Awards Winners 2023

  • AWARD 1: Australian WHS Champion (CEO) of the Year
    • Less than 1,000 employees
    • Greater than or equal to 1,000 employees
  • AWARD 2: Australian WHS Leader of the Year
    • Less than 1,000 employees
    • Greater than or equal to 1,000 employees
  • AWARD 3: Australian WHS Emerging Leader of the Year
  • AWARD 4: Australian HSR of the Year

ORGANISATIONAL / TEAM AWARDS

  • AWARD 6: Australian WHS Team of the Year
  • AWARD 7: Best WHS Health & Wellbeing Program
  • AWARD 8: Best WHS Learning & Professional Development Program
  • AWARD 9: Best WHS Technology Initiative

Award 1: Australian WHS Champion (CEO) of the Year

The Australian WHS Champion (CEO) of the Year Award recognises CEOs who have made an outstanding contribution to building workplace health & safety as a priority within their organisation – both role modelling excellence in workplace health & safety and championing workplace health & safety initiatives and programs in their organisations
Eligibility

CEO, Managing Director, Executive Director, or equivalent who hold the most senior role in their organisation.
There are two awards for this category:

  1. Australian WHS Champion (CEO) of the Year - Less than 1,000 employees
  2. Australian WHS Champion (CEO) of the Year - Greater than or equal to 1,000 employees

Less than 1,000 employees

Andriy Kotykhov 

machinemonitor®

Andriy Kotykhov has been CEO since March 2020. Andriy is an Electrical and Mechanical Engineer with over 25 years of industry experience in the mining, oil and gas sector. Andriy has extensive experience in condition monitoring and the management of condition based maintenance regimes.

Andriy has been with machinemonitor® since 2012, Andriy has held the position of Regional Manager for the Queensland region, moving into Chief Operations Officer (COO), building and leading a strong engineering team before being appointed CEO.

Implementing a strong safety culture which is embedded in every activity undertaken by machinemonitor®.

Greater than 1,000 employees

Fiona Notley

Curtin University

Fiona is a Senior Tertiary Sector Executive with 20 years’ experience in diverse roles. She has a profound understanding of university academic, research and administrative mechanisms, policies and constraints. Fiona has an established record as a leader and change agent who collaborates with all levels within an organisation to transform and simplify processes while delivering bottom line measurable benefits. An inspirational leader with a passion for safety and people development, she has a track record of recruiting and retaining great staff and a demonstrated ability to motivate teams to produce exceptional results and work in a highly complex environment.

Award 2: Australian WHS Leader of the Year

The Australian WHS Leader of the Year Award recognises WHS leaders who actively demonstrate exceptional WHS competencies and behaviours through their commitment to the profession and achievement of WHS outcomes that are effectively aligned to strategic outcomes.

Eligibility

This award is designed for WHS professionals who hold the most senior WHS position in the organisation or the most senior WHS position in a unit/division

There are two awards for this category:

  1. Australian WHS Leader of the Year - Less than 1,000 employee
  2. Australian WHS Leader - Greater than or equal to 1,000 employees

Less than 1,000 employees

Mel Pollock

Abergeldie Complex Infrastructure

Mel Pollock is Abergeldie's General Manager Health & Safety. Since joining Abergeldie in late 2021, she has raised the bar of HSE expectation and delivery, challenged and supported our operational teams to be better, reeducated the business on contemporary safety practices, developed effective relationships with our clients, developed our first Safety Strategy; and supported the HSE team to develop and grow rapidly in line with successfully delivering on the new strategy.

Greater than 1,000 employees

Tanya Pelja

BGIS

Tanya Pelja is a Health and Safety professional with close to 20 years of expertise in the management of large teams in Government and Private sector organisations. Through vision and innovation, Tanya has led industry best practice in her workplace and stayed abreast of the latest thought leadership in Health and Safety. Tanya has introduced enterprise-wide safety programs and culture, achieved strong safety outcomes for her colleagues, and she has contributed to her peers through industry presentations. Stakeholder engagement is a key strength of Tanya's, whereby she brings together employees, management, clients and vendors for the goal of staying safe.

Award 3: Australian WHS Emerging Leader of the Year

The Australian WHS Emerging leader of the Year Award recognises WHS professionals who strive to demonstrate exceptional WHS competencies and behaviours through their commitment to the profession and achievement of WHS outcomes that are effectively aligned to business needs.

This award recognises that leaders influence others, commit to their own and others’ personal development, have strong ‘people building’ skills and see possibilities through the introduction of innovative practices.

Eligibility

This award is designed for WHS professionals who have a minimum of 5 years’ experience.

Ally Orr

Endeavour Energy

Ally has been nominated for this award not due to a single achievement (although there are many) but for the way in which Ally goes about everything that she does. Ally is engaging, caring, innovative, brave, driven, and supportive in all the interactions and work that is undertaken. Ally is a leader in her craft.

Ally has worked across the business in the Health & Safety team, HSE Analytics and Innovation, Psychosocial and Physical Wellness fields.

Award 4: Australian HSR of the Year

The Australian HSR of the Year Award recognises HSRs who have made a positive contribution through consultation and communication and who can demonstrate an ongoing commitment to workplace health & safety.

Eligibility

To be eligible for this award the applicant must be working/volunteering in a HSR role for an organisation/community association and be able to demonstrate how WHS is a part of their role and how they have worked at improving WHS. The applicant must have undertaken a legislative HSR qualification for the jurisdiction.

Desmond Thompson

Keolis Downer, proud operator of Yarra Trams

Desmond Thompson is an HSR for Yarra Trams, representing the Customer Service Experience (CSE) workgroup. He plays an active role not only as an employee representative for workplace safety but is also leading work that strives to make the Yarra Trams’ workplace a more inclusive environment for employees and passengers.

Award 6: Australian WHS Team of the Year

The Australian WHS Team of the Year award recognises excellence in developing and implementing an innovative WHS Program that has improved/built a strong Health & Safety culture and has resulted in improvements in your organisation.

This award is designed for WHS Teams that demonstrate a collegial and synergistic approach to excellence in initiatives and strategies that facilitate positive change.

Mitchell Services

Human and Organisational Resilience and Critical Risk Management: A Sustainable Strategy for Improving Workplace Safety"

Mitchell Services faced challenges managing various systems while managing high-risk activities. The team implemented H.O.P. philosophies and a critical risk management system, collaborated with its HSE software provider, and adopted new technologies to immerse leaders in operational areas. The initiative resulted in better critical risk controls, improved standardisation, and a focus on adaptions at work. Shared globally, this sustainable change became a key strategy resulting in a reduction in injuries and improved psychological safety.

Award 7: Best WHS Health & Wellbeing Program

This Award recognises outstanding strategies and initiatives that promote and embed good health and wellbeing of the workforce.

These organisations can demonstrate their commitment to workforce health and wellbeing showing how they make it an organisational priority, and embed health and wellbeing in the organisational plans, policies and processes. They are also able to show the direct impact on the organisation and its business objectives and on the health and wellbeing of its employees.

Xero

Wellbeing at Xero- Time Well Spent

Xero developed an intervention that benefited worker wellbeing and productivity, and helped meet legislative responsibilities.

What was equally impressive about this program was the fact it was fun, being the most engaging program ever rolled out internally.

Award 8: Best WHS Learning & Professional Development Program

This Award recognises outstanding WHS learning and professional development initiatives, programs and or strategies that have been implemented by the organisation to develop its current and future WHS employees and to effectively equip them to achieve the organisations WHS objectives.

These organisations can demonstrate how the development of their WHS team effectively builds WHS capability, drives business performance and prepares both the WHS employees and the organisation for the future.

Major Road Projects Victoria 

The MRPV Civil Construction Safety Cadetship Program 

The Major Road Projects Victoria (MRPV) Civil Construction Safety Cadetship program is a paid employment and training program within the Victorian Government’s Major Transport Infrastructure Authority’s (MTIA) Big Build infrastructure projects that are delivered by numerous leading global construction companies. This program is an accelerated, non-traditional, entry-level pathway to becoming a safety practitioner.

Award 9: Best WHS Technology Initiative

The Best WHS Technology Initiative Award recognises the outstanding use of technology solutions to connect and empower employees to address WHS challenges and achieve positive outcomes.

The award focusses on the ways in which organisations use technology to solve WHS problems and connect and empower key stakeholder groups.

This award enables organisations and their WHS technology providers to partner in submitting an application in this category.

University of Newcastle – College of Engineering, Science and Environment

NU Isolator

The NU Isolator is a cost-effective, scalable and modular system to manage access to equipment at the University of Newcastle, which has been developed in response to the challenges posed by the number of staff students and equipment used on campus.