What does your risk assessment say in the context of fingers?

So I was busy yesterday. Reaching the end of a job interview, I asked the young Safety Advisor fresh out of university, "And what starting salary were you looking for?"

The Safety Advisor said, "In the neighbourhood of $100,000 a year, depending on the benefit's package."

I said, "Well, what would you say to a package of $200,000 a year, 5 weeks holiday, 14 paid stats, full medical and dental insurance, company matching Kiwisaver fund to 10% of salary, and a company car leased every 2 years - say, a red Mondeo?"

The Safety Advisor sat up straight and said, "Wow!!! Are you joking?"

I said, "Of course, .....but you started it."

Turnover is not a measure of business competence and it would be wrong to assume a large turnover provides ample funds for resourcing safety and other things.

Take Fonterror. For example. $20b or thereabouts in revenues. But this year will make a $675m loss. They don't have the funds to pay a dividend to their shareholders who have invested in the company and who carry subsequent risk/reward.

A fine would further punish shareholders / owners who have no statutory liability.

The fine should be targeted at the Directors. Nothing to stop a Director being done for a few $mil in damages. Ask Jenny Shipley after her role in the mismanagement of Mainzeal. She could be up for $6m

Theres also, broadly speaking, two types of company: large volume but low margin. Or low volume high margin. Arguably those with higher margin are better able to pay.

Just because you have high turnover does not necessarily mean you are operating a higher risk environment. Selling milk is relatively safe. Producing it isn't.

As an aside, I thought De Spa required the courts to take a defendants financial position into consideration. Something not mentioned in the Article.

And to answer the question: If a companies accounts are to be considered Fine should be based on net profit not Turnover. This way only owners are hurt. Taking it out of turnover means potential reduced money for paying expenses - things like wages.

For me, there are two approaches. You can take the legislative "Safety Rep" approach in which case the things they can do are defined by statute and in particular Schedule 2 of the Act. This creates lots of processes and Check Boxes which will keep people employed for many a happy day. Thus its self limiting - and needs to be. So therefore limits adding value - hence its not our approach.

The second approach (which is the one we use) is the bin the Act and instead have Safety Advocates. They do loads of stuff like act as a mouthpiece on behalf of their department, have areas of particular expertise to answer questions (eg welding), get involved in new machinery implementation or product trials, help with re-hab / return to work plans (which are for non-work injuries since we don't have bad work ones), advocate on behalf of the business / employer. All sorts of stuff. None of it on a list. If it needs addressing it gets done.

We are deliberately a non Rep, non unionised site. Purely because we reckon we can do a much better by working with employees at all sorts of levels without the need for official "reps". We like to keep things simple. Really simple!

As a consequence when Worksafe come through we are able to check off all their compliance tick boxes and more.

And this is why each workplace needs to do its own assessment / measurements

Two of our forklifts, when measured by external experts, exceeded 85 LAeq 8 hrs (dBA).

This may explain the Noise Induced Hearing Loss of one of our operators - been that way for many years so can't say with any certainty.

Our pallets are stacked outside the container then moved in the container by fork hoist. Makes sense to us - less distance to move things by hand - let the forkhoist do as much travel / lifting as possible.

Its a (edit) tight space and there is no way we would allow workers and forklifts to operate in the same area at the same time. The back of a container is a dark and gloomy place, visibility isn't great and there is additional noise.

That said, we build in pallet size / container size specifically into our product design process as we want to minimise packaging and maximise container utilization. Product is stacked, wrapped and racked prior to movement. We design as much manual handling out of the process as we can.

We don't have "Qualified Health and safety Advisers" as a job. What we have are Health and Safety Advisers who may or may not have a qualification.

I'm not sure I'd hire a Safety Rep as an Advisor. But I would give them a look in if they showed competencies in:
- Oral communication (being able to get their message across verbally),
- written communication (know what to to put in and leave out of a document,),
- influencing (its not just about the message its also about how its delivered),
- analysis (this might come from passing a qualification)
- a customer service ethic (gotta remember the adviser is always serving a customer)
- along with some commercial acumen.

I'd be pointing them towards jobs that would develop these competencies.

Back in a previous life I worked in a "cultured marble" factory. Both on the floor and as an installer - because I was the only one with a legal driving licence.

We made spa baths. Relatively simple: mix 3 tubs of resin with catalyst, add color, pour into mould.
All was good with our mixer guy (no respirator or air extraction) for the first two or three baths. But by bath number three his brain was getting a bit foggy and memory a bit hazy. So he often lost count and would end up pouring four tubs of resin.

That became my problem as an installer. Each tub of resin weighed around 50 kilos and two of us could manage an 150kg install - which involved manual handling the bath in a sling.

So now we had to mange a 200kg bath. In minus 36 degrees C, where our boots were Ice-on-ice, walking in residential construction sites up partially formed stairs with no banister or railing.

Eventually the ski season ended and I moved onto warmer and safer environments.

Sorry can't help on that one. We don't really have "H&S Compliance". (Is there such a thing?) But we do have compliance.

So for example I hold a diary / bring up system for things like Forklift and first aid training. Our chief Fire Warden is responsible for evacuations etc and Fire extinguishers so holds his own schedule. Today our emergency lights are being tested. Its part of building warrant of fitness and other functions and he has a schedule for all necessary things. Our Maintenance Engineer is responsible for pressure vessels and our Production Managers are responsible for things like chains.

Compliance comes with good process. So when our auditors come through (and we have loads of them) they know which process / person to check. Our people understand that if it is their process then they are responsible for it - which includes compliance. Our "plan-on-a-page" is buried somewhere in ISO audit documents.

The Human Rights Act is a limiting piece of legislation - that is, If I want to discriminate against vegans (as an example) I am quite legally entitled to. Unless its a disability such as mental illness. I can even discriminate against a Vegan Muslim - provided I dont mention the religion bit. So there is a distinction between legal discrimination (or discrimination thats isn't illegal) and bullying.

There is also the NZ Bill of Rights which gives people the ability to express pretty much any view - which brings problems when handling bullying at work. Those rights can be limited when in work time.

Which is why "respect" is a useful, simple and powerful tool.

Respect isn't about definition. Nor is it about equality or about equity.

Within our business we keep things very simple and say that every single person offers our business something and for that reason alone is why we will treat them with respect. A person has earned the right to work for us, therefore they have earned the right to be respected. (You dont get respect just because you are a person). So we dont tolerate language or behavior that is disrespectful of anyone.

Our test, or simplest way of explaining it is "would you say / do that to your mother". It works for 95% of people.

(As an aside good on you for hiring a vegan - but they don't have a right to express their weirdo views at work. But no problem with them doing so out of work. We ought not be busy-boddying in peoples private lives)

Seems not that long ago Dept of Corrections was saying their 8 hour shifts were so dangerous in summer that slushy machines were needed to reduce core body temperature to prevent dire consequences to heat stressed staff.

Well, bugger me. This now seems to have been forgotten as Corrections are set on introducing new shifts that will see 3 consecutive 12 hour shifts being worked. Https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/113578935/prison-officers-will-work-12-hour-shifts-in-new-roster.

I smell something not quite right..............

Seat belt use is an interesting one.

According to a 2017 AA report " non-seat belt fatalities accounted for 19-26% of overall motor vehicle occupant road deaths between 2006 and 2016"

That seems an instant pointer away from "roads". After all the years of Seat belt campaigns it seems "you can't fix stupid"

I am in the "Fix the Driver" camp.

For a start the "Vision Zero’ is an ambition that nobody should be killed or seriously injured on our roads" is ridiculous and doomed to fail, much like the Zero Harm campaign.

I, like many others here have driven very many roads over a very long time. I am struggling to think of one single unsafe road - provided it is driven to the conditions.

My quick fix contributions to an overall solution would be
- ditch the "ticket the speeder" approach. Its not the speed that kills. Its failing to stop safely in the prevailing conditions that does.
- Instantly remove off the road any person travelling 10km under the sign posted speed limits in good driving conditions. Those between 10km and the speed limit can just have a ticket. If you arent confident or competent to drive in today's modern cars to the sign posted limit then you shouldn't be be on the road.
- Instantly remove off the road any "right Hand Lane" road hog. We don't need virtuous or distracted drivers on the road
- Instantly remove off the road any person with a roaming lap dog in their car. Nothing like having a flying ball of fluff in an accident or a critter under your brake pedal when you need it.
- Instantly remove off the road any cyclist travelling two- abreast. Cars can't do it. Cyclists - you arent that special.
- introduce compulsory third party insurance. If you arent responsible enough to insure against risk to another persons major asset you arent responsible enough to own a car / drive a car.. Instantly remove off the road any person driving without insurance.
- ban parking by "moms" within 1.5km of any school zone at drop off / pick up time. Your kids were born with two legs - use them.
- Introduce three compulsory independent ( ie not your mum or dad) driving training sessions before any licence is handed out
- Introduce one compulsory Defensive Drivers Training session before final licence is handed out

A longer term solution is to remove safety features from vehicles - I think many of us just go into auto-pilot mode, thinking we are safe and there isn't much more needed to be done when driving. Eg "parking Assist" - seriously if you can't park you ought not be on the road!

Its time to find somewhere new to live so went to some open homes in the weekend. Stopped at one and I thought I was entering an EQC repair zone. Strange - hadnt been mentioned in the advertising.

Got closer it was this sign. Agent saw me taking photo and said "do you like our sign" I said "No - I havent seen anything more ridiculous in my whole life" (Must learn to apply filter between thoughts and mouth!). To which he replied its a statutory requirement because they would get into trouble if I tripped.

If a house is that dangerous why would I want to buy it?

Sorry - no powerpoint here.

We don't have a "bullying" policy. (I don't have any policies!). What we do have is an expectation that everyone will treat everyone else with "respect".

Any thing that does not adhere to this principle gets managed and managed firmly - to the point people have lost their job. (Because this encompasses, bullying, bad language, sexual / racial harassment and whatever else that might show dis-repect). Its an extremely simple concept - and a very simple thing to manage.

We did recently have one situation where a person was at risk of excessive banter. We just drew the group together and reminded them of our expectations around respectful behavior - which was basically, in this case "leave the poor bugger alone".

Gotta say I'm at a loss to understand why people use / require pre-qual processes / services. I won't use them and detest being forced into the mincer if we end up working on a construction site.

Our fundamental premise for working with subcontractors is that we will work in partnership. That means we look after each other best interests. Its a trusted relationship and consequently we don't work with many subbies nor would we entertain working with subbies outside our sphere. We all understand that we are all here to do a good job, look after our people and make money (as a nod of respect and understanding to our shareholders).

As for the pre-qual service providers - all I have had is totally unsavoury experiences from them. Their technical knowledge of the law was lacking and all they seemed to want to do was tick boxes and nick our intellectual property.

I lay part of the blame at the feet of the big corporate health and safety people. They just seem interested in creating work for themselves through running objectionable compliance programmes . Its not about compliance - its about doing the right thing for all interested parties.

Hmmm. I'm sensing its time to re-introduce my internationally recognised and patented FARK and FEFR scales.

I think they ran out of colours.
Critical = red = top priority to work on
High = Maybe could be pink = second priority
Moderate = Orange = third priority
low = green = fourth priority
Very low = lets make it a brown colour = lowest priority

There is also a shortage of words. Rather than repeating the word "moderate" in the left hand column they could perhaps instead use the word "severe".

Someone at SiteSafe needed to give some more thought to their matrix - and they have the cheek to charge for their expertise.

Thanks John.
Lets flesh this out a bit further.

An "employee" I hope is a well understood concept. Its basically a person who works under a contract for services and gets a wage or salary. As an employee this person works for an employer. Lets, for arguments sake call the employer "Upper Ltd".

Employees are well covered by the S19 definitions of the act.

Then you have 19 c which is an "employee of a contractor or subcontractor". Its established that to be an employee you need to have an employer. So an employee can be an employee of Upper Ltd. Upper Ltd can therefore be a Contractor / subcontractor.

S19 B covers Contractors / Subcontractor. So Upper Ltd, is covered by the Act.

Therefore Wider Ltd can't charge Upper Ltd.

Stand to to reason? (Its Friday - sometimes my logic fails me)