RECENT NEWS

Last week I was asked to meet with an organisation to talk about providing health and safety support to them. This happens frequently, which is just as well, or I wouldn’t have a business. Why am I writing about this meeting – what was different about it? The difference is that I had first spoken to them a few years ago. Three years ago, we had almost the same conversation. I told them what Safewise could do to support them and they talked about being able to do it themselves

WorkSafe New Zealand have just released the first sentencing under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015. This was for a machinery guarding incident; a worker had his hand caught, and lost most of his fingers. The company had identified a problem with the guarding six weeks prior to the incident, but had not taken any action towards fixing it. The fine was $100,000 which is an increase from $30,000 to $40,000 under the old Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992. The fine w

As business owners, or managers, there are a few things that can keep us awake at night: paying the bills, having enough work, having too much work, and our workers having an accident. Accidents do happen, our job is to put systems in place to prevent them. One way we can do this is by investigating all accidents. This includes accidents which result in injury, and those that result in property damage. It’s also essential that we investigate near misses. These are a golden o

The NZ Herald recently had a couple of articles about a car versus a bus accident in Te Anau. The first photo I saw was the burnt wreck of both vehicles. However, the second article I saw showed the vehicles fully alight, flames leaping high, and black smoke filling the sky. The article read that the man inside the car was screaming for help. Around the same time, there was a fatal car versus train incident near Matamata. The photos, and story, about the Te Anau accident app

Recently I undertook site audits for a client who is helping with the Edgecumbe disaster recovery. It was very interesting to see the damage, and the clean-up which is underway. It was also heart breaking looking at the mess - the damaged houses were somebody’s pride and joy. Whilst I was in Edgecumbe, I heard a lot of people saying that no one could have predicted the floods. That may be true, but, as business owners or managers we should be identifying the potential emerge

There are many things that an employer or manager does to ensure the safety of their workers; remember that workers include contractors, sub-contractors and other people. Some of these things are: Induction – making sure workers know about how we do health and safety in our organisation. Training – making sure workers know the best and safest way to do their tasks. Supervision – providing an experienced worker to watch over a worker who may be new, or new to the task.