Hear from Benny Mathews, Kmart National Health and Safety Governance Manager for Australia and New Zealand, and Matt Hallal, Country Manager for Kmart New Zealand, on the tools and resources Kmart has available to support staff.
Transcript:
BENNY: What makes a good workplace is a place where you can come and be yourself,
that you have good relationships with your peers and your leaders, you have meaningful work. You feel like you can contribute, that your input is valued just as much as your output. I'm Benny Mathews, and I'm the national health and safety governance manager for Australia and New Zealand. My team and myself look after all of the policies,
procedures, tools, resources, and training that help keep our team safe out there.
MATT: My name's Matt, I'm the country manager for Kmart New Zealand. I think a good workplace is one where people can be their true self, have good fun at work, and have a laugh and enjoy being part of some camaraderie, some collaboration, in a diverse and inclusive environment where people can truly be themselves.
BENNY: For me personally, my manager would always check in on me, ask how I was going, how is managing my workload, if there was any support that I needed from them. But also, when times were tough or workloads are huge, making sure that we've got resources. We're constantly talking about re-prioritising or getting support where we need to.
We have our Kmart Cares call line where team members can phone up and speak to a trained and qualified counsellor 24/7, and that's also available to their whānau and friends outside of work. But also whilst they're at work, our managers are trained in how to respond to certain situations in what sort of advice or support to provide our team. Our team know that where they want to, they can speak to a manager, they've had training, and can guide and support them.
MATT: I'm not medically trained, I'm not a psychiatrist. But I'm a human, and if people have got things going on in their world and they need to talk to me about them, I'm going to listen. And if I can provide some sort of support or advice or refer them to someone that can actually help with some of the more pressing issues that they might have and get some expert advice, then I'll do that. We've got good programmes in place with our employee assistance programme, which is available to all of our team members across Kmart, and that offers all sorts of support. That offers counselling, or financial support, or legal advice, or any support that's needed. But that actually impacts the mental health and wellbeing of our team.
So, Kmart would share information around mental health through various channels. Obviously there's the email channel, we do a little bit on socials as well, but I think there's probably an opportunity for us to do more in this space. Getting the message to penetrate down to our team members is where we're struggling. We put posters up in our meals room and in our back house areas, but the way that individuals consume information now is very different. It's far more digital than a poster in a meals room. So, we are looking at a team member app that'll allow us to connect directly to all of our team members across Kmart New Zealand and Kmart Australia, and it'll give us that vehicle to be able to communicate more readily, which is a very different model from where we are today.
BENNY: Kmart's a good workplace, there's lots of opportunity to have fun, lots of communication between leaders and management as well as team members on the shop floor, lots of support for ongoing development in your career. But also from a mental health perspective, lots of resources for our team to support them when they need it.
MATT: Everyone's got different kind of challenges going on in their personal life, but I think
if you can create an environment where you're approachable, you genuinely want to listen to what people have to say, and you're considerate and you're concerned, then that goes a long way with people.
17 сен 2023
