The Community Innovation Team co-designed new solutions with community
Our team: we are researchers, designers and strategists.
Our ambition: to break down the barriers and improve access to ensure the community not only has a voice, but also plays a key role in designing what is important to them.
Design Projects
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Safe Support
Safe Support is a tool designed to prevent injuries during an in-home support service. A collection of principles in a set of interactive cards, this tool enables workers, clients and their families to discuss and record what is important to their safety. Once in agreement, each party signs their commitment to practising safe behaviours.
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COVID-19 Worker Safety Cards & Trader Walks
WorkSafe staff and ECCV Community Outreach Workers took to Melbourne retail strips to hand out COVID-19 Worker Safety Cards to business owners. This became a new way to build relationships and position WorkSafe as a source of advice and support.
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Worker Safety Starter Kit
The Starter Kit provides clear, simple information on workers’ rights and responsibilities, equipping them with information to stay safe at work and prevent injury. It is designed for community service organisations and leaders to distribute into their communities.
You can find a full report of research findings and project outcomes in the executive summary and white paper below.
How We Did It
How might we engage with communities to improve the safety of workers from culturally diverse backgrounds?
Multicultural communities play an essential part in the running of our society, both socially and economically.
They are an asset and strength to every industry and workplace. WorkSafe not only has an opportunity to better service culturally diverse communities, but to bring communities in as partners in preventing workplace injury
We worked with 50 community members to co-design, test and iterate new concepts. Our approach is founded on human-centred design, blending in community-based participatory action research.
To co-design, test with community and iterate a number of new concepts. Our approach is founded on Human Centred Design, blending in community-based Participatory Action Research.
Photography: Andrew Broughton
Photography: Andrew Broughton
Photography: Andrew Broughton
Our Mindsets
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Mindset 01
Design in collaboration & partnership
Co-design gives people the opportunity to meaningfully participate in the design of services that will affect them.
Partnering in co-design can be an intervention for change that delivers outcomes in and of itself, as the community leaders and teams we worked so closely with integrate knowledge about workplace health and safety and WorkSafe into their services. It is a powerful way for both parties to build important capabilities and achieve more systemic shifts.
Co-design workshops with community influencers
We worked with local leaders to generate ideas and concepts to improve workplace safety in the community
We worked with Loddon Campaspe Multicultural Services worker Bu-gay and community influencer Green to generate ideas to improve understanding of workplace safety in the community. We then held workshops to test different concepts with members of the Karen and Dinka communities in Bendigo, to gather deep insight and seek feedback on which ideas had the most impact. These leaders played an active role in designing a safety solution and are now making changes on the ground to increase awareness of workplace health and safety in their community.
Strategic partnership with SMECC
We partnered with Sunraysia Mallee Ethnic Communities’ Council to co-design safety solutions for the Mildura community
We worked closely with community leaders to recruit and interview agriculture workers to design and iterate the Starter Kit with. The partnership was built on a mutual interest and goal to support the safety of workers from diverse backgrounds. We worked together to develop a solution to address issues facing the agriculture community in Mildura.
Design workshop with United Workers Union during COVID-19
We collaborated with United Workers to host a workshop with agriculture workers from multicultural communities to co-design COVID-19 safety solutions.
With the United Workers union, we ran a Zoom workshop with a group of workers from multicultural backgrounds including individuals from Vietnamese, Malaysian, Cambodian and Hazara communities. We heard the workers' experiences during COVID-19 and were privileged to witness live translation to allow us to hear the valuable stories of workers, including those with low English proficiency.
We asked for their ideas and presented visual prototypes to seek their feedback to shape opportunities and design accessible solutions to improve workplace safety. These valuable insights were used to inform the COVID-19 Worker Safety Cards and the community distribution model.
Community roundtable with ECCV
We brought together 30+ key players to address how WorkSafe Victoria could support workers facing greater risks during COVID-19
In partnership with the Ethnic Communities’ Council of Victoria (ECCV), we co-hosted a roundtable of experts, community advocates and service leaders to discuss how to best respond to the urgent needs of culturally diverse workers during COVID-19. From these insights, we were able to co-design the COVID-19 Worker Safety Cards as well as an effective community distribution model to deliver the resource across Victoria.
Community partnership with LCMS
We identified opportunities for mutual benefit to support the safety of workers in the Bendigo community
Loddon Campaspe Multicultural Services inducted us into working with the community and built our capacity to understand and respond to local cultural needs. In return, we shared the principles, methods and tools we use with LCMS and local community influencers.
LCMS were instrumental in the development of the COVID-19 Worker Safety Cards and the Starter Kit. They enabled us to conduct valuable research with members of the Bendigo community that has informed our key learnings and recommendations for WorkSafe’s engagement with multicultural communities.
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Mindset 02
Understand the system
Understanding the complexity of the system allows us to prioritise and focus in on opportunity areas. Having a macro view enables us to see how targeted interventions would ripple through the system.
Conducting industry research to design a systems map
Understanding the challenges and opportunities of the home care system
Building on prior research, we held co-design workshops and developed a systems map to get a picture of how all the moving pieces in the home care sector interact. The map details the in-home support system and captures insights about the system itself. We used these insights to identify opportunities and barriers around worker safety to develop the Safe Support cards.
Community distribution model
We promoted the COVID-19 Worker Safety Cards through key touchpoints and trusted sources in the community
We took a systems approach to communication delivery. After assessing the strengths and weaknesses in the system, we developed a broad-spectrum community distribution model to share the cards digitally, via in-person interactions, through community groups and government bodies.
Community leaders as influence
Identifying barriers in communication and leveraging key influencers to make impact across the system
Community influencers proactively share important information and resources within their community, either directly to an individual in need or to the wider community via social channels such as WhatsApp and Facebook.
We built off the approach used by LCMS community influencers during COVID-19 to promote safety information in multicultural communities. Adopting this model helped us to best deliver the COVID-19 Worker Safety Cards, whereby community influencers promoted the resource through social media videos with LCMS.
Uncovering touchpoints to build safety capacity
By mapping moments of influence we discovered opportunities to build safety capacity for workers.
By creating a use case to map the journey of someone new to working in Australia, we identified moments in the system where individuals could access safety information through finding work to building relationships in their community.
This allowed us to understand and identify the key influential touchpoints that would allow us to build individual’s capacity around workplace safety. These included employment and multicultural services, english language services, and community events. These insights informed the communication delivery model.
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Mindset 03
Learn by doing
Ambiguity is removed simply by making things real. The easiest way to explain something to somebody is to let them experience the real thing. We used an artifact creation model that let us research through design, generating insight and evaluating product desirability at the same time.
Safe Support pilots
We trialled Safe Support with in-home support services to iterate and refine the product
The Community Innovation team live-tested Safe Support with workers, clients and their families, conducting interviews and feedback sessions to inform the development of Safe Support. By testing across multiple providers including a platform provider, Filipino provider, multicultural provider and large-scale disability network, we were able to test it’s viability across a broad range of environments.
Through research interviews, worker focus groups and webinars, we were able to seek feedback to continually improve the product and co-design a solution that can be applied across many settings.
Community Leader Safety Videos
How can we best work with our community partners?
Community leaders and influencers often fill the gaps in support services and act as a bridge to make services accessible to their community. We learned from COVID-19 that videos from community influencers were a valuable medium to share important information with the community.
We leveraged our partners at LCMS to identify a number of community influencers to test a concept where they would be provided with key workplace safety information in order to produce a short social media video to share with their network. These learnings have been applied to the communication delivery model of the Worker Safety Starter Kit.
High-fidelity prototypes of the Worker Safety Starter Kit
Making the product to let people experience it
We produced physical copies of the starter kit and leveraged our partners at SMECC and LCMS to share them with community influencers and local workers two weeks before we interviewed them. The intent was to ensure users have as real an experience as they would have when the product is live.
Making the artifacts as real as possible and testing in the real world allowed us to generate insights with less bias and get a measure of desirability as if the product were live.
Delivering COVID-19 Worker Safety Cards on Trader Walks
In partnership with ECCV, we walked across metro Melbourne to share the cards with small businesses
WorkSafe staff, together with ECCV Community Outreach workers, walked along retail strips across metro Melbourne to share the COVID-19 Worker Safety Cards with local businesses. On the Trader Walks, we gathered valuable insights into the challenges around COVID-19 safety for small businesses and workers.
Driving insights
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Design Research
Strong partnerships drove our recruiting all the way from discovery through to experience prototyping. Six key insights emerged from our research.
Low English proficiency is a major safety barrier
“...sometimes very hard, because they show you how to do things, then…. I don’t know how to ask that question in English. Am I doing this right?”
— Worker, Agriculture
- Inadequate safety training
- The burden of asking questions
- Work becomes trial and error
- Accidents waiting to happen
What if there were programs and resources that help employers meet their obligation to provide accessible in-language information and training?
- Inadequate safety training
- The burden of asking questions
- Work becomes trial and error
- Accidents waiting to happen
What if there were programs and resources that help employers meet their obligation to provide accessible in-language information and training?
“Safety is not for me”
“I just accept that this is the way things are. They never care about safety in my home country”
— Worker, Agriculture
- Workplace health and safety is a “privilege”
- Standards are subjective
- SInjuries are seen as part of the job
What if workers were supported to build capacity to recognise and prioritise safety?
- Workplace health and safety is a “privilege”
- Standards are subjective
- SInjuries are seen as part of the job
What if workers were supported to build capacity to recognise and prioritise safety?
Low cultural safety inhibits other forms of safety
“I don’t ask, because I am afraid of getting in trouble from my boss… they don’t understand me and my situation”
— Worker, Agriculture
- Diversity is de-emphasised
- Racism is downplayed
- Help-seeking seems dangerous
- Workers experience self-blame and shame
What if cultural safety was considered as important as physical and mental safety?
- Diversity is de-emphasised
- Racism is downplayed
- Help-seeking seems dangerous
- Workers experience self-blame and shame
What if cultural safety was considered as important as physical and mental safety?
Fear prevents help-seeking
“I don’t want to talk to WorkSafe… they will tell my boss and I can lose my job”
— Worker, Agriculture
- Fear of being “blacklisted” across government services
- Keeping a job trumps safety
- Poor access creates a vicious cycle
- Bilingual support workers play a crucial role
What if fear was addressed or removed and confidence around safety was built?
- Fear of being “blacklisted” across government services
- Keeping a job trumps safety
- Poor access creates a vicious cycle
- Bilingual support workers play a crucial role
What if fear was addressed or removed and confidence around safety was built?
Blended life and work impacts safety
“...sometimes I see people fight at work, they live together, work together and argue all the time and family gets involved…the boss does nothing.”
— Worker, Agriculture
- Behaviour change is reflected in work and life
- Living (and working) with hardships
- Conflict at home translates to work
What if there was holistic support through a multi-agency approach that considers an individual’s whole journey?
- Behaviour change is reflected in work and life
- Living (and working) with hardships
- Conflict at home translates to work
What if there was holistic support through a multi-agency approach that considers an individual’s whole journey?
Community influencers are the glue of a community
“Some workers will have gone to their community influencers about issues with work, and now [they] can properly give advice to them and the trust is there…”
— Worker, Agriculture
- A trusted source
- A heavy load for community influencers
- Grassroots leadership
- A powerful partner in safety
What if community influencers were an extension of WorkSafe, building a bridge to safer outcomes for workers?
- A trusted source
- A heavy load for community influencers
- Grassroots leadership
- A powerful partner in safety
What if community influencers were an extension of WorkSafe, building a bridge to safer outcomes for workers?
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Success enablers
We asked ourselves – “what are the enablers of success in this work?” Our findings led us to develop five key principles to enable success.
Every interaction is culturally safe
Effective communication is not limited to translation; it must be culturally safe and come from a position of trust.
Meet people where they are by acknowledging cultural differences and histories, understanding how they have shaped people’s experiences, and practising sensitive interactions based on building relationships and trust.
Invest in true partnerships to create immediate and lasting impact
Partnerships can be an enabler for change that delivers outcomes in and of themselves.
Uphold partnerships with the community as a powerful way for both parties to build important capabilities and achieve systemic shifts towards better workplace health and safety outcomes.
Co-design vs. other engagement
Co-creation requires seeing participants as thought leaders in the creation of knowledge.
“Co-design involves learning from service users, but it also involves learning, creating and testing with service users.” — Ingrid Burkett, Co-director, Yunus Centre
IMAGE LADDER OF PARTICIPATION
Co-design is distinct from consultation and engagement, sitting higher on the ladder of participation.
Create more equitable experiences for different communities
Build connections and strengthen existing ones with new, emerging and existing communities.
Community leaders and influencers often fill the gap in services and act as a bridge where systems fail to make services accessible to their community. But, where there are no community influencers (in new and emerging communities), communities fall through the cracks in being able to access services.
Communicate through all senses
Individual cultures and communities share and absorb information in different ways.
“Communication should go beyond seeing and hearing, for some communities it is important to engage through touch and feel.” — Loddon Campaspe Multicultural Services
