Report on safety workshop. Wednesday 13th of August 2025. 

Koala Cherries put a spotlight on one of their three core values – “No Shortcuts” – by hosting a full day Safety Workshop with all permanent staff on Wednesday 13th August. It has been reported a “success” from several different measures, including 

• attendance records, 
• training outcomes, 
• engagement,
• culture shift, 
• learnings being implemented immediately
• and the volume of positive verbal and written feedback – and staff asking when the next Workshop will be held!

Planning and agenda

All staff received a ‘Save The Date’ a few months prior to this event to maximize attendance levels. Communication in the lead up to the day was strategic. We wrote to all staff about the launch of our EAP 6 weeks prior and we fully participated in National Farm Safety Week (20-26 July), providing daily materials for Toolbox meetings. 

A comprehensive and varied Agenda was customized.

Engaging and humorous slides were presented to the group that mirrored the presenters’ points.

Our Operations Manager Chris Nealon opened the day sharing his personal experiences that immediately engaged staff and set an attentive tone. 

Our Operations Manager Chris Nealon was our Moderator and shared his experience of 30+ harvests in our tearoom that was converted into a lecture theatre for the day. 

The purpose of the day was clearly set out and a list of what was hoped to be achieved covered–

• Encourage best practice in OHS and positive safety culture
• Understand how OHS is managed at Koala Cherries, what the OHS Committee do and plan to continue to do
• Learn how to use SkyTrust for incident reporting and how to complete a Risk Assessment using a Risk Matrix on SkyTrust
• Promote our EAP and promote wellbeing and positive mental health practices – a key learning from external training attended by Packhouse staff. 
• Learn about incident investigations and root cause analysis as a corrective and preventative process

The content was delivered with a mix of lecture style presentations and small group activities.

The demonstrations of the EAP was interactive and demonstrated in real time how to log into an account and access the resources. 

Our Packhouse staff Nicole Jamieson and April Baird both attended the OHS Masterclass from which their main ‘takeaway’ was the implementation of an EAP to all Koala Cherries’ staff and their families.

A full suite of resources for mental health and wellbeing was outlined, including the availability of  handbooks and flyers provided by the Victorian Farmers Federation to take home from this session.

Nicole Jamieson encouraging our staff to take copies of and utilize the great resources provided by Victorian Farmers Federation. Copies of the Making our Farms Safer booklets were available for collection on tables throughout the tearoom.

Four of our staff completed a two-day OH&S Masterclass recently, and a summary of their learnings was presented, along with how their learnings had been or will be incorporated at Koala Cherries.

Chris Nealon outlined the “Learnings” from the OHS Masterclass he attended

Several staff have expressed interest in being enrolled in future OH&S Masterclass training sessions since this presentation.

The Koala Cherries safety management platform, SkyTrust was showcased and presented in a user-friendly manner by Sharee Kuhlmann who is the ‘go to’ assistant for compliance matters. 

How to log an incident report on SkyTrust was demonstrated on both the website and App pathways. Questions were encouraged and taken from the attendees throughout the demonstration, which used actual case studies from across the business.

Sharee Kuhlmann of our Administration team explaining the Risk Assessment Matrix

Between morning tea and lunch, Risk Assessments were conducted in small groups of 6 or 7 staff from a cross section of the business (one person minimum from Administration, Packhouse, Maintenance and Farm). There were several very different stations that had been set up and were spread across the site. Laptops and tablets were provided to each group with the SkyTrust platform already uploaded and ready to register the assessment. The stations were –

• Using a grinder – located in the Maintenance Shed
• Using a snatch strap – located on farm
• Using fork tractors to collect fruit bins – located on farm
• Attaching a mulcher to a tractor – located on farm
• Manual handling of 8kg bags of cherries for a scale operator – located in the Packhouse
• Data entry for an 8-hour day – located in the administration offices
• Unloading a truck curtain – located in loading bay

Manual handling of 8kg bag filling process on scales in the Packhouse

Attaching a mulcher to a tractor on Farm

Use of a snatch strap on Farm

Unloading a truck with curtain in our Loading Bay

Operation of our Forklift tractors

Teamwork in action in our Packhouse Operations Room, completing and debating the risk assessment matrix on Skytrust 

OHS committee members were roaming support for each group, assisting them to complete a risk assessment on SkyTrust with the laptop or ipad/tablet.

Staff enjoying lunch together from different teams including Administration, Sales, Finance and IT

After lunch (as pictured above) all staff returned to the main lecture theatre style set up of the tearoom and learnt from Lisa Rouget, our QA Manager the importance of completing an Incident Investigation, incorporating a Root Cause Analysis, such as The 5 Whys.

Lisa showed slides of a completed investigation and discussed some common problems with completing a root cause analysis before breaking into a small group activity with a case study, pen and paper to give the 5 Whys a go.

An open forum after the small group activity had each group share their case study and 5 Whys, the challenges they experienced and various pathways to ascertaining the Root Cause Analysis for each case study. The high level of engagement at this late part of the day was testament to how invested staff were in this process. 

The groups identified many risks and hazards from right across the business and concluded that it is easy to catastrophize and jump to a conclusion too quickly and that there could be more than one cause of an incident that needs to be addressed. 

Small groups in our tearoom working through the The 5 Whys. Managing Director Michael Rouget (middle) is this group’s notetaker.

Learnings and outcomes

Our staff came away from the Workshop with many different learnings and many goals were achieved, based upon the high level of engagement and feedback. 

Key learnings were –

• Raised the profile of the OHS committee and increased interest in involvement
• Familiarity with EAP app and access to Mental Health resources
• Embraced introduction of safety management platform SkyTrust from all staff
• Raised awareness for need for compliance programs and risk assessments
• Appreciation for the need for and development of SOPs, training, inductions, prestarts across various tasks
• Training opportunities for staff
• Prioritizing of key risk assessments required across the business
• Clarification of responsibilities of key staff (those who presented at the Workshop were able to demonstrate their expertise, approachability and accessibility for future assistance)
• Comprehensive induction for several new staff to safety across the business
• Establishing (for some) and reinforcing a speak up culture on safety
• Importance of hazard and risk discussions via regular toolbox meetings  

Reminder / refresher as to why “No Shortcuts” is one of Koala Cherries’ three core values

Feedback

Staff were invited to complete a feedback form and we were inundated with very positive endorsements about staff’s experience of the day. It was clear from the suggestions that many learnings were made and an awareness of our safety culture was raised. 

These two quotes from the feedback forms sum up the reflections of the day -

“A very well planned and executed workshop” “Great safety culture”