CodeSafe: our ‘Horrible History’ & commitment to ‘Breaking Bad’

Horrible History

Our founder, David Broadhurst (also known as ‘Broadie’ it seems by everyone in the construction game in Australia), has a passion for high-vis wearers. Bear with me, he’s not kinky, he just believes that they are the unsung heroes of our nation. Pretty much everything that gets us moving and producing like infrastructure, buildings, utilities, manufacturing are all largely thanks to the blood, sweat and hidden tears of ordinary, hard-working industry workers. And very often, they are not fully honoured for their efforts.

He speaks from real experience too. For over 30 years he worked as a supervisor or superintendent on major infrastructure projects all over the world usually high profile, political and very stressful.

Eight years ago, while on a major project in Victoria, despite a heap of checks, balances and paper-based or online training programs in place, one of David’s crew was injured in a devastating incident. It shattered him and many in his crew. The main reason for the incident was unrealistic project delivery timelines, which lead to a lack of proper focus and disengagement.

After this, David started to experience anxiety, because he didn’t know how to prevent the same thing from happening again, especially if nothing significant changed in how work was being done. And he wasn’t alone. He saw that same anxiety in most of his crew and management too, but nobody was sure what to do about it.

David recognised that someone had to lead the charge to change how procedures, for both quality and safety, were planned, communicated and engaged with at a site level.

Two things became obvious to him:

• Experienced workers were leaving the industry and new-comers were struggling in roles they were not ready for yet; and
• How that experience was captured and transferred before they left, through reams of paperwork and formal training, wasn’t working.

After months of brainstorming, workshopping and consulting with industry, he came up with the bright idea of creating a solution that simply, ‘helped people remember stuff’.

We ditched the paperwork and created the QIN platform and mobile app to capture and transfer worker ‘know-how’ quickly, simply and cost-effectively, setting the foundation for CodeSafe’s first solution.

We sold everything we had and invested in the development of a proof of concept. It was so successful that it won a string of awards, including the prestigious WorkSafe Victoria Safety Invention of the Year Award in 2013, and was a finalist in the national Safe Work Australia Awards in 2014.

Before we knew it, we found ourselves as accidental initiators and thought leaders in the realm of mobile visual, micro-learning.

http://theconversation.com/construction-workers-safer-when-they-ditch-the-manual-study-55761

So, what does the next chapter look like?

We think it’s all about ‘Breaking Bad’

No, not the hit TV series on Netflix. We’re talking about our commitment to ‘breaking the bad’ habit in the industry of piling more and more paperwork on top of problems thinking that’s going to fix what happens on the ground.

We’ve been in the industry for a long while now, over 30 years in fact, and we’ve noticed that generally if something goes wrong, a new policy, process or procedure document is written and implemented. Usually without a whole heap of consultation with the people carrying out the job. This leads to frustration at ground level and people start taking even more risks out of that frustration or desperation and their lives can be horribly impacted by those split-second decisions.

We believe that our purpose is to break the pattern of frustration and desperation that results in risk-taking, bad communication, bad training and bad instruction across the industry. We are committed to working with organisations to create purpose-built, solid, authentic, simple solutions that work for the end-user, not just tick a compliance box.

We also realise that margins are tighter than ever for everyone right now, so for this to work, we’ve made sure that our solutions are tailored to not break the bank for any sized organisation too.

In the last eight years, we’ve been lucky enough to gather a bunch of heavy-hitting supporters. A diverse bunch ranging from software giants to learning institutions to industry regulators. But what we are most proud of is that you, the workers who are the backbone of every major project across this nation, have told us that you believe that we are making a difference and what we’re doing is working and helpful. YOU’RE what it’s all about.

And you will ALWAYS be what it’s all about for us.

Anxiety and depression in the construction industry have received substantial press coverage over the past 12 months. We believe that the frustration and desperation from a lack of consultation around procedures and processes that impact the lives of construction workers is a significant contributor to that.

Since anxiety was what kick-started this whole business off in the first place, we’ve jumped in and put our money where our mouth is and created free resources and events that people can access through the Braveheart Freedom Fighters channel on the QIN app. Anyone can grab onto these resources, plug into events or contact our experts for support directly.

We plan a lot more resources and programs like these and as long as we’re breathing, we will spend every waking hour finding ways to support and champion the workers at the backbone of our nation’s growth and progress.

We’re all about you. Simple really.

If you have ideas on solutions that would help your sector drop us a line at support@codesafe.com.au or give Broadie a call directly 1300 475 557 he’s not called ‘Havachat’ for nothing you know