Hi Sarah,
I agree with Keith, it may come to a point where the employment relations act takes over depending on the time frame of that person being away from work and how your business can cope or manage this. I took advice from EMA in previous roles to understand what is deemed a fair and reasonable timeframe. Definitely pays to do your research.

Love it!! And of course who wouldn't try again to bring their age down :)

Thank you for sharing :)

You have some valid and interesting comments and as a H&S advisor we find ourselves being stuck behind the desk trying to complete the blunt end safety work when we really want to be out completing the sharp end safety work. It is certainly a balancing act to ensure we focus on the right things.
Susan Edwards I also agree with your comments that sometimes they simply do no have the knowledge to really understand the risks that they are taking. SDS and SOP's go a long way in providing information, but they have to be user friendly for all levels of workers.

Andrew, my comments were more based around staff key learnings and engagement in H&S meetings. There have been a few occasions where I have had to explain how we determined it was a near miss or an actual incident. Yes I would expect the potentially bad consequence to have been sorted as quickly as possibly and well before the scones arrived.

It is always good to have a review of the incidents in health and safety meetings whereby you involve the staff and allow them to determine what they deem to be near misses or actual incidents. It creates positive engagement, aswell as a training/information session.