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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. Toolbox meetings – discussing what we are about to do and how it will be managed, including the hazards and risks and how to manage them SOPs – standard instructions for tasks. PPE – providing workers with the most appropriate personal protection Checklists – machinery, plant and site. Despite all this, our workers still get hurt, or do the task without paying due attention to safety or quality. Nothing beats looking. One of the best tools in our safety toolbox is our eyes. Site reviews, and talking to the workers on the job, are very powerful tools. This allows us to identify work being done well, work being done not so well, and any problems on site. It doesn’t matter if the site is construction or transport, etc. There will always be a place or task we can look at. Recently, I was on a construction site. I had visited this site weekly for a few weeks prior to this incident. The organisation is very reputable and takes working safely seriously. On none of my previous visits had I identified any major problems. This visit we saw a worker using a concrete saw without water, without a mask, and without hearing protection. We contacted the site manager immediately who addressed the situation instantly. The worker only had a small job to do and decided to do it without following proper procedure; he believed that it would take longer to do it safely. Clearly, people will take short cuts if they think they will get away with it. The second step is to act. If you identify anything wrong, you must address it at once. If it is left, you send a message that it’s okay to take shortcuts. That you will only address concerns once the job is done. If you identify concerns, you should follow up to make sure the correct actions have been taken, and that the concern is not recurring. How can Safewise help? Safewise can help find any potential issues in your workplace through site visits, toolbox meetings and the various other services we offer. Let us help make your workplace safer, get in touch.

PCBUs PCBU means person conducting a business or undertaking. This is the entity of the business, so Safewise is a PCBU. It is not a person unless the business is a sole trader. The current act says the employer must provide a safe place of work but in the new Health and Safety at Work 2015 Act the PCBU has the primary duty of care for the health and safety of workers and others in the workplace. As far as is reasonably practicable they must: Provide and maintain safe plant and structures Provide and maintain safe systems of work Provide safe use, handling and storage of plant, substances and structures Provide access to adequate facilities Provide information, training and supervision Monitor the health of workers and the conditions of the workplace to prevent injury or illness Accommodation provided to workers that is owned or managed by the PCBU because other accommodation is not reasonably available must be in good condition. If you are self-employed and have no workers you are still a PCBU; you are responsible for your own health and safety while at work. Specific responsibilities for PCBUs who design, manufacture, install plant, substances and structures. The PCBU is required to ensure that any fixtures, fittings, plant, substance or structure is fit for task and without risks to the health and safety of any person. The PCBU must identify and inform the user of any hazard or risk, and the means of controlling these. How can Safewise help? Safewise can help you determine and manage the roles and responsibilities that you and your workers have in your organisation. We work with numerous business, big and small, helping them achieve safer places of work. If you would like help with the health and safety aspect of your business, or have any questions, please get in touch.

Summer is the favourite season for many of us. We love the long days, the hot weather and the chance to be outside. Whether socialising or working in the garden, summer is fun. Last year, summer was incredibly hot, and workers were becoming tired and distracted by the middle of the afternoon. Safewise would, on average, investigate two serious harm (now notifiable events) incidents a year for our clients. Last summer there were four in January alone. Each of these involved different industries, different number of workers, and different outcomes. What they had in common was the temperature, the length of the workers’ shifts, and their return to work after a holiday. As an employer, I ensure my workers have a reasonable break over the Christmas period. We take three weeks off, and there are a lot of long weekends at the beginning of the year. I expect my workers to come back refreshed, enthusiastic and ready to work. They do, but they also come back thinking about the time spent at the beach, the parties or family gatherings, and wishing it had lasted a bit longer. Sometimes they are focused on the next long weekend and getting back to the beach. As PCBUs we need to take reasonably practicable steps to keep our workers safe and that includes their mental and physical states. We often ignore workers’ mental states, but a distracted worker is a dangerous worker. Spend time with your workers to ensure their minds are on the job. Go over your instructions and ask them to describe the processes they will be taking. If this is a new task, or one they have little experience with, think about refresher training. The physical state of a worker is much easier to manage. Ensure they are protected from the weather with sunscreen and sunhats, but also they keep hydrated. Make cold water available to them, and plan the work so they are not outside, or making complex decisions, in the hottest part of the day. Distraction and fatigue are two leading causes of accidents. A little consideration of the workers’ needs goes a long way towards preventing accidents. It will also give you a worker who is happy to be back.. How can Safewise Help? Whether it's offering advise to maintain the safety and morale of your staff, or investigating a notifiable event, our consultants will do their best to ensure the safe and efficient running of your organisation. For information on how we can help you, contact us.

There is a lot to think about when we are working. We need to be sure that we are doing the job to the best of our abilities: quality, efficiency, and safely. Often we are focused on the task and presume that other people around us are aware of how and what we are doing.. However, this is not always the case. It is easy to assume that, because we understand our job very well, other people have the same knowledge. This is seldom the case. It can help to know what types of people are present. If you are delivering product to a construction site, you should be inducted and given information about the site. This would indicate that the other people on the site are aware of what work is being carried out, and the potential risks to them. If you are delivering or collecting from a farm as another example, there is more likelihood that there will be people on site who need supervision. This may include children. In either case, there could be people who are new to the task, or who are visitors. These people may not understand how hazardous your task is. They may assume that a tipper truck will never roll over, or a load never falls off the far side when unloading with a forklift, or that the dust or noise you are will not impact on them. As the person carrying out the task, you are responsible for the safety of yourself and those around you. Before starting work, make sure everyone in the same area is aware of what you are going to do. Make sure they understand the no-go areas or the PPE (personal protective equipment) they must wear. If you need their help, be very clear that they know what you expect of them. Go over the process as many times as necessary. Establish the communication method you will use. Practice the hand signals. Check they have the correct PPE and they know how to use it. Obviously, the more often you work with a person, the more you will trust their understanding. Look at each task as a new situation and be sure that the health and safety of yourself and others is the first thing you do. Stop and review this at any time you lose sight of the other people, or if you change the process, or if something doesn’t feel right. How can Safewise help? Here at Safewise, we have experienced and skilled consultants who are able to advise on carrying out your day to day tasks safely and efficiently. Whether its on a construction site, a farm, or in an office, we are able to offer personalised services to help ensure the safety of your work place. For more information, contact us .

People talk a lot about the work–life balance, but what does it mean? Life cannot be divided up into equal parcels of time, or commitment; half my life will be spent working and half my life will be my own. The world is not that simplistic. We all need to work, unless we are lucky enough to have won Lotto. Sometimes our work will dominate our lives. For me, this year has been a lot about work. Safewise has been busy with the demand created by the implementation of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015. This has impacted significantly on my ability to interact with my family and my friends. When this happens for a short term, or a defined period, we can cope. We work hard, and then we pick up the pieces of our lives and move on. Other times, our personal lives will take priority. This may be due to the arrival of a new baby, or a sick parent, for example. The important thing is that we communicate with the people in our lives, our family and our friends, or our boss or fellow workers. We let them know that we have demands on our time, and what we would like from them. However, there can be a major impact on the health and safety at work when a worker has some personal issues. These may be happy or sad, but they take the worker’s concentration away, creating a risk of inattention resulting in an accident. Getting to know your workers can help prevent accidents. Workers do not need to tell you the full details of their life, but they will appreciate the support you can provide. How can Safewise help? We work with organisations that need more health and safety knowledge, or more time, than they have. For more information, contact us.

Last month we discussed reasonably practicable steps. The Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 talks a lot about doing what is reasonably practicable. It requires that an organisation does what any other organisation would be expected to reasonably do. Let’s look at an example which can be quite common in the transport industry – overloading. Firstly, we will assume that the transport operator does not want to have overloaded vehicles. Consider what are the ways the vehicles can be overloaded. This may be: The load is too heavy for the GVM and GCM. The load may be uneven and too heavy for the axle set even if it is within the above limits. This can involve vehicle handling considerations. Taking each of these points, consider what is reasonably practicable to do. The load is too heavy for the GVM and GCM Does the operator/driver know the loading limits of the vehicle? If not, provide some training and be sure that he/she understands what they mean. Does the operator/driver know the weight of the load? This can be assessed in a variety of ways: the load can be weighed on a set of scales in the warehouse; the individual products can be weighed before being loaded onto a pallet; there may be access to a weighbridge; bulk loads can be estimated by knowing the capacity of the loader bucket; the loader bucket may have scales; the truck may have scales; and so on. The load is uneven Does the operator/driver know the axle ratings of the vehicle? Do they understand about vehicle dynamics and how to load the vehicle evenly? If not, provide some training and be sure that he/she understands what vehicle dynamics mean; too much load at the rear of the vehicle affects the steering and too much load at the front of the vehicle may cause the rear to lock up. The load must also be even left to right or the vehicle may not corner or stop well. The driver is responsible for the load. He or she needs to give some direction about how the vehicle(s) are loaded. This may mean that the load needs to be moved or redistributed to be within loading limits, and to ensure good handling. Applying reasonably practicable steps is not difficult. It may require some thought, and consideration must be given to every step of the process. There is usually plenty of reference material to support this process. For instance, the New Zealand Truck Loading Code should be used in the above example. How can Safewise help? We work with organisations that need more health and safety knowledge, or more time, than they have.

The Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 replaced serious harm with notifiable events. The actions we take are the same: look after the people, freeze the scene, and call WorkSafe NZ as soon as possible. However, the definition has been causing a lot of confusion. A notifiable event means any of the following events that arise as a result of work: • the death of a person; or • a notifiable injury or illness; or • a notifiable incident. (Your health and safety manual should contain a full definition.) Recently, Steve Wong from WorkSafe NZ spoke to the Waikato branch of the New Zealand Institute of Safety Management (NZISM) to clarify the definition. He directed us to the WorkSafe website where there is a useful fact sheet. Points to Note The following are some of the major queries we have had: How can Safewise help? We are able to help update your health and safety information. For more information, call Safewise Ltd on (078504387), check the website www.safewise.co.nz or email us at office@safewise.co.nz, tracey@safewise.co.nz, or laura@safewise.co.nz

Safeguard magazine (May/June 2016) outlined the workplace death toll from January to the end of April 2016. This has been confirmed by WorkSafe NZ but does not include road, air or maritime deaths. These are counted under different categories. So far there have been 19 workplace fatalities. Nineteen people who are not going home to their families. Families and friends of 19 people who will always have a gap in their lives. Who are they? They are all men, although two are children. One was seven years old and drowned, and the other was three years old and was crushed in a timber yard. The other men range in age from 31 to 74 years of age. This is often a surprise as we tend to think of the young guns being the ones who take risks. It’s important to remember that older people have accidents too. Younger workers are more likely to have accidents because they don’t understand the systems, or the power of the machinery. They may not raise issues but will work within, or find a way around, a system so they can get the job done. Older workers may become complacent and not pay full attention or take shortcuts because they know the job so well. This doesn’t allow for daily variations, which can have a big impact. Older workers do not always adapt well to changes in technology. Also, they start to have physical limitations, such as finding it hard to turn their heads to look behind them. The industries these men worked in ranged from forestry to agriculture, from transport to construction. Many of them were killed by machinery or plant rolling or crushing them. What can we learn? Often the answer to an accident investigation is “they should be more careful” or “we need to do more training”. Being more careful is not a robust health and safety solution. We need to have systems in place that make it easy for a worker to do their job the right way; this makes being more careful unnecessary. Further training can be a great idea but it depends on the training. For instance, what training would you give a truck driver with 20-plus years’ experience? They already know how to drive a truck. Teaching them how to drive will only alienate them and make them resistant to learning. However, if we think outside the normal range of training there are usually options that are helpful. You could set up some fuel efficiency training. This could be set up as a competition to save fuel, which makes it more interesting. How can Safewise help? Safewise are experienced accident investigators and can help your business with any accident related matters. Further to this, Safewise offers health and safety mentoring and assistance to help prevent any accidents from occurring.

Safeguard Magazine (May/June 2016) outlined the workplace death toll from January to the end of April 2016. This has been confirmed by WorkSafe NZ but does not include road, air or maritime deaths. These are counted under different categories. So far there have been 19 workplace fatalities. Nineteen people who are not going home to their families. Families and friends of 19 people who will always have a gap in their lives. Who are they? They are all men, although two are children. One was seven years old and drowned, and the other was three years old and was crushed in a timber yard. The other men range in age from 31 to 74 years of age. This is often a surprise as we tend to think of the young guns being the ones who take risks. It’s important to remember that older people have accidents too. Younger workers are more likely to have accidents because they don’t understand the systems, or the power of the machinery. They may not raise issues but will work within, or find a way around, a system so they can get the job done. Older workers may become complacent and not pay full attention or take shortcuts because they know the job so well. This doesn’t allow for daily variations, which can have a big impact. Older workers do not always adapt well to changes in technology. Also, they start to have physical limitations, such as finding it hard to turn their heads to look behind them. The industries these men worked in ranged from forestry to agriculture, from transport to construction. Many of them were killed by machinery or plant rolling or crushing them. …this is often a surprise as we tend to think of the young guns being the ones who take risks… What can we learn? Often the answer to an accident investigation is “they should be more careful” or “we need to do more training”. Being more careful is not a robust health and safety solution. We need to have systems in place that make it easy for a worker to do their job the right way; this makes being more careful unnecessary. Further training can be a great idea but it depends on the training. For instance, what training would you give a truck driver with 20-plus years’ experience? They already know how to drive a truck. Teaching them how to drive will only alienate them and make them resistant to learning. However, if we think outside the normal range of training there are usually options that are helpful. You could set up some fuel efficiency training. This could be set up as a competition to save fuel, which makes it more interesting.

Let’s talk about some of the urban myths that are being taken as the truth. There has been a lot of panic about the new Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, and it hasn’t been helped by the scaremongering tactics that are being employed by some people. Unfortunately, some of those people are so-called health and safety consultants. If you are intending to use a contractor you should check their skills, experience and qualifications. There are some people taking advantage of the change in legislation to make a quick buck. I’ve been told: • We can’t lift more than 20 kilograms There is an approved code of practice (ACOP) in place to help you manage manual handling. The ACOP doesn’t state any maximum weight. This is something that needs to be assessed at each workplace and for different situations. The weight depends on other factors: size of the package, shape of the package, how awkward it is pick up or carry, where it is being moved, the posture of the worker and the strength of the worker, etc. • Mobile scaffolds must be erected by certified people Mobile scaffolds must be erected by a certified scaffolder if more than five metres high, otherwise, they must be erected by a competent person. A competent person is one who has the skills and knowledge to carry out a particular task (Best Practice Guidelines for Scaffolding in New Zealand). • The boss will go to jail if a worker is drinking at work and has an accident on the way home This has been a problem area for a long time. Friday night drinks are an institution in New Zealand and this doesn’t need to change. What should be in place is a policy about managing drinking. The policy may include: a time-frame for the social event (start and finish time), there is no drinking in the workplace when the boss leaves, a statement that it is not acceptable to drink and drive, a list of contact numbers for alternative transport (taxis, dial a driver and so on). There should be a limited amount of alcohol, as well as soft drinks and food. • Principals must put their houses in trusts There are many valid reasons for putting a house in a trust, so I am not suggesting it is a bad idea. However, it is not necessary to do so if the school and principal are taking the correct steps to manage health and safety in the workplace. The school has an obligation to identify hazards and risks and to manage these. In fact, the duty of care has been in place for many years. • WorkSafe inspectors will come into my home This is completely untrue. The act is called the Health and Safety at Work Act for a reason. WorkSafe inspectors may enter your workplace at any time. They have no authority or power to enter your home. Having said that, I am always surprised by the way kiwis do the right thing at work; wear PPE, use guarding and so on, but think it’s okay to do the same job at home in jandals and with no consideration for safety. How can Safewise help? We are able to help update your health and safety information. For more information call Safewise (07 850 4387), check the website www.safewise.co.nz or email us at office@safewise.co.nz, tracey@safewise. co.nz or laura@safewise.co.nz *Extract from New Zealand Trucking Magazine 2016