Why the Smartest Organisations Are Putting HR and Safety in the Same Room
There's a familiar frustration in many organisations: the culture transformation workstream and the safety culture improvement workstream are running in parallel, addressing the same underlying issues through different lenses, with different consultants and different budgets.
The Strategic Step Advisory was founded on a different premise.
The Observation That Started Everything
Our co-founders, Rachael Kelly, Greg Lazzaro, Rod Maule and Aaron Neilson, spent years as corporate executives watching organisations navigate complex challenges at the intersection of people, performance, and safety. What they kept seeing was organisations bringing in HR expertise to solve what were partly safety problems, or safety expertise to solve what were partly people problems. Overlapping territory, duplicated effort and outcomes that fell short of what was possible.
"Organisations getting the best outcomes were integrating these perspectives from the design phase," says Rod Maule, Principal, HSE Advisory.
That insight is the foundation of what we've built: a senior, board-level advisory practice for leaders navigating complexity above the day-to-day — governance, transformation, capability, and risk.
What We Do
Our work spans four core areas.
Strategic work redesign. New psychosocial hazard regulations — including Victoria's Psychological Health Regulations and ISO 45003 — are catalysts for rethinking how work is structured. Mental health claims have increased 161% over the past decade and now represent 12% of all serious workers' compensation claims in Australia, with a median cost of $67,400 and 35.7 weeks of lost productivity. The regulations offer limited prescriptive guidance, which creates an opportunity for organisations willing to think holistically about work design — addressing root causes like autonomy, role clarity, and workload rather than ticking boxes.
Technology transformation. Around 70% of digital transformation initiatives fail to meet their objectives, typically because adoption is treated as a technical challenge rather than a change process. We approach AI and automation as capability enhancement — designing systems that leverage what technology does well alongside what humans do well. With Australia needing 1.3 million tech workers by 2030 and not on track to meet that demand, organisations cannot afford transformations that fail because integration was an afterthought.
Board support. Boards are asking strategic questions that cross functional boundaries: How does our technology strategy affect workforce capability and wellbeing? What's the line of sight from our people and safety strategies to business performance? We help directors surface risks and opportunities before they're siloed into functional reporting.
Capability building. Through the AIHS-accredited Amplify program, we develop HSE professionals with the change management, data ethics, and strategic influence skills their roles increasingly require.
Why It Matters
Organisations that get work design right see smoother technology adoption, lower turnover, stronger safety culture, and a more compelling proposition for talent. The business case runs both ways: the cost of getting it wrong is well documented, and the opportunity from getting it right is significant.
"The question is how we design work that enables both optimal employee experience and business performance," says Rachael Kelly, Principal, Workforce Advisory. "Those aren't competing goals — they're the same goal."
A Strong Start
We recently introduced The Strategic Step Advisory to over 80 HR, safety, and executive leaders at a Melbourne breakfast event hosted by The Next Group. The quality of conversation reinforced what we already believed: there is a genuine need for experienced, pragmatic advisors who have made strategic decisions about technology, transformation, and risk themselves, and know what good looks like.
"We're off to a strong start," says Rachael. "Building the business while also delivering good work to great clients."
If your organisation is navigating psychosocial regulations, AI-driven transformation, capability gaps, or governance questions at the edge of what HR or safety alone can address, we'd welcome a conversation.
The Strategic Step Advisory partners with leaders to solve complex challenges at the intersection of people, safety, and organisational performance. Co-founders Rachael Kelly, Greg Lazzaro, and Rod Maule are former corporate executives delivering experienced, objective insight that builds capability and creates momentum for lasting change.