By Cassandra Pokoney | Posted: Thursday April 8, 2021
Janine Cruickshank is no stranger to working in health and safety, but while it is a familiar path, her new role at Presbyterian Support Southland (PSS) is one she is relishing.
Janine is the new Health and Safety Coordinator with PSS. It is a new role within the organisation, which makes it even more exciting, she believes.
The role involves overseeing the organisation’s health and safety manual, and hazard and risk register, but it goes further than that too – it’s about managing the wellbeing of staff and residents, and ensuring that people are happy, healthy, and safe at work, so that they can go home to live their best lives there as well.
Having been in the role less than two months, her main priority at the moment has been meeting staff, becoming familiar with each of the sites the organisation is responsible for, and learning more about how each team works together.
She is also working alongside PSS Enliven's Quality Manager and infection control staff member, in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, to ensure all protocols and procedures are in place to keep staff and residents safe.
She is no stranger to working in the health and safety space – she comes to PSS from Emergency Management Southland, where she worked mostly with councils and organisations on business continuity, and prior to that worked in Human Resources at Southland Disability Enterprises.
She has plans to implement a range of wellbeing-focused activities and initiatives in the coming months.
“I will be advocating the importance of health and safety in the workplace and for everyone to have this at the forefront of theirs minds, ensuring everyone who comes to work goes home healthy and safe”.
Her goal is to have an organisation that fully embraces the concept of workplace wellbeing, has high staff engagement in health and safety, and recognises the importance of working together and supporting each other.
Feedback so far has been hugely positive, with staff valuing the role she is able to play in feeding any of their concerns up through to management and board level.
“With any large organization communication is key and I would like to see everyone working together to create a happy, safe, healthy, work place.”