DCN December Edition 2019

WORKPLACE HEALTH & SAFETY
Trudie N’Dresanei, finance manager (left) and
Anna Ingip, human resources manager, Pacific Towing
Neil Papenfus, general manager,
Pacific Towing
Pacific Towing shows leadership in safety
As part of its culture of rewarding safety,
Papua New Guinea-based Pacific Towing,
is now focusing on ensuring the safety of
women and protecting its investment in
gender equality. By Paula Wallace
Pacific Towing will soon introduce an innovative workplace
safety program aimed specifically at women that it believes will
improve on the company’s already impressive safety record.
The company draws upon 42 years of maritime safety
experience and is now more than three years lost-time-injury
free. According to general manager Neil Papenfus, the company has
steadily improved its safety performance, particularly during the
past five years.
“At PacTow we’re always challenging our staff to do things better
and this includes safety,” says Mr Papenfus.
“Our two latest safety initiatives are indicative of this drive for
continuous improvement. Our women’s workplace safety program
is also very much in accord with our broader gender equality
program and is an initiative that further positions us as the region’s
maritime employer of choice for women.”
PacTow operates in marine environments throughout
Oceania and South East Asia providing high-risk services such as
commercial diving, oil and chemical spill prevention and response,
salvage and emergency response.
MAXIMISING SAFETY FOR WOMEN
PacTow’s ‘Gender Smart Safety’ program will be implemented in
January 2020. A resource developed by Papua New Guinea’s Business
Coalition for Women, the program was piloted by Oil Search, St
Barbara’s Simberi operation and New Britain Palm Oil Ltd.
Gender Smart Safety is based on the premise that women
experience different workplace safety issues to men. As such, the
program requires women be much more involved in workplace
safety, for example in hazard identification, risk assessment and
risk mitigation. The program also involves women in decisionmaking
and the overall safety management function.
The training involves teaching a group of employees how to
conduct a women’s workplace safety audit. The aim is to ensure the
company can identify any safety concerns that might affect women
specifically. Once these concerns are identified suitable strategies to
eliminate or minimise these concerns can be implemented.
Although the focus of the program is on maximising the
workplace safety of women, feedback from pilot companies
reveals it improves the safety of all employees – women and men
alike. Importantly, many of the recommendations for safety
improvements are relatively simple and low cost.
As one senior manager reports, “our Gender Smart Safety audits
revealed some really ‘low hanging fruit’. Things like allowing
female staff to wear trousers rather than skirts and having ‘women
only’ designated seats at the front of our buses made a huge
difference to our female staff’s safety”.
Workplace safety, especially in the maritime and resources
sectors, has long been a function largely managed by men and
performed by men for predominantly male workforces. As such the
specific safety requirements of women have often gone unnoticed.
“A lot of women’s workplace safety concerns are being
overlooked, like poorly fitting PPE, inadequate lighting, machinery
operating dimensions and mechanisms that don’t accommodate
generally smaller and less muscular female bodies, as well as
working with chemicals when you’re pregnant or breastfeeding,”
PacTow’s human resources manager Anna Ingip says.
Mr Papenfus was “deeply concerned and genuinely appalled”
to find out that despite a sophisticated safety management system
of international standard, as well as a significant and long-term
Pacific Towing
46 December 2019
thedcn.com.au