Safe Work Australia CEO Michelle Baxter launched 2016 National Safe Work Month with a video message encouraging workers to save lives by simply having a conversation, sharing stories and raising awareness about work health and safety.

Each October, National Safe Work Month encourages all Australians to make health and safety a priority in their workplace to reduce injury, death and disease.

SAGE Automation strives to improve the health and safety of its workers by ensuring they are kept in the loop in relation to Health & Safety Performance which includes both lead and lag indicators during monthly presentations held across all our sites.

Workers gather once a month to celebrate the achievements of their peers, enjoy a bite to eat and during this time SAGE takes the opportunity to help educate and engage the team with reporting of SAGE’s H&S Performance as well as the Monthly Safety Message.

“It helps remind people that being proactive in the workplace reduces accidents and the aim is to eliminate harm to workers,” SAGE Health Safety and Environment Manager Sue Illana said.

“As well as our monthly presentations we encourage all staff to report hazards, incidents and participate in regular proactive safety activities which we share across a number of internal channels.

“Work health and safety is everyone’s responsibility.”

Talking about safety is definitely the right approach, Ms Baxter said nearly 200 people die in Australian workplaces each year and improving these statistics can start with a simple conversation.

“The more we talk about work health and safety the more it becomes a normal part of our conversation and everyday work life,” she said.

Connect with Safe Work Australia on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter and use the hashtag #safeworkmonth to join the conversation.

There are plenty of ways to find out more and get involved in national safe work month.