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Working and living around risks of electricity, gas and other energy systems drives our ‘safety always’ approach. During the COVID-19 pandemic, this focus expanded to include new controls and processes to protect the health of our people and communities. Cautious and considered at every stage, we were successful in ensuring continuity of service while upholding the high health and safety standards we set for ourselves and our contractor partners. Progress towards our Group safety goals To track our progress against our safety goals, Vector continues to record reactive measures across the Group, specifically Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR) and Total Recordable Injury Frequency Rate (TRIFR). Beyond tracking progress, these measures are critical for indicating which areas require ongoing improvement. In the past year we observed a 11% increase in LTIFR and a 17% improvement in TRIFR across the Group. The severity rate, which measures number of lost days per 1 million hours worked, increased by 235.6%. This was impacted by a FY19 injury, where time away from work was incurred in the 2020 financial year. In alignment with our Symphony strategy, our approach to managing safety across the Group is evolving – moving away from a standardised approach, to one where the unique
The programme was based on management of change safety protocols which required each part of the business to step back and assess risks before developing controls to protect our people, their families and communities while COVID-19 was still active. These included robust training around hygiene and physical distancing controls when working with each other and interacting with members of the community. It also included thorough mechanisms commitment and courage during this time, adapting quickly and adeptly to the rapidly changing circumstances and safety requirements asked of them. Vector continues to provide health and safety guidance to our office and operational teams in New Zealand, Victoria and New South Wales, where, at the time of writing, community transmission was still being managed. Wellness while working from home When it became certain that our office- based employees would work from home during COVID-19 lockdowns, to record contact tracing data. Our people showed remarkable Vector introduced a range of initiatives to ensure their physical environment could be as safe and comfortable as possible. During lockdown, Vector provided regular advice to staff about resilience and well- being and ensured mental health and wellness resources were available to them. We outline other initiatives in the People section of this report.
needs and circumstances of different situations directly inform risk mitigation. Our focus on managing safety will still centre around the proactive steps we can take to avoid incidents, and our reporting system will still serve to highlight areas where we can make continuous improvements. The change in approach is receiving positive feedback from our leadership teams and operational staff, who see this collaborative approach as a more effective and practical way to manage safety. Safety during the COVID-19 pandemic As an essential service, thousands of New Zealanders were relying on us during the COVID-19 lockdowns. In Australia, our metering customers were relying on our teams to continue operations to support customers on their behalf. Vector needed to do everything we could to keep our people safe and healthy, so they could continue to keep the lights on and energy flowing for those depending on us. Vector’s COVID-19 “Warrant of Fitness” (WOF) training programme was created to ensure our operational teams were fit to work in the field under COVID-19 Alert Levels. The WOF programme was later adapted to support our office teams to re- enter our workplaces safely under Level 1. We also had leading external experts review our safe work practices and assist with ensuring our staff communications were evidence based.
“As an essential service, thousands of New Zealanders were relying on us during the COVID-19 lockdowns.”
Safety always
THE INTERPLAY OF TODAY AND TOMORROW
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