View Drew McGiffert’s profile
Following a fire in 2007 Tesco in London was found to have breached 5 different legislative obligations in relation to fire safety, including keeping exits clear and ensuring fire doors remained closed. The breaches cost the retailer over £100,000 in costs / fines.
About
Like you, workplace health, safety and wellbeing expert Drew McGiffert has been through the highs and lows of corporate life. What does work/life balance look like? Isn't workplace health and safety just about compliance? Does thinking positively really change things? Is stress a sign of weakness? Isn't being healthy and happy at work just for the chosen few who rise to the top? Or, is there a different story?
Drew McGiffert
Health, Safety and Wellbeing Expert. Change Agent. Entrepeneur. Director
With over a decade of experience across retail operations, logistics and white collar environments, and most importantly, real-life, in-the-trenches business experience, Drews view to creating safe, healthy and happy workplaces are radically different to many approaches and very effective.
Unlike many other consultants, speakers and coaches Drew combines a very mixed set of skills in risk management, ergonomics, workplace health, neuroscience, modern psychology, investigation and even a bit of mentalism to provide organisations with strategic people focused approaches to creating safer and healthier places to work, while providing individuals with support to help them excel and work in closer alignment to their personal and corporate goals.
Drew fuses over 15 years of corporate experience and qualifications from a range of institutions including Post Graduate study at Curtin University of Technology to develop innovative and effective solutions.
Seen as a leader in his field, Drew received a high commendation from state government health and safety regulator ‘SafeWork SA’ in 2010 for his contribution to workplace health and safety.
Drew has served in executive level health and safety management roles across Australia and New Zealand. He is a certified hypnotherapist, neuro-linguistic programming practitioner, coach and brain hacker and continues to work with the best and brightest.
Resume
"I was humbled to be formally commended by SafeWorkSA in 2010 for my achievements in making workplaces safer for everyone"
Drews passion for business and human excellence began early in life, entering the workforce at age 16. For 5 years Drew worked within covert security operations, fraud investigation and loss control. During this time he honed his skills in body language, detecting deception and understanding the subconscious brain. Involved in apprehending and interviewing hundreds of offenders Drew quickly tuned in to subconscious cues and later gained ‘Expert Level’ certification in Micro Expressions with the Paul Ekman Group (consultants on the TV Show Lie To Me).
As Drew climbed through corporate roles he began to develop an interest in the health and wellbeing of overall organisations and moved into the field of occupational health and safety. Driven by efficiency and effectiveness in a national role Drew was able to focus on the behaviour of excellence, working with employees uniqueness to bring about rapid and effective change helping them to work safer and more productively.
With management experience across both Australia and New Zealand in retail, logistics and corporate office environments Drew has developed a wealth of working knowledge, along with a both post graduate and vocational education.
work experience
2021 - now
Managing Partner
July 2021 to present day
Urban Mysteries Co
Urban Mysteries Co is an escape room business introduced to the market in 2021. The concept was developed by three partners, including myself. Development of the business plan, product research and development and securing funding were my key responsibilities during the getting-to-market phase. We were successfully supported by the Australian Government 'New Enterprise Initiative Scheme' and opened our first location in the Adelaide CBD in October 2021. Key accountabilities include:
- Personnel management including HR, IR, safety
- Financial monitoring and reporting
- Marketing and business development
- Story and product development.
2017 - 2019
National Safety and Systems Manager
July 2017 - July 2019
Kmart Australia
Maintained responsibility for direct reports across Australia and New Zealand and took on responsibility for all health and safety policies, procedures and systems across the business. Key accountabilities include:
- Consolidation of health and safety policies within distribution centres, offices and stores
- Development of a robust injury management system modelled on safety frameworks
- Integration of injury management measures into operational reporting
- Implementation of ICAM investigation model for serious incidents
- Development of a critical risk program
- Development of five-year strategic plan
2013 - 2017
National Safety Services Manager
October 2013 - July 2017
Kmart Australia
Responsibility for direct reports including Safety Managers, Advisor's and Services Coordinator across Australia and New Zealand. Key accountabilities include:
- Development of the safety team to provide a superior level of service to stakeholders across Australia and New Zealand
- Continually improve the execution of health and safety programs in stores
- Ensure system development and compliance with self-insurance and legislative obligations
- Operational planning
- Reporting of safety performance across the business
2012-2013
Safety Services Manager SA/NT/TAS/WA
June 2012 - October 2013
Kmart Australia
- Development of state strategic plan
- Management of self insurance partnering activities / renewal
- Led the creation of new Aust/NZ contractor online induction
- Assistance in the review of the business safety policy
- Improved regions performance against business safety metrics by 7.6% over 12 months
- Reduced serious incident occurrence by 18%
- New online tools for OHS Committees created
- Critical response procedure for serious incidents
- Safety culture improvement program
- State and National audit program
- Dashboard style reporting for safety metrics
- Excel tools to assist in monthly incident analysis
- Coaching and mentoring of health and safety representatives
- Over a 12 month period: 150 site audits conducted, attendance at 26 committee meetings and 39 audits undertaken.
- Support and advice to other Wesfarmers brands on achieving SA self insurance requirements
2008-2012
National Occupational Health and Safety Manager
September 2008 - June 2012
Harris Scarfe Australia
Business scope included SA, VIC, NSW, ACT, TAS, QLD – 1800+ employees across 51 sites. In addition the provision of safety services to Offices and Distribution Centre. Responsibility for the Injury Management function and direct report.
- Strategic Plan for a Safety First Culture.
- Improved budgeting process and selection of providers.
- National reporting, new methods of measurement.
- OHS Management System development.
- Contractor management system.
- Management training programs.
- Internal safety council.
- Manual handling DVD
- Development of policies, procedures and guidelines.
- Health and safety representative resource.
- New online induction system based on Moodle platform.
- Designed and developed the Safety First Website.
- Emergency and continuity planning.
- Developed Fire Warden training package.
2007-2009
Asset Protection Analyst
June 2007 - February 2009
Harris Scarfe Australia
Lead investigator for internal and external theft to the business by persons engaging in theft and fraud.
- Monitoring and investigation of internal parties
- Development of electronic covert monitoring strategies
- Physical covert surveillance operations
- Participation in joint task force initiatives with other retailers and SA Police
- Led fraud and counterfeit currency operations
- Creation of national offender database program
- Development and delivery of worker loss prevention courses across Australia
- Delivery of self defence programs
- Training of security officers in covert operations, apprehension and investigation
- Point of sale loss reporting tools developed
- Publication of bi-annual industry ‘Shoptheft’ trends report
- Investigation of internal theft, development of monitoring tools
- Represented the business at the ‘Loss Prevention Network’
2004-2007
Asset Protection Specialist
July 2004 - June 2007
Harris Scarfe Australia
- Involved in the apprehension of over 350 external suspects for alleged offences of property damage, theft and fraud.
- Directly interviewed over 110 external suspects.
- Provided covert loss prevention service to all South Australian stores.
- Court appearances to provide evidence.
- Internal investigations.
2003-2004
Retail Sales Assistant
June 2003 - July 2004
Harris Scarfe Australia
Worked within stock and sales roles across Electrical, Menswear, Homewares, Camping, Fishing, Outdoor Furniture, Hardware, Manchester.
Education experience
2021
Undergraduate Certificate Psychology
2021
Curtin University
2014
Diploma Project Management
2014
Australian Institute of Commerce and Technology
2014
Diploma Modern Psychology
2014
Australian College of Modern Psychology
2011-2012
Graduate Diploma Health and Safety
2011 - 2012
Curtin University of Technology
2011
Advanced Diploma Management
2011
SAI Global
2010-2011
Graduate Certificate OHS Management
2010 - 2011
Curtin University of Technology
2010-2011
Diploma Quality Auditing
2010 - 2011
SAI Global
2009-2010
Advanced Diploma OHS
2009 - 2010
SAI Global
2009
Certificate IV / Diploma OHS
2009
Business SA
2009
Certificate IV Training & Assessment
2009
Business SA
Portfolio
While difficult to provide details of many projects, the below is a small sample of organisational programs developed.
Blog
Unfortunately the blog is no longer updated due to time constraints, but previous posts and resources are still available.
UK retailer John Lewis fined for asbestos exposure during refurb works
UK Department Store John Lewis was fined £20,000 in 2010 after failing to follow appropriate safety procedures concerning asbestos checks, resulting in the possible exposure of the dangerous substance to 15 construction workers.
Primark Safety Considerations
One of the things that first hits you when shopping on Oxford Street in England is the volume of shoppers. Turnover on Oxford Street, with more than 300 shops on its 1.5 mile length was up 6.2% in the first half of the year and is expected to break 5 billion by the New Years sales. Putting this in a safety focus, that’s a lot of consumers and team members to keep safe, how do they do it?
Efficient Safety Structuring: Holiday Post
In my last post I introduced the multinational retailer Primark, who operates 198 stores in UK/Ireland and a further 58 through Europe. From a safety perspective the size and speed of Primark’s operation intrigues me and whilst in the UK I will be visiting a range of Primark stores to better understand how they keep their team members and customers safe. One of the aspects I wanted to explore within Primark is how they resource safety.
Retailing in the UK: Holiday Post
Over the next few weeks I am hoping to explore the UK shopping environment in detail and better understand how these dynamic fast paced retailers keep their team members and customers safe. Health and Safety legislation between the UK and Australia is not all that different, with Australia’s first OHS Legislation based off the Roben’s model of legislation adopted in the UK. It will be interesting to see how safety standards / implementation compare.
A dip, a slip and a hospital trip
In an unexpected turn the New South Wales Court of Appeal has dismissed a case put to the District Court involving a customer who fell in the cold section of the Coles Neutral Bay Supermarket in 2010. The case which was finalised in August last year resulted in Coles Supermarkets being sued for nearly $120,000 in damages, in the appeal the damages were set aside.