TIES Time 2021

Video: In the top right corner, four red postage stamps bear the letters T-I-E-S, and the words, 'Trust', 'Inclusivity', 'Empowerment' and 'Safety'. Three stamps vanish, leaving the "S - Safety" stamp.

In an office, a bearded man wears a fluorescent orange Australia Post polo shirt.

Text: Doug Fry, Afternoon shift supervisor, Fyshwick Parcel Delivery Centre, ACT:

Audio: Doug: Hi, I'm Doug. I'm the afternoon shift supervisor at Fyshwick Parcel Delivery Centre, and this is what safety means to me.

Video: In a warehouse, long rows of large metal baskets hold parcels. Doug examines a parcel then carries it to a basket in a different row. He sticks a label to the basket.

Audio: Doug: I'm passionate about safety because it impacts my life both at work and outside of work. You know, I like to be... ensure that I'm able-bodied, fit and healthy at all times, and I like to take the necessary precautions to make sure that that's the case. So, I started off as a PDO in 2014. Fairly early on in my tenure I was bitten by a dog. And then again when I was a relief postie - bitten by a dog again. So, I guess dog incidents have been at the forefront of my mind.

Video: A forklift driver a yellow safety shirt guides a basket of parcels onto a platform. Doug supervises from a desk beside the platform. At the desk, Doug checks a document, then a computer screen. Workers sort parcels into baskets.

Audio: Doug: There's hazards at every turn, whether you're in a processing facility or out on the road. You need to always be aware and always take responsibility for your actions. I was acting in a logistics manager position at the time at Mitchell Delivery Facility, and I'd started to notice more and more posties coming forward and...or just offhandedly mentioning that they were...that they'd been bitten by dogs or had been chased by dogs or had just seen a dog loose, roaming in the street, and they were concerned that it might present a safety hazard. So I started taking note of this and started compiling a spreadsheet about these instances that the posties were flagging, and it kind of pretty quickly painted a picture of dogs being a bit of a safety issue here in Canberra.

I took that information up the line through my supervisors, through the safety team, to try and take measures to perhaps get the ACT Government and its Domestic Animals Services branch a bit more involved. A sit-down meeting was arranged with the ACT Government, with the minister responsible for municipal services. The government was willing to work on a joint communication campaign with us, for one thing, for its rangers, for its Animal Service rangers, to be more responsive to Australia Post information or attack reports, push for Australia Post to start liaising with the ACT Government. We've started to see more internal comms coming out, in Starting with Safety, for example, highlighting dog incidents, dog attacks or preventative measures.

Video: A large red Australia Post sign for the Sydney Head Office stands among leafy plants. Holding scanning devices, Doug and other team members sort parcels.

Audio: Doug: We can raise a safety issue to the forefront by shining more of a spotlight on it, being more proactive, taking measures, and recognising that it's not always just the responsibility of staff, that sometimes there are external factors or external people that might need to get involved to assist staff safety. It's the way to build a safer future for all of us.

Video: On a red screen, the Australia Post logo appears beside the TIES stamp logo.

Underneath, text reads, "It's not just what you do, it's the way you do it."

Video: In the top right corner, four red postage stamps bear the letters T-I-E-S, and the words, 'Trust', 'Inclusivity', 'Empowerment' and 'Safety'. Three stamps vanish, leaving the "S - Safety" stamp.

A young bald man wearing an Australia Post lanyard over his business shirt stands near Australia Post and StarTrack signs. Text: Blake Markham, Branch Manager Wollongong PUD, NSW.

Audio: Blake: I'm Blake Markham. I'm the Branch Manager at StarTrack in Wollongong and this is what Safety means to me.

Video: Blake puts on a fluorescent yellow safety vest. In a large sorting facility, he checks a pin board which includes a COVID-19 Alert poster. He discusses a large WHS Notice Board with team members.

Audio: Blake: Safety is my highest priority. I think it's the most important thing in our workplace and in our home life. Safety, to me, I don't necessarily want it to be just an initiative or a program we're running through for a week or a month, a box-ticking exercise. I want it to be more cultural, that people are conscious that they're being safe all the time. They're not doing it because they were told to do it. They're doing it because they care.

Video: Blake and a team member talk near an elevated walkway running over a large conveyor belt. He demonstrates gripping the ladder's handrails.

Audio: Blake: People care about safety when they've had an emotional or physical connection with it. But I don't want it to be after the fact. I want it to be before. So I wanted to be proactive in the care factor of safety than after an accident. I don't want people going home injured, thinking, "Well, I'm going to be very cautious now 'cause I slipped down the stairs - I wasn't holding the handrail." That person will hold the handrail every single time after the accident, but I don't want that to be the case. I want them to want to grab the handrail every time.

Video: Several large photos show uniformed teams gathered near StarTrack trucks. The photos decorate a wall by a desk. A corridor wall is covered with photo display sheets. Each sheet features a team member's name and the words "This is why safety is important to me," above an array of colourful family photos.

Audio: Blake: So we were going through a safety meeting through Webex and the comment was made in this meeting of, "But how can we make people care? We seem to keep talking about similar things regularly. How can we pre-empt this and how can we make people care to take some more responsibility and ownership for safety?" And it just happened to me sitting there at my monitor and noticing my own photos on my monitor of my kids to realise, "I'll speak up here and I'll see what happens, but I've got a simple idea I think's going to be very effective," and that's when came the idea of their photos of what was important to them and why is safety important to them.

So with the rollout of the Safety Wall, it's at the start of what we call our peak period. And with that period, the staff at work are going to see less of their family and their loved ones because of the workload and the hours they're doing during that time. So if we could bring what's meaningful to them to work and everyone sharing that on a community-style wall, we share that personal connection that we all have of what's important because we all have different things that's important to us to why we want to go home. We had people sharing pictures of their dogs, of their kids playing sport, their kids surfing, of their beloved car. We had all sorts of different things come up. By having that visual in the hallway, it gave them a better understanding of someone's backstory and it opened up conversations with people to talk about that.

Video: In a loading dock, a worker hands Blake a parcel. Blake places it with others at the start of a conveyor belt. In an office, Blake talks as the man works at a computer.

Audio: Blake: COVID I feel for a lot of people flipped their world upside down and everyone had to juggle with the constant changes. One thing we would do one week would be different the next week and it was forever moving and we had to move with it.

With the Safety rollout and checking on each other, it helped boost mental health and morale and I did hear, and was privy to as well, people coming to ask, "Are you OK?" In the first instance, people would be busy or they're doing whatever they're doing and they'd go, "Yeah, yeah, I'm OK, I'm OK," and the person would stop and ask a second time and say, "No, seriously, are you OK? I've noticed something that's been troubling you. You don't seem yourself." And they'd either be, "No, it's OK. I'm OK," like, acknowledge that it was nice to know someone had spotted that, but they'd either have the conversation if everything was OK or they'd be, "No, thanks for checking up on me," but it helped. It was little snippets like that that set little stepping stones to boost that morale of, "Someone else cares about me," or, "Someone at least acknowledges I'm not myself today," and they're looking after each other.

It's not just what you do. It's the way you do it.

Video: On a red screen, the Australia Post logo appears beside the TIES stamp logo. Underneath, text reads, "It's not just what you do, it's the way you do it."

Video: In the top right corner, four red postage stamps bear the letters T-I-E-S, and the words, 'Trust', 'Inclusivity', 'Empowerment' and 'Safety'. Three stamps vanish, leaving the "E - Empowerment" stamp.

A burly man sits on an office couch near large windows looking out on skyscrapers. He wears a white Australia Post polo shirt. Text: Harry Zachariou, Capability Specialist, Transformation & Enablement.

Audio: Harry: Hi, I'm Harry Zac and this is my story about empowerment.

Video: The left breast of Harry's shirt is emblazoned with a green and red logo featuring the words "Accessibility Matters". Harry strides along a corridor, then uses a pass to open a door. On the door, a sign features a stick figure in a wheelchair above the words, "Low energy power operated door."

Audio: Harry: Accessibility Matters became part of my daily routine at Australia Post by accident - firstly, by me having an accident and becoming disabled but also by posting something on Pogo in relation to people parking in disabled parking spots. That's what fired me up, but what keeps me fired up is the fact that people are not just disabled in the way that I'm disabled. There are so many different disabilities and a lot of them are hidden disabilities that people can't see and can't diagnose.

Video: Harry stands gazing out a window at the cityscape. The Accessibility Matters logo runs across the back of his shirt.

Audio: Harry: Mine's a hidden disability. People will look at me and say, "There's nothing wrong with you. You look normal. You can walk. You can do everything." But you'll... Inside, you're going to feel everything that a quadriplegic does feel other than the walking sensation that I'm lucky enough to have. By empowering myself within this group, I was able to... I'm now able to empower them and show them how they can help themselves through using our group and our strength to get results for them. It's the first time in the last, say, five, six years that I've felt that I'm able to make a difference, not just within the group that I work with, but within Australia Post.

Received these letters from a couple of young fellas who hadn't worked before anywhere because they had disabilities and were considered, or considered themselves, 'unemployable', but, through these agencies, we were able to get these guys in as Christmas casuals. We received thankyou letters from these guys, which really touched our hearts, or certainly touched my heart because they were so grateful to have been given the opportunity not just to work, but to be recognised as human beings. And to get a thankyou letter from those people saying, "Thank you and thank you and thank you," it really drove home the fact that, you know, not only did I empower myself all those years ago when I called out that person for parking in a disabled spot, but I've empowered a lot of other people to now be working for Australia Post and identify as having a disability and being proud of it.

There's a lot of talent out there that is not being considered because they're perceived to have a 'disability'. We take the 'dis' out of it and we just call it an 'ability'. At the end of the day, it's the way that you do it that counts.

Video: On a red screen, the Australia Post logo appears beside the TIES stamp logo. Underneath, text reads, "It's not just what you do, it's the way you do it."

Video: In the top right corner, four red postage stamps bear the letters T-I-E-S, and the words, 'Trust', 'Inclusivity', 'Empowerment' and 'Safety'. Three stamps vanish, leaving the "E - Empowerment" stamp.

In a large sorting warehouse, a woman with long brown hair wears a fluorescent orange Australia Post shirt. An Australia Post van is parked nearby.

Text: Tiphaine Douglas, Parcel Transport Coordinator, Castle Hill Parcel Pick Up and Delivery, NSW.

Audio: Tiphaine: My name is Tiphaine Douglas and this is my story on empowerment.

Video: Near a van, Tiphaine and two men in fluorescent yellow shirts discuss bulky parcels.

Audio: Tiphaine: Empowerment means, to me, seeing the growth in my team. That empowers me and feels great that I'm doing something right with my team. So, every Christmas, our site is never large enough to cope with peak volumes, and peak was coming around again this year, but we were also hit with the COVID volumes as well, which was unprecedented. We had to look at what size we needed on as a site. It was going to be 100% increase of volumes from August 2019 and our normal pop-up site would not be large enough.

Video: Tiphaine strides through the huge warehouse space towards rows of large metal sorting baskets. She strolls past Australia Post vans. A team member loads large parcels into a van.

Audio: Tiphaine: Conversation about the pop-up site was, "We've got this site. "This is where we'd like to start and I'm entrusting you to make it happen." With this pop-up site, there's a lot of collaboration that needs to happen. It's my own supervisory team. It is also my business partners. They needed to make sure that they had input. I needed to get input from transport, processing facilities.
We had two contracts from another site coming across. We had to understand their volumes and their needs and wants as well and that was the pivotal point about every decision that I was making and trying to move forward with, is, "What do my business partners need for their drivers to be able to deliver our parcels to our customers?"

Video: Near the parked vans, Tiphaine talks to a man who wears a safety vest over business attire. She checks parcels in baskets.

Audio: Tiphaine: I think the most empowering thing with the role that I'm in at the moment is the support from my managers. They allow me to do the job I need to do. They allow me to do what I need to do with my supervisory team, my business partners and the staff and everything else, but they're still there to support me. They'll, you know, give me a call or come and see me and make sure I'm OK. If there's any issues that I've got, they're there to support me and try to help me through it. And your network - you never forget about your network.

Video: Holding a clipboard, Tiphaine talks with a team member. Near a van, she discusses parcels with the two team members.

Audio: Tiphaine: With my team, I make sure that they're aware that they can actually make decisions. Being empowered to make those types of decisions means that they feel trusted in what we do. They trust that we are there to back them up. I think that's one really good thing about my team - regardless of what role they're doing, everyone's happy to help each other out. They'll help me out, I'll help them out. It's the Australia Post way.

Video: On a red screen, the Australia Post logo appears beside the TIES stamp logo. Underneath, text reads, "It's not just what you do, it's the way you do it."