For nearly twenty years, Jessica Pereira has been helping organisations create healthier workplaces and better outcomes for their people. Recently, she launched JZP Consulting, driven by a desire to help even more people across the industry.
When Jessica talks about workplace health, she often starts with a statistic. Globally, an estimated 2.9 million people die every year from work-related causes. Most people assume those deaths are the result of serious workplace incidents.
They’re not.
“The thing that surprises people is that the vast majority aren’t from acute safety incidents at all,” Jessica explained.
“They’re from illnesses and diseases that develop over years of workplace exposures.
“That’s why health is so important. It’s not just about what happens today. It’s about understanding what might impact someone over their working life and making sure they leave work as healthy as possible.”
It’s a perspective shaped by nearly twenty years working across workforce health, hygiene and wellbeing in the mining industry.
Ironically, mining wasn’t even part of her plan.
After graduating as a physiotherapist in 2006, Jessica and her husband found themselves deciding what came next.
“We got to that point in our 20s where everyone was heading overseas. We could have travelled like a lot of people our age, but instead we decided to do something completely different.
“We took jobs in Tieri, a small Queensland mining town. I was working as a physiotherapist, and my husband was a chef. Looking back, it was one of the best decisions we ever made. It gave us confidence in ourselves, our careers, who we were as people, and reinforced the value of community and connection.”
The move also introduced Jessica to the people and communities that sit at the heart of the mining industry.
“As the local physio, I got involved with the rugby league team and started meeting people from all different parts of the community.
“Because it was a mining town, you naturally became connected to the industry. One thing led to another and eventually I found myself moving closer and closer to mining.”
That path eventually took her to Darwin, where she stepped into her first site-based role as an Injury Prevention Advisor. It was also the point she realised she wanted something more than a traditional physiotherapy career.
“I wanted a bigger challenge and I wanted to have a broader influence than helping one person at a time.”
Over the following years, Jessica built extensive experience across occupational health risk management, health surveillance, injury prevention, fatigue management, occupational hygiene, psychosocial risk management and workforce wellbeing. What kept her engaged was the opportunity to solve increasingly complex problems.
“You’re never doing the same thing for very long. You’ll finish one project and then move onto something completely different. There are always new challenges, new regulations, new risks and new opportunities to improve.
“I really enjoy understanding how things work, identifying where the gaps are and then helping organisations work out how to do things better.”
As health has become an increasingly important focus across the mining industry, Jessica has found herself leading major projects designed to strengthen both compliance and workforce outcomes. One of the largest involved integrating health and hygiene systems, governance frameworks and medical programs following the acquisition of two major coal operations.
“It was a fast-moving project with a lot of stakeholders and a lot of complexity. We delivered more than 2,000 employee medicals, integrated health systems and governance processes and worked closely with regulators, vendors and site teams to make sure everything continued operating smoothly.
“I love projects like that. There are so many moving parts and so many different people involved, but at the end of the day everyone is working towards the same outcome.”
Another major focus throughout her career has been occupational hygiene which has seen Jessica lead significant improvements in health risk management programs, helping organisations better understand worker exposure to hazards such as dust, airborne contaminants, noise and other long-term health risks.
“Occupational hygiene isn’t always well understood, but it underpins everything we do.
“If you don’t understand your health risks, you can’t effectively manage them. You need to know what your exposures are, who might be affected and whether your controls are actually working.
“Most businesses are actually quite good at planning and doing. They’ll develop policies, procedures and programs and roll them out across the business.
“Where organisations often struggle is the checking and acting part. How are you verifying that controls are working? How are you measuring effectiveness? What are you doing with that information to continuously improve?
“That’s where many of the opportunities exist. You can have fantastic systems on paper, but if you’re not reviewing them, verifying them and improving them, you’re not getting the full benefit.
“Sometimes it takes a fresh set of eyes to identify what’s working, what’s not, and where the next opportunity is.
“I often ask myself whether I’m building capability or adding capacity. Capacity is doing the work for someone. Capability is helping them develop the skills, systems and confidence to do it themselves.
“That’s where you create a bigger impact.”
That idea of broader impact kept coming up as Jessica considered her next move.
“I was at a stage of my career where I was ready to move on from a secure permanent role and I needed to back myself, and commit to setting up my own consultancy.
“My two values are courage and generosity. Courage is backing yourself and being willing to take calculated risks. Generosity is sharing knowledge, helping people and creating opportunities for others.
“When those two things come together, that’s where I feel I can have the biggest impact.”
Today, Jessica works with mine operators, contractors and other resource sector businesses, helping them strengthen health frameworks, improve health risk management, navigate regulatory change and build capability within their own teams.
She also continues to contribute to broader industry discussions through working groups, mentoring programs and industry forums.
“I’m passionate about helping organisations improve, but I’m equally passionate about helping people grow.
“We’re not here forever. We all have a responsibility to bring the next generation through and share what we’ve learned.”
Jessica believes workforce health will continue to evolve significantly in the years ahead, particularly as psychosocial risk, occupational hygiene and workforce wellbeing become increasingly important.
“We spend such a huge part of our lives at work. Yes, we need to manage risks and prevent harm. That’s incredibly important.
“But I also think we should be asking a bigger question. Can people leave an organisation healthier, more confident and better than when they arrived?
“I think that’s where we’re heading, and it’s a really exciting space to be part of.”
