Helping employees 'choose to be well'

The Safety First Conference & Expo (26-29 May, Melbourne) has confirmed Dr Rod Gutierrez, principal psychologist for DuPont Sustainable Solutions, as a keynote speaker. He will speak about building resilience into a workplace in order to help protect workers from psychological injury in a fast-moving and imperfect world.

Dr Gutierrez is one of Australia’s leading authorities in occupational stress and the management and prevention of psychological injury. He is also lead designer of a new approach to safety management, the DuPont Integrated Approach (DnA) for Safety, and has delivered human capital management solutions for clients across financial services, insurance providers, a variety of government departments as well as for rail, engineering industries.

He draws on cognitive psychology’s understanding of the way people think (and therefore behave) to achieve higher safety standards. In particular, he observes organisations can promote wellness by helping altering an individual’s beliefs and thought patterns so that they choose to be well.

Dr Gutierrez will outline the key steps for workplace safety professionals to succeed using his approach, in his presentation during in the Safety First conference’s OHS Safety Leaders - Psychological Injury Premium Forum.

The Premium Forum will focus on the increasingly important topic of psychological injury in the workplace and will also include industry experts sharing their expertise on key themes, including early recognition and prevention of stress and psychological  injury including depression and anxiety, psychosocial risk factors and ‘hands-on’ approaches to responding to mental health concerns. It will also include a topic specifically focusing on a major workplace safety concern: re-engaging and motivating injured employees after they have returned to work.

The Safety First Conference & Expo event will run alongside National Manufacturing Week and Austech. While there is a charge for the Premium Forum series, entry to the expo is free. For details and registration, visit safetyfirstexpo.com.au.