The 2007/08 Southern Cross Wellness Award

goes to:

Melanie Wood, Coca-Cola Amatil (NZ) Ltd

When Melanie took on the role of Health and Safety Advisor with Coca-Cola Amatil (NZ), the position and focus was Health and Safety management and within 12 months Melanie was able to influence the change of direction for the role to Safety and Wellbeing. This change resulted in Health and Safety KPIS for all managers and each business unit took on the responsibility of day to day Health and Safety Management.

With Lost Time Injuries dramatically reducing, Melanie then lead a team to put together a proposal and feasibility report to the NZ leadership team in 2006 to implement a wellbeing Strategy which has resulted in increased morale and health of employees.

Melanie achieved this through her passion for the topic, her high visibility and her productive relationship with the Senior Management team and the organisation as a whole. This is reflected through the feedback from a staff member who told her “you have changed my life”.

Melanie could show through the research and analysis she had done the benefits the organisation would achieve through this programme. For example Health and Safety engagement moved from 50% to 80% and absentism reduced by 10%. This programme has now been adopted by other Coca-Cola Amatil sites in Australia and Fiji.

For someone who was fearful of entering the corporate world she has achieved significant business value in a short time.

When judging this Award the judges were looking for either an individual or a organisation that had helped to create a Wellness programme which was designed to run for at least 3 months, showed clear key objectives, was well supported by management, demonstrated an ongoing commitment to wellness, an innovative approach,

and had high employee uptake as well as tangible measured results. In deciding this winner, the judges felt all criteria was clearly matched.

Congratulations Melanie.