WELCOME Things have started to pick up now here at Safewise, our regular safety meetings with our management clients along with audits, reviews and new systems have our consultants and support team off to a busy start for 2020. It's hot! February is the hottest month of the year for us so it is important that we watch out for heatstroke and remember that people's sleep is most likely affected. Heat can affect people's concentration which can lead to mistakes or accidents.

WELCOME Happy New Year! The team at Safewise hope you all had a happy and safe summer break and that both yourself and colleagues have returned well rested as we know most of you had busy ends to 2019. WHAT'S NEW In 2020, NZTA will be building eight new weigh stations throughout the country and refurbish four existing weigh stations in order to better regulate and penalise overloaded trucks on New Zealand roads. In addition to the stations, scales will be built into the

Work is a busy place. Everyone has a job to do and that job must be done. Even people who love their work look forward to a break. Those of us lucky enough to close at the end of the year anticipate two or three weeks in the sun. In the meantime, we count the weeks until the next long weekend; the gap from Queen’s Birthday to Labour Day seems very long. The summer months are full of activity: socialising, gardening and generally being around people and in the outdoors. Winte

The sun is shining – most of the time – the days are longer, we are thinking about Christmas plans and holidays. At the same time we are mentally winding down – perhaps – workloads are increasing for many of us. The time of year brings happiness at the improved weather and the thought of summer and a break. It also brings more work pressure to get everything done well, and in a timely manner. This work pressure combined with the additional financial pressure of Christmas and

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

This is one of the most frequent statements I hear: health and safety is just common sense. But is this true? WorkSafe New Zealand put out a media release recently about a driver who was watering a track. He was travelling at low speed. He allowed two young boys, around 10 years old, to climb on and over the tanker truck as it was moving along. One of the boys fell off and was badly injured. No doubt the driver thought the kids were just having an adventure, and how bad coul