Chris definition works at a macro level.

But here we are dealing with safety. And safety has to have a people focus. Therefore I reckon a definition must include people for it to have an impact.

Some thing's in life we know, some things we don't. Same with foreseeability. And these influence certainty / uncertainty.

So I'd refine it to something like "The effect of a series of events that impact on a persons safety"

Worksafe people just need to turn up to work. And the very first thing they need to do is ask:"Is what I am going to do next going to improve the safety of workers in NZ"

If they answer "no" then they don't have a justifiable job. And out the door they should go.

Who ever invented "Claude the Cat" would be one of the first out the cat door.

Again as a bit of an aside @MattD2 Employment Agreements are a bit of a simple or tricky issue, depending how you look at them.

I don't have any broad "safety" clauses in mine.

Firstly I come from a position that safety isn't negotiable. And an Employment Agreement is a negotiated document.

Secondly you can't contract out of the law - so if there is already a legal requirement for an employee to do something , eg a workers duty under the HSWWA then there is no point putting it into the Employment Agreement.

If you put stuff like that in there then you are creating potentially confusing two points of reference instead of one. You also have something else that is kept in writing - and that's always problematic.

There is, broadly, nothing to stop an employer having a conversation with an employee about potential breaches of the HSWA due to fatigue / secondary employment, without the need to reference the employment agreement.

Because if the fatigued worker comes to work and has an injury that is one more injury that goes into the pot used to calculate experience rating.

As you pointed out - its not the wages of the second employment that impacts your experience rating - its the days off / costs that do.

The wages impact is what you have to pay in total all up first week compo.

Correct.
But say you currently get a 10% discount. You want to be well within the threshold of those numbers so you don't get close to losing 10% (discount / penalty comes in 10% increments) value of your premium. And all it takes is one person (doesn't matter if it is the secondary work person or not) to have excess days off or excess treatment costs (hopefully not a fatality!) to tip you over the edge.

Say you have a $200,000 ACC premium. And say you have someone on $200k on the second job. But that person has a bad accident requiring X days off that tip you over the edge. You are now looking at a $20,000 additional ACC cost. That isn't insignificant.

( I had one employee with several ACC claims -and hes tipped me over the edge. No longer works here. Fired!)

I havent seen it tested - but you probably can.

But you would need to put it in the employment agreement that any secondary employment needs to be approved and agreed by the employer prior to the employee taking up that second employment. Simplest that way.

The alternative is to renegotiate the employment agreement at a later date and have the clause inserted by mutual agreement.

Any secondary employment not approved could be ground for termination. I'd probably run with a breach of trust and confidence line. Though I'd give the employee an opportunity to remove themselves from that secondary employment first.

And ACC, should push come to shove, is a valid reason that helps an employer coming to a justifiable position. An employer shoudlnt be exposed to unknown business risk they can't manage. Claim costs are one aspect that ACC looks at when assessing an employers experience rating. Along with claim numbers. So 1 impaired worker having an accident can impact an employers experience rating / discount/ penalty. Of course - your wouldn't run that as your sole line of argument.

On a side note, any policies introduced without consolation and agreement with employees that impact on employment can leave an employer vulnerable if they choose to enforce those polices.

A sufficient reason would be:
On assessment of the activities carried out by the employee in their other job (or activity) there is a risk that the person would come to our work so impaired as to put the safety of themselves and others at risk.

Because this isn't just about second jobs. Its about activities out side work (sports or gaming being examples) that causes the impairment.

Of course you wouldn't just willy nilly go firing they person. You'd give them an opportunity to choose.

Slightly off topic - but we should also think about our own personal safety. I spend a fair bit of time in , well lets call them dodgy places

I don't go out without this Rescue Me PLB on my person. If I end up in trouble a rescue helicopter will get to within 5m. It will also track my moving body so if I get washed away I'll still be found. Only takes one hand to operate and I figure should I ever need to use it, provided I'm conscious I should be able to get it to work.

And I also carry a small 2,000 lumen torch with strobe. Night vision googles will pretty much pick me up from one side of the island to the other.

https://www.guncity.com/rescueme-plb-1-personal-locator-beacon-319448

Blame is not a binary choice.

There are always many element to what caused an injury. And each person who played a part in any shortcomings should take responsibility for the part they played in it.

Until people accept what they did was wrong they can't atone - which is all about putting things right.

Thanks Stuart. That goes int my Darwinism At Work library.

Theres a few great "forklift Fail" videos around. But as long as we have the Official OSH Certificate we'll be right!

@Tracy IRD is pretty good at identifying "secondary Employment" ask your payroll people what tax code the person is on. If it SEC then you know you arent the primary source of income

Generally it will be a "no" to secondary employment. But as always its a case by case basis and so I dont have a policy.

I was recently looking for a welder and had a call from a guy who was interested. He already had an 8 hour job and reckoned he would be fine in my 8 hour job as well. "You're dreaming mate" was my response.

People who follow my posts know I detest policies. And I don't busy-body into peoples private lives out side our four walls.

I view "fatigue" as just a simple subset under "impairment" and so we are always on the look out for signs of impairment. Doesn't matter where it comes from - we want people here fit, able and alert to do their jobs. If not we have a wee chat.

"Acceptable risk" and "doing enough" comes with the concept of the principle of diminishing returns.

Those that ignore this principle can of course keep themselves employed indefinitely but not actually contribute anything meaningful. This is just "busy work". There is no end to doing "all we can". Which would explain the gutter cleaners I saw the other day. One ute up front with flashing lights. The gutter sweeping truck lights ablaze and flashing. Which was then followed by one of those big trucks lit up like Las Vegas with the big "X" flashing merrily away on the back. Lets put aside how blinded I was by it all and just think about the poor planet being killed by all these filthy CO2 emissions.

I'm not so sure your example of the taxi driver is a good one. "Doing enough" is making sure your taxi is in safe condition each time it is out on the road. Ie in warrantable condition every day - not one day before inspection.

This is the whole problem with certification - eg "OSH Forklift Licenses". People think they only have to prove their competence once every few years - when it should be assessed/monitored much more regularly. Despite NZ Land transport thinking you only ever need to be assessed once and you are good to go virtually forever from that point on.

The positive thing about "acceptable risk" is that the decision makers should be placed in a position to make an actual well informed decision. It does not mean just 'lets do this' without some actual constructive thought behind the issue.

I like the idea of "acceptable risk" and your distinciton between hazard maangement and risk management.

As @PaulReyneke says these are a set of very interesting cases. And the out comes will be very interesting.

And we can begin by thinking that we will do in, say wellington. We know there is an earthquake hazard. And the risk of being seriously hurt and even killed in an earthquake event isn't far away and gets closer as every single day passes.

And we can think (and I am not sure if it has ever been answered) that as the All Blacks enter the field against the South African on Saturday there is a very good chance someone is going to be seriously injured. And people pay to see that. We know that injury is absolutely imminent.

Why should White Island visitors be different?

Yes Trudy. Something like that. Say you get paid $1000 a week, you get $717 from the tax payer for paid parental leave. I'd top up $283 a week for, say six months. I'm going to have to do something for the men that take time off as well.

@julie - I have the lump sum sort of sorted. I'm offering the person who fills the gap a lump sum as compo if I bring the Maternity fixed term to an early close. Food for thought past the year mark. Best I get the first year covered first.

Do you mean cannabidiol or the medication containing THC?

I don't have a drug and alcohol policy but have in the past had at least 2 people taking this medication.

The fact they were being prescribed medicinal cannabis wasn't the issue. It was their underlying medical conditions that was the greater problem and the one causing the greater risk of impairment. Its those conditions that had to be managed.

Seems to me you, and others, are missing the critical part in the OP. Which is "What is your experience?"

Strikes me that is an open invitation for any one to express a view. Had OP wanted a specific gender response I'm sure the question might have been, say, "As a woman, what is your experience?"

And if that were indeed the case I would look forward to responses from say, the Executive Director, the 2 Business Managers and the 2 Project Managers of HASANZ who fill five out of 6 positions in that organization. Or the CEO of the Safety Council of NZ.

And as this is my 8th post in this thread, and for the sake of a better understanding, do we get judged on quantity?

I'm always one up for a challenge @robb.
I could mention, and I know I am going to get fried for this, Matilda Lang. She was the first to invent a new washing machine and she got the NZ patent for it in 1871. It was known as "Mrs Lang's Patent Economical Domestic Washing Table" She was one of earliest engineering inventors we had

It is of course quite difficult to find the first New zealand woman that did something in a field. As it is to find the first new Zealand man in a field. NZ is such a relatively young country many "firsts" were achieved offshore.

But you might be interested in one New Zealand educated woman Beatrice Tinsley. She didn't let sexism stop her from achieving. She went on to prove the universe is infinite and could just keep on expanding forever. She essentially pioneered research into how galaxies evolve,

I'm not sure it is safe to conclude that a person that doent have $5,000 in cash on hand is living pay check to check. Financially, if you have a mortgage it seems to me very sensible that you would not in fact hold cash earning a very low taxable interest rate compared with the benefit of having that $5,000 sitting off your mortgage. That's not to say people arent leaving week by week - of course they are. And I despair each time I get a phone call from a lender of last resort.

I bring up Working For Families because it guarantees a worker with a family a minimum income dependent on the number of children in that family. So the worker doesn't just get their weekly pay check. I find this a major problem with absenteeism - because if the weekly pay drops it gets topped up by WWF. And I can't get overtime done because the more a person works, the more they earn and the less WWF they get.

There is numerous reasons for absenteeism. Which has increased over the past few years. Which I attribute primarily to the increase in sick leave. People get paid more to stay at home on sick leave than they do to come to work. Mondays and Fridays, especially around long weekends / sunny days are worse. A fair bit I put down to resilience - or the lack of. This ranges from can't be bothered getting out of bed through to marital problems bogging people down - for which we provide EAP support. Theres is also the addictive element of gaming. And also low aspirations. Its a multi factor issue with many issues outside my influence. Where I can influence I try to provide solutions. Interestingly (or not) absenteeism is very low / non existent among our foreign workforce. And at the risk of getting myself into trouble with another contentious view, Nz's working conditions essentially don't change very much. These conditions ought to be well known to anyone considering having a family. Theres should really be no suprise conditions

Hand on heart I can honestly say "No" " employees taking extended leave due to injuries/medical issues covered by the policy (i.e. save on costs of overtime/temp cover, retraining for other roles, recruitment costs, etc" has not once been part of the decision making. We have the view that we are very good at solving internal work related problems. External private life problems are not ours to interfere with or try to solve. But we try to give people the tools and resources to find help themselves. Either through the medical insurance and/or EAP. I don't even blink if our EAP provided say someone would benefit from councelling. Just do it and send me the bill.

The only reason we do the health insurance is we think it is of significant benefit to the employee. If a person doesn't have $5.000 in emergency savings where are they going to find $15,000 for a replacement knee. And we insure family members - not just our worker Having their kid get eye surgery adds nothing to our bottom line.