An SVP in Action
In the most recent edition of Massive Insights, we explored how a Safety Value Proposition (SVP) can help overcome the key person risk in safety.
The idea is that when you lose a great safety leader, you often lose the safety initiatives, programs and culture gains as well (check it out here).
When we first envisioned the SVP, we saw it as a strategic and human-centred approach to transforming how safety is understood, communicated and experienced across organisations. It lasts beyond the tenure of any single leader.
But we appreciate that theories, frameworks and imaginings only take us so far. What brings a concept like the SVP to life is real-world application.
This quarter, we’re taking you inside one of the most ambitious SVPs we’ve worked on — the University of Sydney (USYD). It’s a story of complexity, culture, and commitment — showing how a carefully designed SVP can help powerfully and sustainably embed health, safety and wellbeing behaviours, commitments and language. The result is a complete and enduring safety transformation.
A safety context like no other
You'd be hard-pressed to find a work environment with a greater diversity of safety considerations.
The thirst for knowledge, discovery and innovation pushes students and faculty toward risks we’re taught to avoid our whole lives. Handling pathogens in labs. Researching with radioactive isotopes. Running multi-million-dollar construction sites with heavy machinery, high voltage and the Southern Hemisphere’s largest crusher. Wrangling live animals and studying zoonotic diseases in the field. Marine exploration, natural disasters, geopolitics, cryogenics — the list goes on.
In the words of Chief Health and Safety Officer, Kim Grady:
“Anything that people do in the world, we do it here. And we’re trying to invent a whole bunch of other stuff that doesn’t exist quite yet.”
This extraordinary diversity made it clear that the SVP needed to be flexible, future-focused, and grounded in the real and varied experiences of staff and students alike. What’s more, it needed to support a consistent experience of HSW across all of the university’s schools, faculties and business areas.
creating a cultural cornerstone
We gathered insights to shape our SVP framework through a range of discovery approaches, including 1-1 conversations, consultation across faculties, schools, professional services, and student cohorts, as well as a dive into source content for HSW and the university.
Our insights distilled into themes, and the themes were refined into pillars on which the SVP framework would be built. In the case of USYD, it was People, Risk and Excellence, reinforcing the link to the university’s overarching 2032 Strategy.
With the HSW pillars established, we completed the framework by defining the HSW commitments across Culture, Processes, and Systems. Connecting the pillars to the commitments ensures the framework translates into real, actionable changes that drive health, safety and wellbeing uplift across USYD.
Using the People pillar as an example, let’s break down how this looks in practice.
Together, we defined USYD’s People pillar as: ‘we take care of ourselves and the people around us’.
This shows up in HSW Culture as having “a shared understanding and ownership of health, safety and wellbeing that reflects the nuances of our campuses, the work and learning that we do, and the people we care for”.
And in HSW Processes through “our user-friendly processes and engaging training, equip and empower our people to make informed decisions and take action”.
And in HSW Systems as “our systems are designed with and for the people who use them, with features that meet the needs of our staff, students, and community”.
These pillars and commitments aren’t just words — they become the guides that inform clear and consistent HSW decision-making for all People at USYD.
At the core of the SVP framework is a bold, yet flexible promise:
Leading health, safety and wellbeing to improve the world
It’s a line that resonates across the full spectrum of the university. As Kim shared at the 2025 OHS Leaders Summit on the Gold Coast:
“You don’t have to be a leader to lead. Everyone has an opportunity — in a conversation, a decision, a moment. And when we say ‘our world’, that could be the globe… or just your own team, your day, your space.”
That flexibility is key — it makes the promise meaningful no matter the context, whether you're a world-class researcher or a first-year student stepping into a lab for the very first time.
Breadcrumbing — not broadcasting
With the SVP framework in place, the USYD HSW leadership team turned their attention to embedding the framework.
Unlike many initiatives we see in health, safety and wellbeing, this SVP wasn’t launched with fanfare. In fact, quite the opposite, according to Kim.
“We made a decision early on not to go for a ‘Big Bang’ launch. We didn’t want it to be another program people forget about after 12 months. We wanted it to be lasting — part of the day-to-day.“
So instead, the SVP has been gently woven — or breadcrumbed — into existing programs and tools that people already use. From leadership training and safety conversations to the critical risk management program, the SVP isn’t positioned as extra — it’s the new normal. The foundation for how things are done.
This approach has helped avoid change fatigue or overwhelm, while also ensuring the SVP is seen as a useful and practical guide or tool — shaping decisions, conversations and actions across the university.
As Kim shared recently:
”The SVP has given me a set of lenses to look through in terms of making decisions around what’s next? Does that make sense? Do we have time for that? What impact will that have? Because it's almost like a cultural touchpoint for me.”
SO WHAT IS NEXT?
With the foundations now firmly in place, 2025 is shaping up to be a year of activation at USYD. As Kim told us:
“We’re now seeing the SVP come to life in our critical risk management program, in our safety leadership training and in how we support wellbeing for performance at the executive level.”
As USYD wraps up its current three-year Health, Safety and Wellbeing plan, the SVP will colour and shape the function’s direction for the next three-year plan.
And that’s exactly what a well-designed SVP should do — embed health, safety and wellbeing into the cultural fabric of an organisation in a way that outlasts any one initiative or individual.
Through our collaboration with the University of Sydney on this SVP, we’re bringing consistency to the safety experience at USYD — one conversation, one message and one moment at a time.
Want to explore what an SVP could look like in your world?
We’re continuing to partner with complex, ambitious organisations to co-create SVPs that truly reflect their people, challenges and opportunities. If you’re curious about what an SVP could do for your organisation, we’d love to chat.
Book a call at a time that suits you.
