McConnell Dowell is one of six businesses in the North Otago region of New Zealand to receive a financial grant to help improve employees’ literacy, numeracy and communication skills.
The collaboration with the Tertiary Education Commission, which was announced last week, aims to help participating businesses improve their health and safety status, as well as productivity, by upskilling employees. The initiative coincides with the introduction of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, which comes into effect in April this year, and which places greater responsibility for occupational health and safety on everyone in the workplace.
“As a responsible employer, we need to be confident that all our workers understand all the content of their health and safety training, and can comply with the requirements,” says McConnell Dowell Managing Director Roger McRae.
“McConnell Dowell already runs a fully accredited private training school and supports a literacy and numeracy strategy to ensure our people go Home Without Harm every day. This new programme will increase our confidence that our people are able to read and interpret the Health & Safety rules and procedures used by the company."
One initiative McConnell Dowell has had in place for several years is the pocket-sized See-Say-Do notebook, which every employee is expected to carry with them every day. The mini-reporting forms are designed to make it easy to record hazards, incidents and other risks and report them in a timely way to a supervisor or Health & Safety advisor.
“The See-Say-Do notebooks have been really helpful in getting our people to notice and report hazards and incidents, so that we can avoid them in the future,” says Health and Safety Manager Chris Haefele. “This training will help improve that behaviour among those people who are not so confident with reading and writing.”
Learning and Development Manager Anand Naidu says that McConnell Dowell is delighted to participate in the Employer-Led Literacy programme.
“We know that literacy and numeracy skills are an area where we have the opportunity to provide more support,” he says. “We employ people from a very wide range of educational backgrounds, and we require them to complete some fairly complex training around Health and Safety.
“In areas like North Otago, where we employ a relatively small number of people, a programme like this enables us to do that.”
For more information please contact:
Natalie Dyer - National Communications Manager
Ph 09 573 6723 Mob: 021 530 043
www.mcconnelldowell.com
McConnell Dowell – New Zealand and the Pacific
McConnell Dowell was founded in New Zealand in 1961 by entrepreneurial kiwis Malcolm McConnell and Jim Dowell. Since its inception, the company has earned a reputation for engineering excellence in delivering complex projects in remote and challenging Pacific island locations, while at the same time becoming well known as a leading, multi-disciplined construction contractor throughout New Zealand.
The company works with a wide and diverse group of clients in sectors including transport, energy, resources, water and wastewater. The breadth of capability built up over more than 50 years in the construction industry means the company can offer end-to-end service to all markets in any physical environment.
