There are other methods to test for impairment that don’t involve testing for the presence of substances. Psychomotor Vigilance Testing appears to have a solid evidence base and I know there is at least one provider in NZ offering that service currently (see AlertMeter®️from Fatigue Risk Management solutions). This is probably most useful for those that operate plant, machinery, vehicles, etc.

This is not a new issue; people are prescribed controlled drugs (that carry a risk of impaired performance) as a matter of routine, for disorders including sleep, anxiety, pain, and depression (which coincidentally are the things people are prescribed CBD/THC medications for). Existing policies should already allow for this.

Much of this (in my opinion) is driven by stigma, prejudice, and old fashioned views associated with certain substances and really shows the limitations of some current approaches to substance testing.

Probably worth mentioning that discrimination becomes an issue if policies are not properly thought through and if decisions are not appropriately justified or consulted on (including speaking to workers who may be impacted).

Finally screening for and preventing impairment tackles the safety risk management element; reasons why people might be impaired are the health element that drug testing and compliance approaches won’t really help with.

More good points :smile:

Tōtika have received lots of constructive feedback (including yours) and are looking to tweak the web site in the new year; particularly so there is more clarity about the costs and what people have to do (so we are on it!).

I agree with your point on proximity to suppliers here in NZ. Here's my analogy:

• PQ is getting 'a ticket to the dance';
• Procurement processes are about 'trying to get a date';
• Winning work is 'getting a date' (this is about making sure a good impression is made on the first date in order to get the opportunity to develop a good 'relationship' ).

Some question I think it would be useful to seek answers for are:

• Is there value in providing tickets to the dance? If yes, what's the best way?
• In getting a date, what is the best way for a buyer to set expectations and for suppliers to show how they would meet those?
• What does a good relationship look like or what does it take to get a good relationship?
• Why would you need to keep trying to get a date with a party you are in a good relationship with and what mechanism would avoid the need?

Hi Matt,

Thanks for taking the time to contribute to the discussion.

I'll start by answering your question:

Short answer:
The long term strategy for Tōtika is to adopt evidence based solutions that increase the safety and health of work suppliers of services deliver.

Longer answer:
In the short term, Tōtika is intended to standardise PQ assessment in NZ in order to declutter the demonstrated health and safety work suppliers of services have to undertake for the buyers of their services.
In the medium term, Tōtika intends to work with buyers of services, to explore further opportunities to reduce time, trouble, and cost to suppliers of services. Linking PQ to health and safety data (which is what we are currently doing) will provide useful evidence to inform this work.
In the longer term, Tōtika (through continued collaboration with our stakeholders) will continue to monitor the scientific evidence base and industry data (including sponsoring research where appropriate), leading a move towards approaches (whatever they look like) that are proven to enhance the health and safety of the work suppliers of services are delivering.

I really enjoyed reading your perspectives and align with much of what you have to say. The only bit I didn't agree with is your first paragraph for these two reasons:

1. I am not aware of any instance where a supplier has been instructed to become a 'Supplier with Supply Chain' member of Tōtika, nor would Tōtika support such an approach. Every business signed up to receive the supplier listing service directly from Tōtika have done so as a matter of choice and that will continue to be the case. Since we moved away from taking credit card payments, I now personally speak to every single applicant for buyer access to make sure they need it before they receive an invoice. Tōtika has turned many more suppliers towards the free registration than they have accepted for the payed one.

2. In the aforementioned case the supplier is moving away from an expensive international supplier that the client has stopped using (as that client has moved to Tōtika). Without Tōtika, that client would have very likely continued with the expensive international supplier. Whatever costs are associated with that suppliers choices for PQ in the future, Tōtika will not see $1 of it and the supplier will not have to pay more than $1500 for an assessment if they use a Tōtika member scheme (it's very likely they will pay much less. They stated they were paying $4k to the big expensive PQ supplier, which means they are a relatively small company or they would have been paying much more).

Cheers

Jon :smile:

Yonny's statement isn't true. I've responded to him and have provided the facts :smile:

Hi Yonny, I'm sorry you feel you have been mislead in some way. Perhaps I might clarify a couple of facts, as I'm concerned your post will mislead others (which is what I feel you are accusing Tōtika of if I'm being honest):

• Tōtika is free for contractors and suppliers to register. For transparency, Tōtika takes an annual fee from member schemes ($5000) and an annual fee from clients/buyers of services ($1000) to cover the costs of running the portal. Currently the costs exceed our income, so CHASNZ is picking up the surplus bill to run the scheme as it grows (the system automations alone cost in excess of $10k a year).
  
• Tōtika takes zero fees from suppliers and contractors. The scheme takes no financial benefit from the assessments contractors/suppliers have to pay for.
  
• No assessment with a member scheme costs close to $2000 as you've stated. Our member scheme fees for assessments are in the range of: Cat S (Sole Traders) - $190-$298 for 2 years; Cat 1 (Smaller lower risk suppliers of services) - $320-$598 for 2 years; Cat 2 (Medium sized/high risk suppliers) - $850-$999 for 1 year; Cat 3 (Large/suppliers of very high risk services) - $1199-$1499 for 1 year.
  
• Tōtika recognises a number of other certification and assessment schemes (e.g. ISO 45001) that adequately evaluate supplier OH&S systems and don't involve pre-qualification assessment schemes.
  
• You refer to a free service - As far as we are aware there is no way to get independent assurance for your OH&S management system for free; if there is, let us know and we'll look at it. I think that it would be a tough ask to get people to give their professional services away for free - I don't, do you?
  
• The intent of the recognition scheme is that contractors and suppliers of services can choose how they get their OH&S management system independently evaluated from our range of options and that all their clients will recognise that one thing - that represents significant savings in terms of time, trouble and cost.
  
• All of these facts are laid out clearly in the scheme documents that are available on the front page of the website: http://www.totika.org

Fundamentally, Tōtika has been established as a not for profit mechanism to give suppliers and contractors maximum cross-recognition for their H&S compliance efforts. We accept H&S pre-qualification isn't perfect and we are working hard to incrementally move NZ's approach to something better for everyone. Unfortunately you can't wave a magic wand and fix the whole system overnight - change is incremental and the solution is always going to be the Best Acceptable Solution, not the perfect one.

Feel free to email me if you want to continue the discussion - jonatchasnzdotorg

Here's an example of me getting it wrong:

Before I became a OH&S Professional, I worked in civil engineering. I was leading a piece of work, where I was supervising the construction of an experimental pavement structure (a road). The work was complicated and as it was a research project, required high levels of accuracy. I had hired in multiple pieces of plant and due to the nature of the work, had hired in very highly skilled operators at great expense. As with all construction projects, deadlines and budgets are a factor of stress and concern.

On this particular day, 'things' were happening and as usual for construction, we were treading a fine line on progress to the plan. I had done everything I could to plan and anticipate problems. One of those things is that I had expressly asked our Transport Manager to ensure we had a full diesel tank (it was a 30,000 litre tank and normally we only needed to fill it every now and again - it was his job to check it regularly and ensure it didn't drop below 1/4 full), so the plant could fill up as they needed to. Our excavator and dumper truck were running low on diesel, so went to the on-site pump (right next to where we were working) to fill up and found it was empty. Everything stopped! I lost my sense of humour and summoned the Transport Manager. He arrived and I let him have it; both barrels! After he had recovered from the 'telling off' (which to be honest is putting it very mildly) he contacted our supplier and ordered a tank re-fill - the earliest they could get to us was the next day. I'm now paying for plant and people to do nothing for the rest of the day, so when he broke that news he got a second dose of my wrath.

The tank got filled the following day and work continued. The project finished on time, to budget and the research project was a successful. All good, right?

Wrong! Here's what I didn't know:

-The Transport Manager was having issues (with his workload, his relationship with his boss, and his health).
-He had checked the tank, ordered fuel, but the order was lost by the supplier.
-My on-site team who witnessed the outburst made sure if anything similar happened in the future, I didn't know about it.
-I experienced a number of challenges in the future, that the Transport Manager could have helped me with, but he didn't because of the way I had treated him.
-I started to find it hard to get internal staff to work on my projects, because weirdly people don't like being shouted at when they make mistakes.

I acted appallingly. I thought that was the way front-line leadership was done in my industry - it had worked for me before. I didn't see any reason to change, as I was always rewarded for meeting deadlines, budgets, and other important project outcomes.

Fortunately, I had a few good mentors at that place. They helped me to understand the importance of good relationships. They showed me the value of receiving bad news and responding with questions, rather than actions. I did better; I became a better leader and immediately started to see the longer term benefits for me and the people I worked with.

In the words of Sydney Dekker, "Blame is like pissing in your pants; you get immediate relief, then you feel uncomfortable, and ultimately end up looking stupid".

(dedicate to Bob - a great guy who I apologised to then and do so now)

They are working on it; most recent information is early in the new year :-)

Totally with you Matt.

The reality is that system change is difficult to achieve and must be incremental to allow everyone to move at a pace they are comfortable.

We all know the current situation is poor, there are lots of people with ideas about what could be done instead, but none able to articulate how the change can be practically achieved.

Tōtika is there to provide an opportunity for the system to incrementally shift to something better (once we know what that is); the reality is, we can't wave a magic wand and move to utopia - noone would like that even if we knew what utopia is.

Science has been telling us that TRIFR's are statistically not significant and not a measure of safety, but a poor measure of productivity for more than 20 years. Most seem to be still doing that too.

Hi Tony, Great comments.

To clarify the references I provided don't actually justify pre-qualification, they provide evidence that OH&S management systems do provide benefits to safety. Pre-qualification can be a way to gain assurance organisations have OH&S management systems, but there are likely better ways to do that.

The papers referenced are not models or theories (except 1). They are peer reviewed scientific papers that provide evidence for the principle being discussed. I would be delighted to send you copies of the any of the papers referenced if you would like to read them. I would recommend in particular Rae et al. (2019) as it offers a model that supports the perspective you have raised.

On your proposal:
If 12 questions are provided to suppliers, who decides what the 12 questions are?
Who pays to assess the answers to those questions?
How would they be assessed?

You are very welcome. I've added comments in the other threads linked earlier that may be of broader interest :-)

The fault in mine for being tardy; I thought I would anyway in case it was useful to others. Thanks for supporting is Don; change is hard :-)

Might have missed the bus here, but in case it's still useful:

H&S PQ is a good example of 'demonstrated safety work' (Rae & Provan, 2019).

It's the very first (and least important) stage in a Supplier Selection Process. It really only can assure the buyer of services that the suppliers who are able to tender for work have an appropriate H&S management programme (suitable and sufficient for the type of business they are).

Research shows that work-related accident and fatal accident rates can be significantly reduced by implementing a suitable OHSMS (Yoon et al. 2013).

A written and comprehensive H&S management programme is effective in helping reduce H&S risk for construction businesses (Hallowell and Gambatese 2009)

Investment in a suitable H&S management programme is shown to be a good investment (Bayram, Ünğan, and Ardıç 2017)

The attention created by the adoption of a management programme opens possibilities for giving priority to key OHS issues in the business (Uhrenholdt Madsen et al. 2020)

Using system levers to require businesses to have a structured and proportional H&S management programme tends to have positive safety benefits (Frick and Kempa 2011)(Frick 2011)

The problem is that pre-qualification processes are overcooked, overcomplicated, expensive, confusing, and bureaucratic.

Prequalification is the 'ticket to the dance' - 'getting a date' is a different conversation and where the energy and effort should be.

Tōtika has been developed to de-clutter H&S Pre-qualification in NZ and move the conversation forward.

References:

Frick, Kaj. 2011. “Worker Influence on Voluntary OHS Management Systems – A Review of Its Ends and Means.” Safety Science 49(7):974–87.

Frick, Kaj, and Viktor Kempa. 2011. Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems: When Are They Good for Your Health? Brussels: ETUI.

Hallowell, Matthew R., and John A. Gambatese. 2009. “Construction Safety Risk Mitigation.” Journal of Construction Engineering and Management 135(12):1316–23.

Rae, A., & Provan, D. (2019). Safety work versus the safety of work. Safety Science, 111, 119–127. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2018.07.001

Uhrenholdt Madsen, Christian, Marie Louise Kirkegaard, Johnny Dyreborg, and Peter Hasle. 2020. “Making Occupational Health and Safety Management Systems ‘Work’: A Realist Review of the OHSAS 18001 Standard.” Safety Science 129:104843.

Yoon, Seok J., Hsing K. Lin, Gang Chen, Shinjea Yi, Jeawook Choi, and Zhenhua Rui. 2013. “Effect of Occupational Health and Safety Management System on Work-Related Accident Rate and Differences of Occupational Health and Safety Management System Awareness between Managers in South Korea’s Construction Industry.” Safety and Health at Work 4(4):201–9.

I know your post was a while ago (apologies, I haven't been on here in a while). Here is the link to our most recent version of our assessment standard - Tōtika Questionnaire Guidance and Minimum Evidence Required

Yes and yes; we are working on it I promise you :-)

Just augmenting the comments with few points of my own:

1. The purpose of H&S pre-qualification is 'for a supplier of services to demonstrate to a buyer of their services that they have a health and safety management programme suitable and sufficient for the type of business they are'. It cannot (and should not) do more than that.

2. Assurance around a suppliers capacity and approach to manage project/contract specific risks isn't (and cannot) be achieved through a PQ process. That requires buyers of services to specify specific expectations on specific procurement documents (e.g. ROI's, RFPs etc.) and have a process of evaluating individual supplier responses to those expectations (and picking the one that provides the best approach for that work or contract). After the appointment of a supplier, the buyer can then request the suppler to expand on the detail of how exactly they will meet their H&S expectation for that project/contract, which will produce a bespoke and comprehensive H&S management plan. From this specific measures can be developed to monitor supplier performance on H&S and provide a performance review mechanism to ensure both supply chain leader and supplier can learn, improve, and enhance a better relationships in the future.

3. The stuff in 2. above generally isn't happening because we are overcooking the H&S pre-qualification process. De-cluttering pre-qualification (the demonstrated safety work), provides both supplier and buyer more capacity to deliver improved procurement processes that can focus on the safety of the work people do and improve relationships between people and organisations.

4. The intent of Tōtika is to standardise, cross-recognise, and de-clutter H&S pre-qualification across industries. Moving to a world where suppliers choose one method that suits them to prequalify for all of their buyers is necessary if we are going to improve how H&S is integrated into procurement, with a focus on improving the environments our peole actually work in.

5. Tōtika recognises that approaches such ISO 45001 (and for smaller suppliers Q-Safe and SafePlus Onsite Assessment) do a much better job of this than 'desktop' pre-qualification assessments.

6. Tōtika Core Requirements initially included an onsite assessment to augment the desktop assessment for larger/higher risk businesses. On implementation we received significant push back from industry suppliers, so this requirement has been suspended for the next year or so and will be re-introduced at a time industry stakeholders feel it is appropriate.

Sorry it's a lot. Fundamentally Tōtika is new, not another pre-qualification scheme, and as far as our research tells us the best chance we have of exiting the current swamp. Happy to discuss better ideas if anyone has any; email me at jonatchanzdotorg and I'll set up a call.

Hi Steve, no it isn't that. Tōtika is not another pre-qualification scheme and has been developed with government funding (as a not-for-profit initiative) to cross-recognise efforts already being made. This is our best chance to sort this mess out. I'm always happy to hear constructive feedback and listen to ideas on how to do this better, so please reach out if you wish to discuus the issue - my email: jonatchasnzdotorg

Hi Keith, I'm sorry to hear you feel that way about Tōtika. Your comments are appreciated and not representative of the feedback we are receiving from buyers and suppliers across multiple industries.

I'd be happy to have a personal chat if you like, in order to better understand your perspectives and see if there is anything we might do to improve. Here's my email if you are up for a discussion jonatchasnzdotorg.

Hi Andy, You may choose to register with Tōtika for free. Once you have done that you can upload your ISO 45001 certificate and most recent audit report. We will then list you until you are due your next audit. After your next audit just repeat the process (an so on every year) - no cost to your business.

Tōtika is in a period of exponential growth with many of NZ's largest Supply Chain Leaders recognising the listed status. That means for businesses who are investing in ISO 45001 should not need to undertake prequalification assessments. If you find a Supply Chain Leader not recognising Tōtika, or not aware of the scheme, pass on their details and I'll give them a call. :-)

That's correct Tony :-)

Great comment! The Tōtika Scheme recognises ISO 45001 certifications as an alternative to pre-qualification assessments.
An issue that is arising is that not all auditors are the same, therefore not all certifications are the same. The Tōtika scheme will only recognise an ISO certification that is issued by an approved body of an IAF member/signatory organisation (i.e. JAS-ANZ). I'm seeing many organisations with ISO certifications from auditors who are not covered by the IAF structure and therefore there is no independent assurance around impartiality and competence.