Hey there:) I had a recent client (called in to complete an independent review of an incident) who (long story short) had serious shortfalls - namely the at risk management of students (an educational facility). Found out after not much digging that a certain group of staff had been complaining about the unsafe practices for over a year. Pretty shocking to say the least. I advised one of the Health and Safety Reps (who I had been talking to as part of the investigation) to issue a PIN. They did so and now they HAVE TO put processes in place and was also a key recommendation in my final report. Interestingly another finding in my report was lack of transparency. The CEO didn't even mention the PIN had been issued to me and when I raised it looked completely shocked! ha! I think this is the perfect scenario to issue one. Finally some action - or as the Rep recently told me - has now opened a hornets nest! Also (and I am not surprised as I used to train rep courses) the OFFICERS didn't even know what a PIN was, so once again the importance of training for boards to enforce H and S reps are there to ensure the safety of all in the PCBU and should be seen as a positive when things are raised for them to ACTION and FIX. If not PIN is an obvious choice.

Hi Jono
I work as a nurse in a public hospital with all its resource constraints, bureaucracy and interesting challenges. I belong to a union, am a delegate and have been an active HSR.
We have utilised the complete HSR tool-box i.e. requesting H&S information, making recommendations, issuing PIN's, cessations of work (a big deal for nurses), assisting HSRs other workgroups due to local retaliation, making formal requests to WorkSafe for assistance (even though our sector is bit a foreign country), and more recently using the Protracted Disclosure Act for its relatively new inclusion of H&S in its serious wrong-doing criteria. The WorkSafe Protected Disclosure process they have set up is an innovative move for a government agency.
Definitely not smooth-sailing with retaliation and push-back, much of which could be put down to organisational ignorance/immaturity of HSWA and a person's responsibilities. As a result of this we now have a national set of user guides (about a dozen) for specific HSWA rights and HSR functions/powers to keep people on track when invoking HSWA, follow best practice processes and maintain a reasonable, balanced approach. Most of these guides has a simply form that is easily completed for that power or function e.g. one of these guides one of these is a how to deal with adverse conduct. These are all on the publicly available part of the NZNO web site (H&S tile) and are well due for an update :).
Within our health district, nurse HSR's have issued about 12-odd PINs in the last 3-4 years, all of which were upheld by WorkSafe, as a good number were challenged by the PCBU (as is their right to do so). For us, PINs are getting to the end of the road when recommendations are inadequately responded to, consultation is going round in circles and the problem still has not been addressed. Due to the ease that a lone HSR signing a PIN can be isolated and picked on, we now endeavour to use collective action e.g. aim for multiple HSR's signing a PIN with supporting signatures of staff also attached.
PINs are one of a means to improve workplace safety and every PIN submitted did bring about improvement.

Is it any real wonder that "the Officers didn't even know what a PIN was"?? Who in their right mind would choose an acronym for a safety related item that is identical to one that is so well-known as to immediately suggest that meaning? "Personal Identification Number" is not even close to the meaning that you somehow expect managers to attribute to "PIN" when safety is only one part of their role.

There's a good example of how a PIN can really turn things around on an NZISM webinar in which they interviewed James Poultney, an HSR at Silver Fern Farms. A lot obviously will depend on leadership/company culture but SFF responded really well.

Thanks for the feedback Karen. Interesting what you said about the needs of the Board to be educated also, I fully agree. H&S doesn't begin & end on the factory floor eh?

Hi Ben,

This is excellent feedback thanks very much. Very similar to my experience (hence the reason for the post), disappointingly for me the PIN was cancelled due to a legal technicality but there were enough concerns raised for WorkSafe to carry on with their own investigation which produced some interesting results. I work for a big Govt Dept. and I believe this was the first time a PIN had been issued to this particular branch so it caught a number of people on the hop. Also a good learning experience for me, for others though not so pleasant. The branch I issued the PIN to immediately referred it to WorkSafe which did not go down well with our legal branch, nor the senior safety branch who both wanted to know "Why didn't you just get the guy in for a meeting?". Big Dept, too many silos.
Thanks for replying:up:

Cheers Tanya, I'll check that out.

They don't know because no-one explained it to them. I see no conflict between between the H&S PIN and the PIN we use daily - it's all about education.

But still, I may logically expect you Jono to now understand the safety meaning for the PIN that WE use daily... Because someone explained it to you! Sometimes "we don't know what we don't know". In many fields the "experts" display their esoteric knowledge by quoting jargon to the ignorant then gloating that those folk "don't even know what I mean". Surely the answer would be for the enlightened to ensure they are understood by including (in brackets) the definition of the acronym or jargon word for at least the first few times they apply it? [eg U3A (university third age)...]