WorkSafe works with its clients to build and implement specific procedures and systems for their business. Simply buying a generic manual “off the shelf” and filing it away does not fulfil your legal obligations under the Health and Safety in Employment Act. Health and safety systems must be specific, active and ongoing to be effective. We can assist you to achieve this in a user friendly format that does not take all your precious time away from the day to day running of your business.

The AS/NSZ 4801 Occupational Health and Safety Management System was initially developed to provide practical steps to ensure health and safety legal obligations were met by business. Compliance with this standard will give your business assurance that statutory requirements have been met. The management system can then be certified to AS/NSZ 4801 by an independent certifying body.

An alternative to a certified system is an opportunity for clients to apply for 10%, 15% or 20% discount on their ACC levies through the Workplace Safety Management Practices (WSMP) scheme. WorkSafe will assist your business to develop and implement the WSMP systems and processes to get you to the point where you can apply for ACC approval. Contact us to see if you qualify.

WorkSafe can also develop Integrated Business Management Systems to comply with AS/NZS4801, ISO9001 (Quality Management Systems) and ISO14001 (Environmental Management Systems). Having an integrated management system for your business ensures that all of your health, safety, quality and environmental risks are identified and managed to reduce losses and increase profit.

WorkSafe will provide safety audits to AS/NSZ 4801 Occupational Health and Safety Management System to ensure that you are meeting your legal obligations. Once the requirements of the standard have been achieved, your business can then become certified to the AS/NSZ 4801 standard by an independent certifying body.

WorkSafe will also conduct pre-assessment audits to the ACC Workplace Safety Management Practices standard. This ensures that all your systems and documentation is compliant before the ACC audit, guaranteeing success and saving you time and money.

Auditing can also become part of health and safety system maintenance. Periodically reviewing your system allows you to learn from the past and make improvements for the future. If you want an independent and unbiased look at your management system, WorkSafe will provide an audit protocol to your specifications and conduct a third party audit complete with a written report and recommendations.

When an employee is seriously injured, there is a formal process involved in ascertaining the circumstances of the accident and what went wrong. This investigative process is a legal requirement and the Department of Labour (OSH) requires a detailed report. These reports can become a legal minefield if prosecution is likely.

WorkSafe will provide experienced investigative skills to assist your business in determining the “root” cause and guiding you through the appropriate corrective actions and the legal process.

Identifying and managing hazards is the underpinning premise of the Health and Safety in Employment Act, as uncontrolled hazards are often the cause of accidents.

Accidents cost money in many ways:

• You and your employees lose productive time, not just the person who is hurt
• Production time is lost while a process is down – cleanup after an accident can take time
• If there has been damage to equipment or the building, you may have substantial repair costs
• You may have to hire someone to replace an injured worker and then take the time to train the new person
• Accidents can lower the morale of the rest of the workers and hurt their productivity
• ACC levies may go up
• You will have to spend time completing paperwork about the accident
• Legal costs, fines and reparations could costs thousands of dollars.

The goal is to prevent injuries through identifying workplace hazards. We do not offer generic hazard lists, but come into your workplace and work with you to identify and manage your own unique hazards.

WorkSafe will assist you to systematically identify your workplace hazards, assess the significance of the hazard and steer you toward finding cost effective solutions to manage them through the hierarchy of controls; elimination, isolation and minimization.

 

The Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act 1992 realigned a number of other pieces of legislation. It now follows the Health and Safety in Employment Act with the same process of risk management of hazardous substances by implementing suitable controls to protect people and the environment.

Confused about exactly what health and safety training your employees need in order to meet your duties under the Health and Safety in Employment Act? This can range from training on how to use specific pieces of equipment to general training on health and safety matters.

Training is one of the most important parts of any health and safety programme. It allows workers to learn their jobs properly, bring new ideas into the workplace, reinforces existing ideas and practices, and puts your program into action. Your employees will benefit from health and safety training through fewer work related injuries, as well as reduce stress and worry caused by exposure to hazards. You benefit from reduced workplace injuries, increased productivity, lower costs, higher profits and a more cohesive and dependable work force.

WorkSafe will identify your business specific requirements and provide you with advice on training providers.

Statistical evidence shows that a significant proportion of accidents occur in the first six months of employment. Implementing induction packages and delivering internal health and safety training specific to your business ensures that employees are adequately trained to do their job safely and that they understand the basics of their duties under the Health and Safety in Employment Act.

WorkSafe will work with your business to develop induction and training material that is unique and specific to your needs.

Employers not only have a duty to ensure the safety of their own workers, but also a duty to ensure the safety of contractors and their employees. As a “principal” in the contractual relationship, you must satisfy yourself that your business has fully addressed its legal responsibilities.

WorkSafe will assist you to manage your contractors through either a pre-qualification process, or through an audit to ensure that they have all the systems and processes in place to meet their statutory obligations.

Both the Health and Safety in Employment Act and the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act require the development of procedures for dealing with emergencies in the workplace. These can be many and varied and while some are generic to all workplaces – for example, fire – some emergencies are unique.

WorkSafe offers Emergency Response Plans, tailored specifically to your business, that meet the requirements of both, and training for employees to ensure that they know what to do in any emergency.

The Health and Safety in Employment Act requires that employees be given information to safely perform their jobs. Providing step by step standard operating procedures and or specific work instructions details the hazards involved in the job, what to do in emergency situations, what personal protective equipment (PPE) should be worn and how to complete the task safely.

WorkSafe works with management and employees to develop standard operating procedures for your work processes in a format that suits your business.

Keeping track of all the things you need to do and the records to keep seems a daunting task. Yet the paper trail must be maintained – either for existing certified systems, ACC discount schemes, or in the worst case scenario, a Department of Labour (OSH) prosecution.

WorkSafe offers affordable recording systems and simple methods of keeping track of schedules.

Occupational noise induced hearing loss is now one of the most common forms of reportable serious harm in New Zealand . This insidious problem has arisen historically from previous decades when we just didn't know that loud noise destroyed our hearing. Simply issuing hearing protection to workers is not enough to meet the Approved Code of Practice requirements. Help mitigate hearing loss in your older workers and prevent it in the young ones through a workplace noise survey.

WorkSafe will assess your workplace for noise levels and provide you with colour coded site plans that specify where on site and what class of hearing protection should be worn.

GENUINE CARING FOR THE “FAMILY”
	1. Consult with employees and agree the behaviours that they want to set
	2. Management must set a good safety example 100% of the time
	3. Immediately reward good behaviour and address bad behaviour
	4. Promote a just “no blame” culture
	5. Listen, communicate and encourage employees to be involved in safety initiatives

Quality management is focused on identifying and managing the risks associated with an organisation’s profit. When poor product quality, or service quality, results in lost customers and sales, and replacement and repair of products, the profit margin can be seriously dented. Remember, without customers, a business cannot survive.

WorkSafe can help you identify your quality risks and put in place a framework to manage them so that you can provide quality products and services every time to your customers.

Auditing is an integral component of business systems maintenance. Sometimes finding the time and a person with the skills to complete internal audits on schedule can be difficult, particularly in a small organisation.  If you need assistance with internal auditing to meet certified standard requirements, WorkSafe will conduct internal quality audits complete with a written report and recommendations.

Environmental Systems, Plans and Auditing

In the current climate of New Zealand’s urge to be clean and green, more and more companies are opting to manage their environmental risks by implementing environmental management systems.

Knowing how to do this can often be difficult between understanding the requirements of the Resource Management Act and the various Regional and District plans around New Zealand.

WorkSafe can help you identify your environmental risks and put in place a framework to manage them so that you can be sure of complying with legal requirements and make your business activities sustainable for generations to come.