Auckland Eye: Building a safety culture beyond compliance

Most businesses have health and safety policies, procedures, training records and reporting systems. Far fewer can confidently say health and safety influences everyday decisions, leadership behaviours and workplace conversations.

Auckland Eye wanted to understand where it stood. Established in 1993, the business has grown from a small specialist clinic into one of New Zealand’s leading private eye care providers, with a reputation for clinical innovation and comprehensive ophthalmology services across Auckland.

By participating in the EMA’s Safety Culture Programme, Auckland Eye took a close look at how health and safety was experienced by its workers, managers and senior leaders, not simply whether the right documentation was in place.

The process confirmed that Auckland Eye already had strong foundations. It also provided the business with a practical roadmap for building greater consistency, strengthening capability and making health and safety easier for everyone to participate in.

Looking beyond paper compliance

Traditional health and safety audits commonly assess documented processes and evidence against an established standard. These reviews have an important place, but documentation alone cannot reveal whether workers feel safe speaking up, managers follow through on reported concerns, or health and safety influences real operational decisions.

The EMA Safety Culture Programme takes a broader view. Supported by the Safe365 methodology, the programme assesses health and safety culture across leadership, worker engagement, reporting, capability and organisational learning. Rather than focusing solely on documentation, it examines whether health and safety is influencing decisions, behaviours and workplace conversations throughout the business.

Safe365’s technology and methodology supports more than 10,000 businesses across 47 countries, providing Auckland Eye with an assessment grounded in a substantial international dataset.

“Many businesses have good systems and procedures in place, says EMA Health and Safety Advisor and programme facilitator Rebekah Stephens. “The real question is whether those systems are helping people make safer decisions in their everyday work.” 

Starting from a position of strength

Auckland Eye entered the programme with a Safe365 Safety Culture Index score of 63%, already 10 percentage points above the all-industry benchmark of 53%.

The assessment highlighted strong leadership commitment, positive workforce engagement and a workplace where health and safety was widely regarded as important. It also identified opportunities to further strengthen consistency, capability and participation across the business.

Strengthening leadership ownership

One of the clearest changes was supporting greater accountability among managers.

Health and safety actions, training completion and follow-through became more firmly embedded in leadership expectations. Managers were expected to take ownership of outstanding actions and ensure commitments made to workers were completed.

Senior leaders also continued to visibly support health and safety initiatives, reinforcing that safety was a core business priority rather than an activity considered separately from operational performance.

“Auckland Eye already had strong foundations in place. What stood out was its willingness to examine those foundations honestly and keep building on them,” says Stephens.

“The businesses that make the greatest progress are often the ones prepared to listen to their people, understand how work is really done and act on what they learn.”

Making reporting easier

Auckland Eye also implemented Safe365 Workforce Connect, a mobile tool supporting the reporting and tracking of hazards and incidents in real time.

The new approach made reporting easier and more accessible to workers across the business. It also supported a clearer feedback loop, with people who raised a hazard or incident receiving acknowledgement and updates on what happened next.

The system strengthened feedback loops by ensuring workers received acknowledgement and updates after reporting hazards or incidents.

Training also helped workers better understand what constituted a health and safety issue. This reduced uncertainty, improved the quality of information being reported and supported faster, more appropriate responses.

Encouraging participation

Positive safety behaviours were reinforced through a peer-led recognition programme, while Health and Safety Representatives were supported to lead engagement initiatives and recognise good safety practices.

Health and safety also became more visible through regular safety moments, team discussions and workplace communication.

The programme placed greater emphasis on early intervention and prevention, encouraging workers to identify and address hazards before they escalated into more serious risks.

Measuring the improvement

Following the programme activity and subsequent improvement work, Auckland Eye’s Safe365 Safety Culture Index increased from 63% to 81%.

This placed the business 28 percentage points above the all-industry benchmark used in the assessment. The improvement reflected progress across the areas examined by the Safe365 framework, supported by targeted training, leadership development, worker engagement, an external systems review and the introduction of Workforce Connect.

The result was significant, but the value of the programme was broader than the final number. Auckland Eye gained a clearer understanding of how its safety systems operated in practice and where further improvements could be made.

Auckland Eye’s experience demonstrates the value of measuring culture even when a business is already performing well.