Who are Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA)?

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), or CommBank, is an Australian multinational bank with businesses across New Zealand, Asia, the United States and the United Kingdom. It provides a variety of financial services including retail, business and institutional banking, funds management, superannuation, insurance, investment and broking services.

The Commonwealth Bank is the largest Australian listed company on the Australian Securities Exchange as of August 2015 with brands including Bankwest, Colonial First State Investments, ASB Bank (New Zealand), Commonwealth Securities (CommSec) and Commonwealth Insurance (CommInsure). Commonwealth Bank is also the largest bank in the Southern Hemisphere.

What is the size of CBA’s mobile workforce?

We have approximately 4000 employees who drive for work (BCMV and Grey Fleet) roughly 1,600 tool of trade and 2,000 Grey Fleet.

What does Road Safety mean to CBA?

CBA has a legal and moral obligation to ensure the health and safety of its people people when driving or riding for work. Our responsibility also extend to passengers in our vehicles and the communities in which our people drive and ride. With CBA drivers travelling approximately 51 million kilometres per annum we have a vest interest in improving our approach to road to keep our people and our communities safe.

Due to the number of people who drive for work across CBA, our exposure to the risks associated with driving a car is significant. We know the risk of serious or fatal accident increases in the presence of factors such as speed, distraction, fatigue, time pressure, vehicle design and poor maintenance. With this in mind, and with research showing that organisations with clear driving standards and rules, excellent driver training and a procedure to report and learn from driving incidents show the lowest accident rates, CBA is committed to the on-going identification/development and implementation of key safe driving initiatives.

Supporting actions delivered by CBA

  • Steering Committee Partner from 2013 to present.
  • Hosted the 12th Steering Committee at their office in Sydney on 2 March 2016 and organised the first pre-dinner meeting where Dr Carmel Harrington presented on fatigue. Due to the success of the dinner these have become a regular feature.
  • CBA raised the concern of driver headspace behind the wheel which resulted in the NRSPP forming the Driver Headspace Working Group
  • CBA was an active partner of the Grey Fleet Working Group and contributed to the development of the guide.
  • NRSPP Program Manager, Jerome Carslake, presented on the research findings from the Driver Headspace Working Group to the Finance Industry Group (FIG) as a guest of CBAs.
  • CBA, through Rachel Gunn, was a panellist for Grey Fleet Video Panel – a significant risk with unique challenges

Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA)'s Contributions to the NRSPP & Points of Contact

  • Steering Committee Partners
  • Working Group - Driver Headspace Working Group
  • Working Group – Grey Fleet
  • Rachel GunnHealth Safety & Wellbeing Systems Manager

    CBA is recognised as a Founding Steering Committee Partner to the present

    What are CBA’s opportunities for NRSPP leadership?

    1. Developing  ‘RoadMAP’ to reduce work-related/fleet driver distraction through mindfulness training
    2. Ashurst – advice relating to work driving with the report including a gap analysis which CBA can broadly share as a continuous improvement opportunity for all partners of the NRSPP  Steering Committee
    3. Mentor by eDriving – key findings and what telematics can mean for an organisation. Success (or failure) of the program can be shared with the SC as a learned experience.
    4. Benchmarking – inclusion through eDriving to participate in the Global Benchmarking Forum.
  • Laura BuckleyHealth and Safety Consultant, Group People Services, Human Resources

    The NRSPP Driver Headspace Working Group was established the NRSPP Steering and by CBA through Laura Buckley. It was formed to explore how Emotional drivers are nearly 10x greater risk of being involved in a crash whereas a driver conversing on the mobile phone is 2.2 and texting is 6.1.

    The concern was that being emotional can cloud your judgement and on the road, a vehicle can easily become an outlet for that emotion. Equally an emotional driver is more easily distracted or prone to distraction when driving. To explore the Driver Headspace issue in further detail NRSPP in 2016 conducted research exploring emotional driving triggered by negative and stressful/circumstances and how it was another form of driver distraction. The term used was Driver Headspace’ thus refers to the state of a driver’s psycho-physiological functioning as a result of exposure to a stressful event or adverse circumstance. The research was conducted by Prof. Mike Reagan. The research found

    • Driver headspace events can derive from a myriad of negative and stressful events/circumstances and can be categorised based on whether they occur within or outside the workplace, and on whether they are traumatic or non-traumatic in nature.
    • There is a high prevalence of driver headspace events across different professional driving work positions due to multiple work-related stressors and increased prevalence of mental health issues.
    • Mindfulness can improve focus and emotion management and reduce distraction. It is both an everyday experience and something that can be enhanced through training. Mindfulness training has been shown to significantly improve sustained attention, working memory, distractibility, emotional reactivity, behavioural regulation, empathy and prosocial behaviours.

    New Studies since have shown driving while in an emotional state is far more likely to result in a crash than being tired or using a mobile phone.

  • Laura Buckley and Rachel GunnHealth and Safety Consultant, Group People Services, Human Resources

    CBA was an active partner of the Grey Fleet Working Group and contributed to the development of the guide.

    A key deliverable of the Working Group was the Grey Fleet Guide

    A highlight Rachel Gunn representing CBA as a panellist for Grey Fleet Video Panel – a significant risk with unique challenges