Ep 42 Would you like to save millions on your workers comp premium? Serkan Dogan discusses how....

TRANSCRIPT

Unknown Speaker
This is an ohs.com.au production

Brendan Torazzi
Welcome to Episode 42 of the Australian Health and Safety Business Podcast. I'm Brendan Torazzi, the host of the show and today I'm with Serkan Duggan. It is Doug and isn't it?

Unknown Speaker
It is Logan. In Turkish, it's pronounced dawn. But hey, we're in Australia. Yep.

Brendan Torazzi
And so you've, you've been involved in the world of health and safety for a while Serkan. Tell us how you you sort of got into it.

Unknown Speaker
I guess my career started back in an insurance company, humble beginnings selling general insurance to the public, got a taste for workers comp after moving positions in that same company? Yeah, moving from an assistant case manager all the way to a treasury, Treasury, Treasury managed fund case manager had the opportunity to work in a self insured environment for transport for New South Wales, and dealt with over my career, probably over 500 injuries, including someone losing their life, on the railways, to PTSD claims for our train drivers. And also, you know, someone's finally succumbing to a disease, through work and losing their life as well. That kind of gave me the taste of if we can do something in the reactive mechanism for the workers comp world. A few changes back here and preventative side can stop this issue from happening.

Brendan Torazzi
And so do you. Do you think that most companies are still like reactive? Or do you think that there is a culture more of preventative? I don't know. Might be a little bit of a controversial question. But I guess it depends on the company. But what what are the views on that? I mean, can we be doing more?

Unknown Speaker
It's the it's the million dollar question as a WHS professional practitioner, you'd always you'd be shooting yourself in the foot, say everyone's all good, not reactive. However, however, organizations, the bigger they get, unfortunately, from my experience, WHS is an afterthought. So they'll build the business, leave up who is an afterthought, and then realize that have to put in a number of processes and resources to make sure that they're looking after that space?

Brendan Torazzi
That's when the band aid has come out, the cracks start to happen. And they go, Oh, geez, we haven't got a system for that. But a better fix that now.

Unknown Speaker
I didn't know this was an advertisement for Band Aid. You're not wrong. So so for me more times than not I get involved because someone's either hit the brick wall, and we need to pull the pull the wires back, so to speak. An ideal person or an ideal workplace is somewhere where they understand they're growing. And they understand they need to do something and who space they don't know what and they don't need something. It's just where I come in is giving you the best style or the best practice and simplifying. WHS, let's work on it.

Brendan Torazzi
Yeah, right. So is that something that you come across fairly commonly, where big companies have overcomplicated what they need to do?

Unknown Speaker
As a result of their own doing? Yes, but at the same time, not realizing that if they didn't do who is planning at the start, you're actually overcomplicating the process for yourself and more times than not, you actually have to scale back the process in order to look at it appropriately from WHS and I look at

Brendan Torazzi
it like building a house, like you've got to get the foundations right. And if you don't have the foundation's right, and you suddenly go, Oh, we've got a growing family, we'll tack on a bedroom here and a bathroom there and you're not really thinking about the bigger picture, then that's where maybe the house falls over?

Unknown Speaker
Or what could have turned into what could have been a $1,500 plumbing job turns into a $20,000. Dig out of the property. Right? Yeah, what what are your What are your What are your take? What's your take on it? Brendon, you've had more years in the, in the in the industry than me? Well, look,

Brendan Torazzi
I'm my, the other business that I have as an RTO. And we're predominantly doing training and Yeah, unfortunately, it is, often the ship will hit the fan and then you get up with we've been given an improvement notice or, and then it becomes very reactive. Or in a lot of cases. I mean, we do a lot of licensed training. So that's like a permit to work, so to speak. So you you have to do it before you start working. But yeah, I mean, look, the system's not perfect, but I guess that's what you know, having these conversations is all about to get get that conversation happening and see if we can make small incremental changes and ultimately saving lives, right.

Unknown Speaker
Look, essentially, it's the saving lives thing in my experience in I guess 33 years on this earth. Yep, we can And we can sell as practitioners, we're saving lives. But unless an organization has had a death in their organization, they're not really going to, it's not really going to prepare us to say, hey, we're saving lives. However, the the angle that I choose to come from is, if you've got an organization that's pretty much scattered, or it's quite broad, demographically, or true to its processes, I've always found that there's one thing that can bring an organization together. And that's the overarching banner of safety. So if you do have a scattered organization, you can use that as an opportunity to bring safety back into the business and bring your whole organization together. Because if it's one thing that everyone cares for work, it's it's safety at work, and making sure they get home safe. So that's, that's my thing, getting home safe.

Brendan Torazzi
And so you were doing transport for New South Wales for almost three years. What happened after that?

Unknown Speaker
After that, I decided to say to myself, Well, look, I'm a case manager now. And I'm looking after the reactive mechanism. There was some that was the turning point of my career. I've said, Okay, now I'm going to start to focus on WHS return to work and injury management. Following that year that I had off to just to get my head together, I moved out to Wagga Wagga just to basically get a bit of a sea change from the city rolling that year, I actually have the opportunity and pleasure of how helping a local council in Western Sydney, which was an amalgamated Council, which brought its own, I guess, let's just say intricacies with it.

Brendan Torazzi
And when when when you say amalgamated or you mean that was this with all the big changes, and there was lines drawn and counsel it was, it was then canceled, A, B, C, and D?

Unknown Speaker
Correct. So essentially, in my, I can't speak for other councils. But I think there was about four or five nominations that happened in New South Wales, so to speak at that time, around the 2017 18, approximately 16. When I came into that local council, you had essentially three separate organizations vying for which safety management system they look for. In amongst all of that, in amongst all of that, you also have the issue of different pays with people. So you'll have one who is personal and isn't getting paid a certain amount, and who is personally getting paid this amount. And saying, Well, I don't need to do as much as you need to do. So rather than looking after your workers, you have people vying for their positions, right? Take that to the side, you actually, when you're looking at the dollar value of what this means, meant for the council, they're actually paying a $3.5 million dollar premium on their wages. One of one of the components of that $3.5 million Bill was they're actually getting multiple multiplying factor on their premium. So as any business owner would know, you need to pay workers compensation premium to run a business, if you have workers. And through that, you either receive a base premium, depending on your claims history and your injuries that you have, you either get an increase on that every year, that sticks that sticks with you, or depending on your clients performance, it's going great, you actually get a discount on your premium. So the pleasure I had at that council was one, I'm not only changing the culture, but to save in the bottom line after two years, I'm dropping that premium by 1.5. And they're getting a discount by point seven, five on that premium as well. So Wow.

Brendan Torazzi
So let's walk walk through how you actually can do that. Because I think there'd be a lot of businesses that would be interested in dropping their workers comp premiums, like what are some simple things that companies can do to to make a material difference?

Unknown Speaker
I guess, simple is not the way to go. In those types of circumstances, when you're when you're paying that type of premium, simple as out the door, what the what the game becomes is you need to put a bottle cap on your injuries, ie how are you managing those injuries. So essentially, if you're bleeding money, you put in processes to look after your workers in such a way that suitable work and return to work or recovery at work, so to speak, is a day to day part of the business. So once you get injured at work, no problem. Thank you. Our safety systems, we'll look at the preventative side after that. So there's a lessons learned piece. However, once that injury occurs, what do you actually do for the worker? And that's a very powerful process within an organization because once you do it for one person, you're basically setting the standard for everybody else. So one injury turns into three injuries going awesome. Three injuries turns into 20 injuries going awesome, and you're not paying a wage on. So then essentially the bottom line for me for that council was provide suitable work for your workers and get them into treatment early or two products, immediate reporting and early intervention.

Brendan Torazzi
Is there a resistance from workers to go down that pathway? I mean, I mean, this is a big generalization, but I can I can imagine some workers not all obviously would be quite happy just to sit on their butt at home and go, I'm getting paid suite. Workers Comp looking after me I don't have to do anything, is it is there some resistance from workers not wanting to come back to work?

Unknown Speaker
I guess the resistance that I that I faced was an uncertainty in people's jobs and their livelihoods. The scheme. In New South Wales, the workers comp scheme is probably one of the best games in the world where it looks after the weekly rate for workers and how it's calculated, and also the benefits that the medical benefits they get. So my tool or my my journey, so to speak, was to specify to the workers one if you get injured, injuries happen. But they're all preventable. However, if they do happen, and we're going to look after you, and that can only come through past the the words that you speak, it's, it's actually through your actions. So yes, there's a three to six month resistance to the change, so to speak, like in anything. However, through your, through your discussions with people and through what you're actually doing for them, it turns into well, I don't actually want to be injured anymore. Because we started a premise that that counsel, you think safe, you actually act safe, and you get home safe. So we not only told them that this is what we're going to look after them. But we also took advantage of national SafeWork month and brought out a State Safety speaker to say, hey, look, you can get injured, you can get looked after work. But it's not just me that's dealing with it. It's the actual family members that are dealing with it. So you had the people that I'm probably more than happy to sit at home and not work. However, the second thought that came in after that is, what am I actually doing my family here? What am I doing for the people around me? And do I really want to be that person for my family? And that's what really drove home with our people?

Brendan Torazzi
Yep. That's cool. So what sort of, is it policies or training? Or how do you prevent these injuries happening in the first place, or I guess it's a multi prong approach.

Unknown Speaker
So like you said, the multi prong approach. First off, I could not do anything unless I had data to deal with. So it's all well and good I can deal with here. So this happens, this happens, and this happens. But I can't deal with the past in the sense of what used to happen. So I needed to get a 12 months worth of empirical data. So I needed a system. So after implementing a system, you had a 12 month worth of data portfolio that said, these are where your issues are, we're going to tackle our programs in the sections. Following that we actually going to implement safety champions within the business that are going to run this for us. With about three or four different changes in different parts of the business, you started to see a snowball effect of Well, look, these guys are able to do this this way and get what they need from the W Hsn. We're going to do it the same. So it's actually building it. And they will come type of situation, we allow their workers to run the safety management system, not ask telling them what to do.

Brendan Torazzi
And so that safety management system, is that cycle, it's online, or is it is it on our written policies.

Unknown Speaker
It's very interesting. So when when people talk about safety management systems, they expect this awesome program. He didn't do that dashboard. Quite frankly, the system is basically a set of policies and procedures. And if there's an online system attached to that, that can be used as a tool. Anyone can write a policy or procedure, you can pay X amount of dollars and implemented, you could probably pay someone to write up a policy however, that policy is only as good as what it's going to be used for. So essentially, yet, the policy will keep your big rigs happy and keep your regulators at bay. However, what actually happens is you need to go onto the ground with your people, spend some time with the crews literally jump in the truck, spend the day with them. Don't even talk, listen, really listen, find out what needs to happen, and actually ask them about their time at the organization and what could be different. For those you will get you'll gain a general understanding of what needs to happen. And so to speak, if you move on those actions, and what everybody's saying. It's a big it's a big kicker for for for your higher ups or top down approach that basically say, well, we've been looking for this information, and now we can do. Yeah, essentially, it's being it's being a conduit for your people and be a conduit from the top down as well.

Brendan Torazzi
Yeah, so you're like the bridge between two cohorts that may not necessarily speak to each other.

Unknown Speaker
Our time is halfway our time is more than likely spent on providing what our value is to the table and making people understand the value.

Brendan Torazzi
Yeah, so that's probably a great segue to tell us about what you're currently doing, which is Falcon Consulting Group. It's your own business. What made you go out on your own? Because that's exciting. It's a bit of a step isn't it to to be you know, you know, a stable, local government job. You've got, you know, hundreds of employees that you're looking after, there'd be a huge sense of satisfaction, I would imagine. You're making changes, like saving workers, you know, making making places safer to work in and also reducing premiums for for council. What made you start Falcon?

Unknown Speaker
I said to myself, I can do this for 1000 people over a local government area is 28. suburbs for 1000. Workers. Why can I Why should I be denying the world of my expertise? And how can I actually spread this faster than what I'm doing now. So if I were to go out on my own one, that gives me the opportunity to sell to everybody, Hey, safety doesn't have to be so complicated. Safety is quite simple. So long as you've got the right resources in play, you've got the right mindset, and you've got the right people in place. So for me, going out as a consultant is not just to go and make money, obviously, everyone's gonna leave. But for me, it's actually bigger than that. It's to make every effort to make this place a bit safer, one organization at a time. Yep. It's as simple as that. As in some people turn around to me when I started this journey to say, hey, look, that's all good. You know, everyone wants to ever wants to change the world and all the rest of it. Look, the world's gonna change on its own. I just assist with the change of pace. We're moving into this space, this is what you need to be looking after. Yep.

Brendan Torazzi
Is that the motivation for the name Falcon? Like, it sounds like you, you're getting there pretty quick, make the changes you need to make? I'm not sure what, these companies aren't sure. What's it them?

Unknown Speaker
It's, um, it's a two pronged approach, actually, um, yes. My first my first initial thing was, how do I have if I were to look at myself my style of how I do for someone, it's actually work better in the background? I'd give up helicopters view, so to speak. Yeah, yeah. And like the Falcon, he's got a problem of being hungry. But he's also the fastest animal in the world. So when he's hungry, to find a solution for that problem. He dives in as fast as possible, gets what he needs, leaves, it makes sure at the same time, you can have that overview at the same time. So in addition to that, my surname, Dragon and Turkish actually means Falcon as well. So Oh, wow, I just collided. That's,

Brendan Torazzi
that's really, really cool. That's really cool.

Unknown Speaker
Thank you. Thank my dad for that one.

Brendan Torazzi
And, and so with Falcon, how are you going about? You know, people finding out about what certain does is it? Is it word of mouth, or?

Unknown Speaker
It's, it's very interesting, I've actually kept out prior to this, I was quite active on LinkedIn. But now I'm very, very selective of when I started to portray myself on the LinkedIn aspect, because I guess, one month, one and a half months now into the actual full business, I've got about three or four clients. And for me, it's a matter of how do I display to people that I've got these clients, and this is what I'm doing for them. So for me, yep, there's going to be a marketing aspect of LinkedIn. But for me, the best way that I've seen clients that I've got is word of mouth. So one person has spoken to another to say, Hey, this is the problem that I had, and they just fixed it. Give an example, we had a client that came through about three weeks ago, with an issue from Safe Work, and was a mom and dad builder, who saw some sort person working at the adjacent property, doing some roofing guttering approach, the person said, Could you do mine? Yep, no problem, I ran a business, I'll be there. And I'm doing two days, after the first day, the person had actually fallen off a ladder, about four meters high. I'm seriously injured themselves. And Safe Work, unbeknownst to me at the time, had provided this mum and dad, homeowner with a prohibition notice them not realizing, and are telling me that they have provided the scaffold and the scaffold to this person. That person had been through an extension ladder on the scaffold, and so to speak, has fallen off that ladder. So this mom and that operator basically said to me, Well, I don't know what we're going to do with this. And I don't even know what I need to do with this. Quite frankly, in 24 hours, the regulator was actually going to put forward a fine to them. within 24 hours, we've been in contact with the regulator to advise this owl homebuilt homebuilder has done. And these are the regulations that we've explained to him as to not being able to do that again.

Brendan Torazzi
So So you're saying this was an owner builder? Is that right? Like somebody's building their own?

Unknown Speaker
No, no, this was purely a person who owned a property, our Gotcha, okay. He owned the property needed some work done on his roof, thought out of the goodness of his heart, I don't want this person to, you know, use a couple of letters to get up there. I'll give them my scaffold, not realizing that it's actually not realizing that is providing an unsafe working environment, but also not proper instructions. So long story short, going down the path of worrying about how to deal with the regulator and everything else within 24 to 48 hours that was put to bed for that person. Yeah. Wow. The sense of the sense of, I guess, ability to help someone after that became very apparent to me, saying well Look, if I can do this for a mom and dad. Yeah, this is what could happen is gonna be built on. I don't want small to medium type enterprises to be losing out what the big corporations have have got? Yeah. And so this is where I come in I'm I'm I'm that conduit or that fill in the gap person? Yeah,

Brendan Torazzi
fair enough. And then so for the, for the businesses that you're working for particular industries you like to work with or you're not.

Unknown Speaker
I don't I don't like to deny any industry. For me from what I've learned through my masters at university, the safety games probably at 80%. The same with all organizations, the 20%, you'll either pick up from the resources within the business, or other people within the safety and within the safety world, they'll give you that advice. So for me, I don't want to shy away from any business whatsoever. The only thing that stopped me is is not having the appropriate tickets at the time. Yeah,

Brendan Torazzi
yeah. Fair enough. So pretty much where you come in. That's exactly. That's. So it is really the 8020 rule where you know, 80% of it, roughly speaking, is it's the same principles, but then you contextualize the last 20% To, to whatever that business does. 100% Yep. That's awesome. So if and what's your website if people wanted to reach out to you, or contact us?

Unknown Speaker
The website is Falcon cj.com. Today, you people can find me on info at Falcon cj.com.au. And our contact number is also Oh, four, double three, six, double EIGHT. WHS?

Brendan Torazzi
Ah, cool. And are you? Are you working nationally or make predominantly in New South Wales at the moment?

Unknown Speaker
They've a lot of people have told me to go national, the way I see it is warm the eggs that you're sitting on? So for me, I specialize in New South Wales. Yeah, it's not to say that if someone needs a national rollout of a program, and that's not something that we can't do. For me, it's it. I try and stay to New South Wales for now

Brendan Torazzi
that and I'm curious it can a lot of this work in the initial consultation be done over zoom? Or do you do you need to go face to face?

Unknown Speaker
For me? I don't want to be the person that's going to charge you for an initial consultation or anything. Usually, most people understand over the phone that I'm the right person for them. It might take a follow up face to face just to put a name to the face and finally get the full requirements. We don't charge for that either. Yeah, we charge for when the work starts.

Brendan Torazzi
Yeah. Well, I really like your approach. You've got a great you know, like, it's, you know, you come you strike me as someone who approaches things in a light hearted manner. But obviously, it's a very serious subject. So good to have it good to have that balance where it's fun. It's serious, but you can make it fun and get results.

Unknown Speaker
When we're when we're playing football as kids if the if the coach kept coming down with us with a hard hammer, will we ever learn. You keep things light hearted, have a bit of fun while you're at it. Because at the end of the day, everything is legislated in this regulated and the way that we need to do it. So it comes down to who are the people that you're dealing with? And what is the point of putting someone into the ground when it's something they need to know.

Brendan Torazzi
Yep, that's fantastic. Second, thank you very much.

Unknown Speaker
Thank you for your time, Brendan, and appreciate your time and podcasts and good luck with it.

Unknown Speaker
You've been listening to an ohs.com.au production.

Brendan Torazzi
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