Hi Rebecca,
The programme is still running... I'm currently working to prepare for our annual renewal audit with ACC! Lots of work involved.
More info here:
https://www.acc.co.nz/for-business/understanding-your-cover-options/accredited-employers-programme/

ACC have been promising a review for years now, and these reviews have occurred. But they have gone nowhere. I was interviewed a couple of months ago - yes another review and another interview - and while no promises were given they may be considering SafePlus or similar as an alternative, which in my opinion would be a smart move. A change of audit process however does evidently require a legislative change, so I don't anticipate any change while I'm still around. In the meantime we have to put up with this mostly irrelevant audit.

The ACC Accredited Employer Programme is based on the AS/NZS 4801 which is on its way out. I would recommend moving to ISO 45001

Here is a good article on the mitigation to ISO 45001
https://bestpractice.biz/does-iso-45001-replace-as-nzs-4801/

Lots of our clients are still asking for our ACC accredited employers programme details during our prequalification with them. ISO 45001 looks much harder :smile:

I think (and I could well be wrong here) that there are two different programmes being discussed here:
-the ACC Accredited Employers Programme is essentially about the business managing the injury rehabilitation and return to work of their workers. If they can demonstrate suitable capacity and capability ACC will massively reduce the levy's. This is alive and well and generally favors larger employers who have the volume of workers to sustain the investment into dedicated people to oversee the process(es)
- The WSMP programme was an external H+S audit scheme built on AS/NZS 4801 which as @TracyRichardson noted above has been superseded by ISO 45001. Based on the quality of a businesses H+S management (the highest being Tertiary) they would get a discount on their ACC Levy's. From memory, tertiary was worth 20%(?). ACC reviewed that WSMP in around 2016 and found that the cost of the programme (the discounts) was not delivering a proportionate of benefit (improvement in H+S performance). Essentially accredited business weren't having a comparable reduction in ACC claims. This was also around the time that the SafePlus programme was under development (that ACC also supported) and the publication of ISO 45001. ACC made the decision to end the WSMP (I'm not sure when the auditing, accreditation and discounts actually end).

Matthew is correct. WSMP ended some time ago now.

If they can demonstrate suitable capacity and capability ACC will massively reduce the levy's. — Matthew Bennett

My understanding is that their levies are reduced as the Accredited Employer is responsible for paying any costs associated with a work related injury (either self-insured or by taking out worker compensation insurance) - is this correct?
So we shouldn't look at the accredited employee program as getting a "discount" of the levies, rather it is shifting the responsibility and costs/payments to the private insurance sector rather than state funded/run ACC. (I realise this is off-topic for the original post but just wanted check my understanding)

Gaining tertiary level through the ACC WSMP awarded the business a 20% discount on ACC levies for two years in recognition that the business demonstrated continuous improvement, under a best practice framework.
That incentive motivated a business to up their Health and Safety game. Our first ever National Health and Safety Manger appointed in 2010 to implement management of workplace H&S saved the company $750,000 in levies on achieving our first tertiary level cert.
When ACC shelved, the program many business not big enough to meet the Accredited employer prog. <500 concluded that there is no incentive to show continuous improvement and gains made in HS for some were lost e.g. National HS managers/roles, HS policy and S.M.A.R.T objectives dropped along with HS KPI requirements for managerial roles.
Enter Work safe with its best practice tick the box requirements for machine guarding, traffic management etc. and a she will be right attitude if we just budget those costs in is the stance many business in manufacture industries appears to have taken. WSMP made HS easy with its clear guidelines

WSMP made HS easy with its clear guidelines — robyn moses

But did it actually improve H&S performance? I think that was the conclusion to their review, that while the required actions to gain the certification were occurring there was no evidence that it was having the expected effect on improving workplace H&S (and therefore reducing ACC operational costs).

Too many times businesses focused on "passing the audit" in order to get the discount, rather than actually making their workplaces safer or actually practicing safety management - largely aided and abetted by some (not all) auditors who focused more on the documents rather than actual practice and culture. I have personally watched organisations pour hours and hours of work into assembling documents for an audit - more effort than was put into daily safety practices. I hate to say it, but I have also observed documents being "found" specifically to satisfy an audit requirement.

I also observed managers who assumed if the business had previously been accredited to secondary that they should expect to progress to tertiary level accreditation the next time - very little engagement or understanding from senior managers, just wanting to increase financial benefits.

It helps to remember the aims behind the audit criteria framework. Although ACC's framework was based on AS/NZS4801, ACC's objective was based on its role as the insurer, which is somewhat different from safety management or genuinely looking out for people and their wellbeing. I am aware of one incident where a contractor incident during an ACC audit (!!) elicited a comment from the auditor that they had noticed the safety issue, which prompted the manager to ask why the auditor had not reported the hazard. The auditor replied that they were not allowed to say anything - ACC would consider that to be crossing the line from auditing into consulting! The manager challenged this position, especially against the regulatory responsibility for workers to report hazards. The manager followed up and challenged ACC, which maintained its position. What kind of message does that send if an auditor is exempt from informing others of hazards they have identified?!??

I agree with @MattD2 - the overall experience was that accreditation was not matched by safer workplaces or improved safety performance. I would even say that the financial incentives (external motivators) often resulted in unsound management practices and possibly even distracted managers from the real work (internal motivation) of keeping people safe.

Ahhh the office cynic here, yep the ACC WSMP was actually a good programme, in that the "gov't" could offer you a free audit by someone who actually turned up at your office and your worksite. They actually looked at what you said you were doing against what the team were doing. I even got some practical and useful feedback from these audits and it did improve our process, so a lot different to every other audit I've done.

The massive discount well there was a funny joke it only applied to one part of your levies, as you would expect it was the lowest cost component, so no not really only a token few sheckles off but at least I didn't have to shell out to have an audit. The other ironic joke was the ACC audit (by a Govt Dept per se) was not recognised by other "govt depts", however it did support lots of companies selling a product to save you 20% off your ACC levies at trade shows and their cost often outweighed the savings that was good laugh to see happen.

We have started using the Safe365 maturity self assessment in place of the old WSMP audit. We are finding it easy to use for our teams and a great visual aid for leadership. https://www.safe365.co.nz/