It is probably worth reminding ourselves that the acceptance of an injury by ACC automatically bars a person from suing for or other wise seeking compensatory damages.

The flip side, of course being, if ACC does not accept a claim then an employee is perfectly free and able to pursue an employer for full compensation - whatever that might be.

Given the examples above and the fact the employer appears to accept responsibility not only for the harm but also the ensuing loss of earnings, that employer would be well advised to cough up and mitigate any potential future claim.

The Patented FARK Scale ((copyright donated to the good cause)) is available free of any charge to any member of Safeguard Forum providing there is proper attribution. (Something like Lord Andrew sounds good to me) All donations (preferable wine and red) gratefully accepted as these will be directly applied to further research

For those unfamiliar with my Patented FARK Scale ((copyright donated to the good cause)) heres a reprint from an original post some time ago.

“Fark, that was close. It nearly hit me” or “it just missed me”. Or “opps I cut myself but it only needs a plaster” That’s a Fark1 event. (I’m not instigating formal investigations for Fark1’s)

A Fark2 event might go ““Oh Fark I’ve cut myself. I need a First Aider to fix me up”

A Fark3 could be “Fark Me, you’re a mess. Best I get you to a doctor. You’re bound to get five days off work”.

A Fark 4 “You’re farked. It will take more than a doctor to fix you up so we need to plan on you having more than five days off work”

And a Fark5, is “HMOG we’re all farked!”

Farks are important as they feed my Patented FEFR (Fark Event Frequency Rate) metric which of course is the preferred alternative to LTIFR

One team I worked with had a bit of a epiphany when we changed the definition of 'near miss' to "[enter favourite expletive] that was close!"

Excellent to see my Patented FARK Scale ((copyright donated to the good cause)) taking off and becoming more main stream

Purely as some point of reference (and getting a bit off topic).
A worker on Minimum wage will earn $36,816 gross PA for a 40 hour week. 1 child on WWF = an extra $185, 2 children = an extra $277.

Bump the week up to 50 hours and gross pay goes to $46,020, 1 child WWF = $169, 2 children = $261.

Loose a weeks income due to injury, gross goes down, WWF goes up. Not like for like but a person isn't left penniless

Disc I am very familiar with a low paid, low ski/med skill local /foreign workforce. It is one of the reasons we pay medical insurance for all eligible staff. We also provide EAP services which includes budgeting advice etc. We do not provide weetbix.

As for your carpal tunnel person - if you are flogging him with a 54 hour repetitive week there may be some moral imperative to pay his first week of absence irrespective of ACC.

A low skilled foreign worker with Bursitis - I'm not liking his residency application chances. Such a person may not be eligible for NZ health care (outside of ACC) anyway so ought to be carrying own insurance

Re worker one. A Carpel Tunnel injury is substantially different injury from a Strain / Sprain. Gradual Process injures will take longer for ACC to process.

If you had him back at work doing alternative duties he had no lost time so therefore no lost earnings. When he went to the GP and got signed off work for a week, that week is his responsibility to cover - assuming its not a work related injury. From Sick leave (which he didn't have), perhaps from Annual Leave (which you could have advanced him) or on leave without pay. My messages to people to only use their sick leave for genuine serious instances of sickness often falls on deaf ears - until an event such as yours arises. As an aside he would have been getting Working For Families - the tax payer benefit that pays people to raise their children.

Re worker Number two. Bursitis of the neck is relatively rare. As for a "wry neck" I havent heard of that diagnosis before. You can expect ACC to takes its time with that one. Especially given bursitis is not just a physical injury type condition it can relate to arthritis. Also 2 weeks off seems like a lot - normally a low level condition can be self treated at home with no time off work. So ask why did he let the condition get to such a severe state. ACC questioning it (and subsequently decline) seems reasonable to me.

We have to remember ACC is essentially an insurance scheme. To get insurance cover an employee has to meet the prescribed conditions. In life there is always a risk a circumstance may no meet an insurance condition - so a person always has to have some back-up plan to mitigate that risk. (See my comments on not wasting sick leave.

The old adage of holding 3 months pay in reserve for bad time holds true in so many circumstances.

"Not sure why you feel pointing out that some things can impede rehabilitation is a bad thing, but I do appreciate the heads up on this."

???????

Hmm. Not my experience

We had a "pain in lumbar Spine" injury on 11/11/2019.

ACC wrote they accepted the claim on 14/11/2019.

I got the letter in today's mail - it was a public holiday here on Friday.

My way of getting around the 1st Week compo problem is every person is told "put the accident in the book" and I won't contest an ACC claim. So, even without this letter from ACC, if the employee had put the strain in the book I would have paid first week compo first and argued the toss later.

If it doenst go in the book its not my problem if a person struggles to make ends meet.

The other alternative is to pay Sick Leave where there is an entitlement. If a person has blown the entitlement (often due to fictitious "Flu's") then again that's not my problem.

A further alternative is to pay out Annual Leave entitlement.

There really are ways for an employer to ensure an employee doesn't struggle - if the will is there. (If you are paying out of leave entitlements, why are workers struggling?)

The growing body of evidence suggests the use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory (NSAID) medications such as Ibuprofen does not in reality lead to a stronger and more effective return to function. The evidence is now suggesting it can delay healing due to their effect on inflammation. Plus there are other potential side-effects with NSAIDs


It is well understood that the inflammatory phase of an injury has important healing properties such as stimulating and facilitating soft-tissue repair, regeneration and growth. Ergo - if you introduce drugs that inhibit that process you delay overall healing time.

You could enter the rabbit warren here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23240270

HARM aims to prevent aggravating the injury.

PEACE aims to stabilise the injury, LOVE aims to assist rehabilitation

HARM seems to focus on a negatives (and thus unhelpful) while P&L focuses on positives.

I'm not so sure about that.

From my observations, most migrants that take "lower rates of pay and more challenging workloads / conditions than Kiwis" are the vulnerable ones who will take any job and any wage simply to get a work visa. And most of these people are hired by "Small / Medium" size employers who play roulette with MBIE on getting caught.

Again, my observation, is most HSE type people are employed by Medium / Large employers who know (or ought to know) better than trying to exploit vulnerable people/migrants.

Most vulnerable exploited people I see come from India and China and arent filling the ranks of HSE professions.

Where as I do see people from UK and South Africa who do get into the profession - and they are less likely to be ripped off because they already have the points to get a decent job with a decent rate of pay (though probably less than what they earn at home) and a reasonable workload.

The thing you will find with HR folks is their hourly rate goes up $10 an hour per glass of wine consumed.

I subscribe to several rem surveys and the one I use most often shows
HR Adviser Median base salary = $73,296
OSH Adviser Median base salary= $79,986

(Do you see what I did there?)

I'm still pondering Peters original question because 20% seems very high to me.

But on the issues of pay there are a couple of elements.

Firstly employment and jobs are, broadly, a willing buyer / willing seller market. So I am not sure if it is an issue of "good pay"

The second thing is, to hire an immigrant on a NZ work visa you have to hire them at a rate of pay the same as the one advertised with the job. So if you hire an immigrant for $65,000 then the job had to be advertised at $65,000. So, again, on this basis i'm not sure if this an issue of "good pay".

From there the employer has to be able to prove there are no New Zealanders skilled or able to be trained to do the job. So maybe its not that pay is the issue, its an actual skills match. (I am struggling with this conclusion as I would have thought there were loads of ably skilled New Zealanders to do a health and safety job.)

So maybe its New Zealanders arent attracted to the 20% of jobs being filled by immigrants.

Excellent result - but shouldn't be seen as "hijacking". It should have been an agenda item and they should welcome it.

Partly because it enhances their professional development to have at least some clue. But also so they are aware of another set of Director responsibilities they undertake in exchange for their fees.

We can't get rid of the damn things. Getting to point I am looking at introducing a skill saw and cutting them down to make it much easier to take away as firewood.

Back in the old days (and I still do it now) we used to set SMART goals.

That is, goals needed to be
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic and
Time-bound

The thing I like about SMART is that it is pretty much unemotional. None of this 'inspirational" or "inspirational" waffle. Just focus on your business and get on with it.

One thing that gets people motivated to achieve is experience of prior success. Thats what SMART goals helps achieve. You can only live off "aspirational" fairy dust for so long.

I might just point out that the broad role of a Board / Director is governance.

The broad role of CEO / Senior management is Operational.

Two quite different seas to swim in.

When the smoke has settled it really is time for companies to look at this "Zero Harm" issue.

How on earth is it possible with all the forums and commitments to safety, and process and policies and high viz vests and contractor pre-selection and yah da yah da that firstly an event like a fire can be allowed to happen on a construction site. And in the event a fire does occur why there are not systems in place to put it out quickly.

It totally beggars belief that an organisation apparently committed to Zero Harm can oversee the potential destruction of a $1b international convention centre.

First Pike, now Fletchers. I am stunned!

Your definitions (at the risk of breaching the new Guidelines), to me provide ample opportunity for job creation - that is hiring people to do lots of "looking" and as a consequence of that, lots of report writing , then lots of policy writing, then lots of auditing of policy and then review of the numbers to assess the effectiveness of the policy and so the cycle goes on. And that's just silly.

Take the first three things. Diversity / Equalpay / Gender pay gaps/Rainbow tick can very simply described as a two sided coin. On one side you have "merit" (hired on the basis of talent, achievements and efffort. And then rewarded accordingly) and on the other side you have "law" - because all those things are ultimately covered by one law or another if a person can't figure out what merit means.

Your fourth example "climate emergency" is why corporate mumbo jumbo is silly - it provides people with opportunities to take one thing and apply something quite different to it. In this case climate - which can be broadly taken as a subset of environment. And then there is the opportunity to conflate "emergency" which only creates irrational thought and action. Which is silly.

Then we get to "zero harm" If we are going to have a label why don't we just call it something simple, like say "safety".

Because to some extent Labels should be taken literally. The label should do what the label says.

"In a capitalist society, we would be remiss to believe any organisation places their employees above their profits. Because if the company doesn’t make money, there are no employees"

Actually its the capitalist societies that are likely to do much better.

In a 2014 report had approximate fatality rates per 100,000 people in the labour force of:
Oceania 5.5
Europe 3.2
America 5.1

Lets call capitalism with an average rate of 4.6 per 100,000 workers.

Now compare with:
Africa 17.4
Asia 13

With capitalism, it could be argued we actually value the worker. We understand if there are no employees there are no profits.