Hi Steph.... Oh I feel your pain!

What should guide you, is consideration of how the classifications could be used to give your business any valuable insight.

But alas... I am dreaming of an ideal world, without ridiculous pre-qualification requirements demanding you slice and dice your statistics in a specific way... if only so your client can put them into a pretty graph for some meaningless report. Sigh.

If you are ready to go deep, might I suggest you have a read of Challenging the Safety Quo by @Craig Marriott, especially Part II.

The previous comments have covered this really well - great advice.

I'd would add, that where a good practice guideline exists (and has been around for several years I might point out), that states what 'should' be done (as you have so clearly referenced in the initial post), should anything go wrong, a PCBU would be hard pressed to stand up in court and justify it not being reasonably practicable to do so. The construction industry largely accepts that unit standards to MEWP's are a requirement, so the fact that it's not explicitly legally mandatory is not relevant.

Plus, how can you know the quality of the 20 years of experience? Without reputable training, the decades of 'experience' could be worse than being without the experience at all (bad habits, complacency etc.)! The fact that they've not carried out the pre-start checks could give a pretty good indication of the quality of their experience, or their normal practices at least.

Lastly, MEWP training is not very expensive. I cannot imagine any decent organisation failing to see the benefit as warranting the cost.

That's an interesting (and sad) experience. It seems to me that he inspector has made a massive generalisation, which in my opinion is not fair, professional, or helpful.

While I'm a consultant myself, I agree that there are many consultants generating a lot of paperwork and little value, while charging $100+/hr for the privilege... HOWEVER it's not appropriate, nor fair, to make disparaging statements about an entire profession.

For example, I've recently did some work for a client that would have earned me less than minimum wage. But I did it because I wanted to support their small business and make a difference for them, because although they did not have a big budget, they wanted to do the right thing. So for someone to say all consultants are "expensive" is frankly a bit of a slap in the face.

Personally, I consider a large part of my role to be educating my clients, and up-skilling them to take control of H&S in their business, rather than relying on me for everything. Many consultants would think I'm mad for giving away easy 'billable hours,' but it's not what I'm about. It offends me that someone in a position of authority would state that consultants don't teach their clients anything.

And lastly, generally my clients engage me because they don't have the time or expertise to do H&S really well... to discourage businesses from seeking external assistance seems illogical to me. Sure, they could do it all themselves, but maybe it will take ten times longer, not be as robust or based on the most up-to-date knowledge, and maybe it won't get the same results. To me, that's akin to saying, oh you don't need an accountant, you could do all that yourself. Sure.... you could.... but is that the right thing for the business to do? Will that get the best outcomes?

I only hope this inspector was having a bad day and made a careless remark, rather than this being an indicator of how he/she normally operates. I agree with some of the other comments, on the whole, my experience with inspectors has been largely positive (though not 100% of course, they are only human). Fingers crossed this is an isolated incident.

This is such a balancing act.... people should not be at work if they are not fit-for-work, however I believe it's really important for people's mental health to get them back to work, even if on altered duties, to keep them busy, involved and feeling worthwhile. It also makes sense for the business to utilise the worker for whatever they might be fit to do. However, if the driver is to manipulate an LTI stat, then that's bullocks. I'd be pointing it out as frankly as that to them!

I feel your pain. As a consultant I often have clients asking for help to complete pre-qualification - it's especially daunting and resource intensive for SME's.
The main thing that bothers me about it is that it's all focused on paperwork - NOT practice. It perpetuates this idea that processes and paper equal safety - which is simply NOT accurate. Case in point - I know there are companies out there that simply make up the documentation to get a good pre-qualification score - and the DO get it! Then everyone has this false sense of safety because of some meaningless rating they've achieved. Unfortunately, more and more big players seem to be adopting this approach, combined with inadequate monitoring on site which just compounds the issue. Sigh indeed!

Sadly Sheri, I couldn't agree with you more. You're right, we need to pare it back to the workers, what they want and need. It amazes me how often companies seem to overlook what a massively valuable resource their people are, in stead treating them like morons and a liability.

Don't you just love it when another organisation dictates how you must manage your business?

Do they also tell you how to manage your accounting, human resources, you IT systems? I doubt it. So why has this become so acceptable when it comes to H&S?

It is beyond me why these big organisations have to be so overly prescriptive about how their contractors manage H&S, without any consideration given to whether what they are asking is fit for that contractor's business, or even keeps people safe!

I understand that they need to be assured that contractors have the capacity and capability to work safely - I totally get that... BUT, can't they ask contractors to tell them about their risks and how they manage them, rather than demanding evidence that a certain process is carried out in specific circumstances in a specific format...?

This stuff drives me bonkers! I totally agree with the most recent comments...

This idea that getting individual signatures on TT's proves or achieves anything is plain nonsense.

PLEASE let's stop focusing on paperwork and signatures, and start putting the emphasis on doing the right thing and having good conversations about risk!

To my mind, demanding a signature from a worker in this context is denigrating and disrespectful and sends the message that the employer's focus is covering their own backside.

On a side note - gosh I feel bad for Worksafe! In my experience, their expectations are reasonable, however they seem to be cited as the one requiring all this bureaucratic nonsense when they actually couldn't care less about it.

External 'pre-qualification' systems are telling businesses how to manage H&S, right down to trivial details like this. It only turns people against H&S as it becomes viewed as a bureaucratic exercise and all about paperwork, not people.

That's going to be a complex tool, and even more complex to analyse and utilise the data collected.

E.g. How do you account for individual variances in resilience to stressors? How do you assess how much stress is work-related versus personal? Where is the line drawn with regard to the organisation's responsibility for worker stress where is it not directly caused by work? What if personal stress is exacerbated by work, but not caused by it? How do you measure stress accurately? And so on...

It would be interesting to see some ACC stats on claims related to these. I expect we are going to see some pretty gnarly injuries, and plenty of minor ones too. The lack of helmets, clear rules/expectations (e.g. where they can be ridden, if they can be used under then influence, speed limits, give way rules and so on) is a massive concern!

Well Simon, I'm torn. I enjoyed your thoughtful article... and I agree with many points; however, it seems to be responding to a certain viewpoint or argument, that argument being that 'safety culture' is required for good safety performance, and that it can be manufactured. As neither are positions I personally hold, it was strange to read an article debunking them.

I think there is value in the concept of safety culture, however it's frequently misunderstood and misrepresented. To explain my point of view, I'll respond to your specific points.

1. It's intangible and you can't "manufacture" it, or "make it happen"

Whilst I agree that the vast majority of any organisational culture is intangible (the iceberg mass hidden below the surface), there are manifestations (or artifacts as Schein calls them) of the culture which are quite observable (the small portion of the iceberg above the surface).



Whilst mostly I agree with the statement that you cannot manufacture a "safety culture," I do believe there are concrete actions organisations can take that contribute to building an organisational culture that is conducive to good health and safety practices.

I think there are three common errors in thinking and approach here:
a) There is a misconception that a 'safety culture' is a target, something to be created, when rather it is an outcome, a reflection of how the company actually is.
b) I believe it is impossible to separate "safety culture" from the overall organisational culture. The wider context in which the organisation operates, contributes to the beliefs and behaviors in regard to health and safety, of both individuals and groups.
c) In medium and large-sized organisations, there is often an [incorrect] notion that there is one consistent organisational culture, that spans across the business. This is never reality. It is important to acknowledge and understand the different subcultures that organically evolve, and are often heavily influenced by the leaders of different divisions - and I don't necessarily mean the managers, I mean the influencers, who may be at any level of the official hierarchy.

2. The whole concept is fuzzy and lacking consensus. It's something of a blank space.

I don't entirely agree with this statement. For example, I think Edgar Schein's model is quite clear... and there are others.

However, I will say that organisations rarely consider the specifics of the artifacts, espoused values and underlying assumptions that make up their cultures - and therefore you could say that culture [or a safety culture] is not well defined. In fact, how it looks and is manifested is different for every organisation.

3. There is little or no evidence it's even necessary for good safety - if it exists.

Again, this is the chicken and the egg scrambled up. The culture is not a requirement for good safety, it is the outcome of it.

4. The manner in which it's pursued often reflects an almost religious zeal. (A forum member put a link to a similar article on this forum recently).

I agree - people get a little bit crazy on this. Building a 'safety culture' is often taken too far, and although people may have the best of intentions, is tacked in an entirely counterproductive way. The concept of "Zero harm" is a glaring example... it sounds like a good idea, it feels like it sends the right message, but if the empirical data is analysed... it actually creates the opposite of the desired outcome!

In summary, I think the term 'safety culture' is bandied about too often, with little understanding of what it actually is - if it even is a thing in itself. It seems to me, that often 'safety culture' it is little more than a trendy catch phrase.

What we are really talking about, is how the organisational cultures manifest in the attitudes, beliefs and behaviors related to health and safety.

Q3

I tend to agree with Nadine for the most part, though I don't know that there needs to be 'disagreements' as such.
If there is evidence that workers raise H&S issues with management, that management responds to those concerns, and outcomes are reached that are satisfactory for all - I'd say that is one indication of a healthy culture.
I believe the organisation must genuinely empower all workers to speak up about H&S matters without fear of reprisal, listen to those concerns with genuine interest and concern, and work collaboratively with the relevant workers to find appropriate solutions.

This is super exciting news!

I'm looking forward to seeing the impact of Daniel's work... it's certainly a revolutionary approach for a regulator to appoint someone to a role like this! NZ is known for it's innovative culture... hopefully we will see this manifested at Worksafe.

Todd Conklin is amazing. Please please please also look at Humble Inquiry by Edgar Schein (it's unusual but the book is better than the videos etc. on line in this instance)

Hi Anthony,

That is a very complex question and the answer is not simple.

It's difficult to give sound advice without more specific details about the institutionalised/entrenched behaviours and attitudes towards health and safety, and what your role is in relation to this (i.e. your responsibilities, level of autonomy and sphere of influence).

Every organisation has it's own unique culture, and subcultures (which may vary significantly from the main culture). There are always reasons for why the particular cultures have evolved, and it is important to understand these when deciding how to approach any issue.

Regardless of what the details may be - I highly recommend reading Humble Inquiry by Edgar Schein - it has changed the way I work with people.

I would definitely also be looking at Safety Differently (do a search on You Tube) - although it is not an 'approach' as such, it is a set of guiding principles that are quite a departure from traditional H&S management thinking... which is probably exactly what has cause the attitudes and behaviours you are now faced with!

Good luck!

I'd just like to point out that it's important to remember that critical risks should include those with the potential to cause death in the future (i.e. health risks), not just immediately (i.e. safety risks).

I find that when talking about critical risks, the work-related health aspect is often overlooked.