Health and Safety Compliance
As a business owner/director/senior manager, irrespective of industry, you will have health and safety compliance demands that you must meet and will be held accountable for.
Managing health and safety at work is everyone’s responsibility. People often get hurt because nobody has thought about how the work might be dangerous. Sometimes people are harmed because they have not been trained to do their job safely. Accidents at work are very common. About 50 people are killed at work in New Zealand every year, and many more are seriously injured.
The law governing workplace safety is the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, administered by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, through WorkSafe New Zealand.
At Risk Ready, our goal is not to make health and safety compliance onerous, rather we take a very practical and pragmatic approach working with you and your teams to approach health and safety in ‘bite sized’ chunks. But it is important to know what is required.
Making NZ organisations safe by taking practical steps – one step at a time.
Health and safety at work starts with organisations identifying and understanding the risks from their work activities, particularly those that have the potential to cause people serious injury or illness. Once the risks have been assessed, organisations must decide what controls to implement, how to engage employees and steps to monitor and review the controls.
Identify and understand the risks from work activities, ensuring your Health and Safety Management regular assessments identify gaps practical recommendations implement improvements embed into the organisational culture monitor results System remains relevant and meets legislative requirements, best practice guidelines and industry specific regulations.
Check your Health and Safety Management System is working as planned and that it is relevant to your business.
Identifies strengths and key areas for improvement.
Involve workers in building the capability for health and safety improvements in the workplace.
Embed into the organisational culture – ensure everyone is involved and can have their say, as well as being aware of any changes made. Everyone benefits from a safer workplace – everyone safely home, every day.
Have a system to constantly monitor, review and continually improve your health and safety.
Getting workers involved
Worker engagement is an important part of a Health & Safety Management System. Often the best solutions will come from your workers - being the ones on the “coal face” they understand the challenges they face at work better than anyone else. Having workers engaged is part of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015. All organisations must have worker engagement practices and provide reasonable opportunities for workers to participate effectively in improving health and safety. There should be clear, effective and ongoing ways for workers to suggest improvements or raise concerns on a day-to-day basis
The more workers are involved, the more they will abide by the outcomes which will increase confidence in the organisation and boost your reputation as an employer of choice. Combined with training, your workers will have the skills and experience to carry out their work in a healthy and safe way.
Workers also have obligations and are expected to take reasonable care of their own health and safety at work and make sure they do not cause harm to themselves or anyone else.
As specialists in health and safety, Risk Ready are here to provide you and your staff with the knowledge and resources to ensure you are health and safety compliant. This will ensure you are minimising:
· Fatalities and injuries at work.
· The impact on mental wellbeing of leaders and employees in the event of a fatality or injuries.
· Fines and stop work penalties in the event of a health and safety non-compliance.
· Disruption to production from stop work penalties.
· Brand value deterioration and fall in revenue.
· Personal exposure of directors/senior management which can lead to fines or even imprisonment for non-compliance.
Read how we have helped other organisations achieve their health and safety goals or contact us today to see how we can help you with Health and Safety at your workplace.
