Hi Sonya

One way to get the staff to engage is to have behavioral based safety topics with the focus on what behavior led to the incident and what behaviour needs to change to ensure that it does not happen again. The staff are given a camera to show it the correct way and the incorrect way and has to present the topic at the monthly toolbox. Fun way to engage the staff.

Crosswords, quizes and games are also fun


Some good resources
https://safetree.nz/resources/tailgate-talking-topics-for-forest-farmers/

https://safetyculture.com/checklists/toolbox-talk-templates/

https://www.business.govt.nz/risks-and-operations/health-and-safety/great-toolbox-talks/

From my experience I tend to shy away from using the word safety culture and try to focus on the culture as a whole in the organization exploring avenues of participation and engagement that encourages two way communication. A lot of focus is on the quality of the leadership but when auditing have noted that the softer skills such has how to build a good culture, facilitation skills and training coursed on the internal systems and processes are lacking. The foundation at what is in place within the organization requires better review.

Q3 I agree with Nadine McDonnell to a point. Having worked in various industries over the years I have found that when there are disagreements between workers and management generally management will adhere to a disputes or performance management processes. This is prevalent in the corporate environment. I have found dispute resolution more effective in a unionized environment as the employee will have a union rep assigned to them as a representative to support the employee as the management have the support of HR. Most successful program I have come across for dispute handling is where the company had trained certain members of staff as mediators who staff could call on to handle disputes. My recommendation would be to add mediation and facilitation training as part of core soft skills for the HSE reps and management as part of the learning an development program, providing time for workshops and meetings as required so that all staff feel that they have representation and a voice when it comes to health and safety disputes

Hi Steph

For starters I would start with looking at starting with a risk profile by establish what risk are in your business, what incidents could happen which would lead to these risks and what controls you would put in place to mitigate the risk.

Start simple by drawing up a table with the following heading:
Risk Identification
Events that could cause possible harm
Rating (stick to medium, high or low)
Control
Monitoring mechanism
https://worksafe.govt.nz/managing-health-and-safety/managing-risks/how-to-manage-work-risks

Once done you can look at the "events" column and do your classifications. This is best done in a group environment.

Worksafe around the block is a good starting point to get an idead of the different potential classifications and contols
https://worksafe.govt.nz/the-toolshed/tools/around-the-block/

Keep the classifications simple e.g
Property damage covers vehicle, plant and equipment
Near miss is a accident that almost happens
Injury is anything that touches the body (Report only, First Aid Injury, Medical Treatment Injury, Loss Time Injury and Fatality)
Secuity - theft
Community - effect other businesses
Environmental - oil spills

Regards
Tracy R

I find these links quite useful

https://www.nzism.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Changing-from-Hazard-to-Risk-Management-May-2016.pdf

https://safetree.nz/2017/08/09/why-we-need-to-focus-on-critical-risks/

https://safetycharter.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/ACC-Critical-Risk-Cards.pdf

Frankly the person who imobolized the car is clearly of an adverse mental state not thinking of the consequences of their actions. With all the media coverage lets hope he is not that thoughtless and irresponsible again

The attitudes are generally influenced by the type of culture within the business. If the leaders do not lead change and set the example the culture will not change. if the people leaders are disinterested in the welfare of their staff, don't give feedback on issues and are proactive this staff will not report incidents, engage or participate. I would recommend doing some research into behavioural based safety and implementing some initiateives around that

The focus should be examining the cause of the human error. In too many companies this is used as a part of a blame culture, instead of a learning culture and determining what behaviors led to the incident occuring and what behaviour's need to change to chnage to prevent re-occurance

It depends on the type of working environment and what the workers are exposed to. I generally recommend pre-employment medical and annual monitoring thereafter. The exit medical should be done as part of a comprehensive health monitoring program

Hi Julie

I have come across this in numerous organizations where the HR function takes on the accountability of the HSE. I find that the problem is mainly the lack of understanding on the basic fundamentals of health and safety, what the requirements for the organization are and what needs to be done.

I have attended HSE conferences where the HR Managers send the HR advisors to attend not realizing that they need to have a basic understanding of HSE legislation, due diligence and duty of care.

Most of the time you will find that the lack of knowledge is due to lack of training at the senior and mid management level. Most companies have HSE systems but for some reason is not part of the leadership training.

A comprehensive training program would include training for the board members in regards to the HSE legislative responsibilities, what is the meaning due diligence means, the purpose of a health and safety management system, what is expected from them, what Key Performance Measurement (KPIs) and Key Performance Measurements (KPMs) are, etc.