I totally agree that the current situation is a bit of a 'swamp'. The purpose of H&S PQ is to provide the buyer with assurance that the supplier has a H&S management programme that is suitable and sufficient for the type of business they are and the type of primary service they provide; it does little more than that. I describe it as 'the ticket to the dance'.

'Securing a date' however, is a different stage of the procurement process and requires a buyer to procure the services of suppliers based on articulating reasonable H&S expectations aligned to the specific risks associated with each specific piece of procurement and awarding work based on how well the supplier demonstrates they can manage those specific risks effectively. It's worth noting the buyer is also seeking assurance on issues of quality, environmental management, financial/commercial considerations, sustainability etc.

The standard does differentiate between G/S/B pre-qualification providers, however it is likely this differentiation will be removed. The three schemes (Qualify365, PREQUAL, and SHE Prequalification) have indicated (or have already achieved) Gold, so we think this differentiation is probably not necessary or desirable (A good example of design versus user experience). :smile:

thanks Matt :smile:

Sorry that I missed this thread.

For clarity Tōtika is currently launching in Construction, but the scheme has been designed to apply across industries in the future. This project has been funded by government and once we have completed a successful roll out this year in construction, there are plans to broaden the 'umbrella' if that is what other industries desire. We also have plans to cover more than H&S to provide a single PQ recognition scheme for suppliers and buyers of services.

I appreciate everybody sharing their frank views and experiences of H&S pre-qualification. I empathise and hear the frustration out there and I am committed to help resolve some of this pain.

CHASNZ has been working with construction contractors, clients, and pre-qualification providers over the last couple of years to develop a cross-recognition approach to this.

Tōtika has now launched and provides an umbrella approach that will achieve the following objectives:

• Removing the repetition and duplication of effort and cost associated with H&S pre-qualification
• Providing a standard for commercial pre-qualification schemes to achieve consistency, competence and quality from those providers recognised by the scheme
• A single, centralised supplier/contractor register that buyers/clients can use, so contractors only have to do this once for everybody
• Recognition of external certification and assessment schemes (such as ISO 45001 and Safe Plus On-site Assessments) as an alternate choice to pre-qualification assessments for contractors and suppliers.

Happy to share more information or answer any questions people might have. Please visit www.chansz.org/totika or drop me a line :smile:

*Tōtika is not another PQ scheme - it is a cross-recognition approach. Tōtika does not levy fees on contractors/suppliers and only takes modest fees from buyers/clients and PQ providers to cover the costs of operating the platform.

Hi @Michelle Gillman

The split between male and female members of NZISM is almost 50/50 (838 Female:842 Male).

Cheers

Jon :-)

What's your favourite thing about working in a safety related role?

It is now a well accepted fact that injury frequency rates have little to do with safety performance (yet most of us are still using it that way); What do you suggest it is replaced with and how would that change happen?

What advice would you give the young version of yourself as you were setting out into your professional career?

“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.” Winston Churchil :-)

Thinking about the COVID-19 response; how do you think we can best prepare for what may come next?

Considering the phrase 'all models are wrong, but some are useful', which major models from safety science do you find the most useful and which do you find the least?

Fortunately, deviance proneness doesn't work that way. It is likely that drug and alcohol testing appears to be effective because people (a tiny minority of the working population) who are likely to steal, be violent, break rules, be disruptive, deliberately sabotage work, be reckless etc. are also likely to abuse/misuse substances like drugs and alcohol; therefore D&A testing removes these (deviance prone) people from the workplace; unfortunately it does this along with removing others who do not have this deviance prone association and are unlikely to affect the work environment in that way. In short D&A testing is likely to have a small positive effect on safety (just not for the reasons most think it does) and is likely to be having a negative affect that outweighs any benefit. There are other ways to identify deviance prone people in an organisation other than D&A testing that will not adversely affect people we want to keep and have the same effect (and it's probably cheaper).

The current research confirms that the proportion of occupational injuries attributed to acute substance use is relatively small. What is more likely is that workers who engage in harmful, substance-using behaviours may be more likely to take risks at work.

What that means is that there is mounting evidence that harmful substance use is one of a constellation of behaviours exhibited by certain individuals who may avoid work-related safety precautions and take greater work related risks. It is more likely that risk-taking dispositions, often termed deviance proneness, and other omitted factors can explain most empirical associations between substance use and injuries at work.

Source: Ramchand et al (2009) The Effects of Substance Use on Workplace Injuries RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, CA, USA

None of this really helps us treat our people with the respect and care they deserve. Some lawyers and H&S practitioners are guilty of being purveyors of fear and anxiety using 'compliance' as their tool of torture.

(I made the following comment regarding the Drug and Alcohol issue on LinkedIn recently and have pasted it below)

The workplace drug and alcohol debate is distracted by an unhelpful focus on (and even prejudice around) the type of substance.

The discussion in my view is in two clear places:

1. A safety focus (impairment prevention - particularly around driving, machinery operation, and other operations where impaired function will influence operational safety); and

2. A health focus (factors influencing substance misuse, overuse, or abuse).

In order to have a sensible debate their are a few key facts to consider:

• There is no clear evidence of a correlation between substances and workplace deaths or serious injuries.
• 99% of our people are good people and deserve to be treated as such. The policing mentality around drugs and alcohol is likely to be having a negative effect on attracting people to and retaining people.
• Our people are more likely to be impaired through fatigue and mental health issues rather than substance impairment. I see lots of resources poured into drug testing/detection dogs, but little into checks for tired and stressed workers.

For the construction industry, the team at CHASNZ are building a cross-recognition scheme to take this type of confusion out of the system. You can find out more here: Tōtika - Industry pre-qualification cross recognition

a great idea @Michael Wilson :smile:

@Drew Rae As always, loving your work :-)

What I think I've learned:

• My current understanding of things may be (at least in part), incorrect;
• I need to look for and enjoy feedback;
• I need to look for the new, not confirmation of what I already think I know;
• I need to listen and hear what is being said;
• Social media and other people's articles are not a toilet wall to just place graffiti wherever I like;
• I need to be open to the fact that not everything I'm doing may be helping;
• Experience can be just doing it wrong for ages;
• There's a difference between simplification and simple (and I may not fully understand what that is);
• Learning from safety science is awesome; deal with it!

Source: Dr Dominic Cooper

I'm really interested in alternative approaches to learning from events.

The challenge is that, in contrast to Monty Python (Video Link - Spanish Inquisition), 'Everybody expects the Spanish Inquisition!'.

Health and Safety Investigations have a bad reputation. People are often blamed for safety events, our people see others marched 'off site' and all this erodes trust.

This all hampers an organisation's ability to get what they need to learn from events. That is a reliable account of what actually happened and how.

We also waste excessive amounts of time exploring why things happened; often the reality is nobody really knows, so we guess.

The Forestry Industry Safety Council have some good resources on a 'Learning Review Approach' if you are curious:

Learning Reviews - FISC

Here is an example of the sort of outputs you can get from a learning review:

Learning Review Alert

Learning Review Animation

Also the 'Human and Organisational Performance' or 'HOP' approach, encourages the use of learning teams in a similar way. You can learn more about this here:

Human and Organisational Performance Approach