conducted on the rate of
incidents reported in relation to the most recent display.
The health and safety team report that there has always
been a drop in incidents related to the campaign issue
after it has been run.
contain a variety of roles that allow for a combination
of administrative work and manual handling tasks to
vary the working day. It also looked at varying shift
times. Shifts in a hospital environment normally require
the worker to be on the floor for a 7.6 hour shift. The
Workforce Project explored the viability of a 4 or 6 hour
shifts. Increasing the flexibility of how work tasks and
hours are organised has resulted in a reduction of incident
reporting, as workers are not exposed to excessive
manual handling. This has also allowed older staff to
remain engaged in the workforce for much longer.
“Due to workforce ageing the structure of the roles needs
to change because people are getting physically unable to
participate to their former ability”
THE BOTTOM LINE
Catholic Homes’ premium rate has
been decreasing since 2010/11 as a
direct result of assisting workers to
return to work via exemplary return
to work strategies. Its premium rate
decreased 75 per cent from 5.327%
in 2010/11 to 1.3502% in 2013/14.
Consultation is key
Consultation with staff is key to driving sustainable
change:
“Until we talk to our people at the coal face that do the
doing, then we don’t know if any of the changes are
working. We need to be able to talk to people to have any
changes sustained and embedded”.
Each site has a local committee that meets bi-monthly,
with a combined committee from all the sites meeting
on alternate months. The committees have impacted on
the organisation by encouraging open communication
between all staff, the sharing of ideas and dissemination
of information managed at an organisational level.
Open communication and consulting with staff has
result in:
• risks being managed immediately when an incident is
reported, therefore reducing potential injuries in the
future
• high staff engagement, which indicates high levels of
staff satisfaction with their employer, and
• high staff retention.
Published by Safe Work Australia: February 2015
www.swa.gov.au
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