Agree Campbell Hardy.

1. Culture is VERY easy to identify! Especially a safety one. I can walk onto a commercial building site and know immediately the kind of safety culture it has.Is that not, after all, what the Worksafe SafePlus tool is/was supposed to be about? I can also happily make the indications 'tangible' in a list of items and issues to look for. Just as any sensible and intelligent person can list indications of a co-operative or gender-equal, a gender biased, a racist, a competitive or a collaborative culture.

2. "The whole concept ..'fuzzy'". Nope! It may involve behaviours and attitudes and (horrors!!!) even emotions. And it does not have meanlingless catchwords like "zero harm". That does NOT make 'culture' a 'fuzzy' concept.

3. Little or no evidence it's necessary. Goodness me! One little search on Google produced rather a LOT of evidence that it's vital! Here's one site with quite a lot of research.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10803548.2018.1444565?src=recsys&journalCode=tose20

4. Religious zeal? I'd consider the hopeless pursuit of the 'zero harm' fallacy more indicative of mindless zeal than the cultivation of a safety culture.

Hi James.
A couple of years ago a client had the same problem. I hunted high and low, asked Worksafe contacts for an opinion, looked for precedents in Australia and eventually found some useful suggestions in the attached Canadian and HSE (Brit) government sites. (Attached fyi) One piece of advice was to the effect that since PPE is the last level hazard control, Client could look at other controls which will eliminate the need for a hard hat.

NB. I did look at Australia for precedents bearing our legislation in mind. Someone in Queensland attempted to do what you've advised your client: from memory wearing motorbike helmet; and got into awful trouble. Religious fury, media fury, poor blighter is probably still struggling for a way out.

Fortunately my client simply found other work for their Sikh worker that didn't need hard hats so I was let off the hook. Best wishes!

Hmmm. Video. Well - he says he's excited and the role is exciting. He says that quite a lot! "Kiwis want to go their own way and do their own thing?" Has he READ the HSWA 2015? At the bottom of each clause of which is a reference to the Australian legislation from which it's been taken?
Oh well. Glad he's excited!

Tony Walton I spoke with Worksafe. They don't have it sorted at all.

Thank you Mike. "For the individual themselves' - useful but not an employer's responsibility. Yup, I see that baseline plus controls would work. Thanks again.

'Good for me' how?
For business? I suspect most H&S persons are run off their feet with fear of the unknown (the new Act) driving clients, main contractors et al to insist upon impeccable plans and processes.

Good for H&S generally? Probably. I think 'yes'. Because, at the moment, many have been persuaded to improve their h&s systems and processes to obtain work.

Reservations: The fear of the unknown; how the Act will be enforced, go through the courts, etc,etc, has created a terrible tendency to put compliance before commonsense. A commercial construction site induction with 71 points. one of which is "I understand and will comply with the provisions of the HSWA 2015"? PS "The best system in the world - if we don't use it, support it and drive it to the next level and beyond".... not sure about that Campbell Hardy. Imo 'the best (H&S) system in the world' is so user friendly it doesn't need 'driving'.

I've given a LOT of thought to this and I cannot see that they CAN be particularly valid. I'm thinking particularly about lung capacity and hearing. HOW can any employer know what their employees are doing after hours? Consistently loud music? Concrete sanding, sanding oak furniture without a mask? HOW can anyone POSSIBLY know? And if no-one can know what is the point of in-house testing? There is surely not necessarily a lot of proof that hearing or lung damage can have occurred at work.

But if there'd been a STRONGER system in place so that the engineers' doubts were recognised and immediately checked????
Same with Gulf of Mexico: categoricl instruction to RESPOND to any doubtful signal. That is: a good h&s system recognises human fallibility and makes provision for it.

5 — Jan Hall

Not merely Sydney Dekker ( "Been reading"? Some time ago now!)
I think most comments have nailed it! "Human error" really only means "a human did it".. The real question is: now let's look at the circumstances that enabled it.

Anyone else notice, when encountering 'human error' written on an accident investigation, that the writer,frequently (invariably?) has little appreciation of safety systems and precautions? And is also possibly the product of a fairly unsophisticated health and safety background?

What the others say:
1. Yes, I just let it slide in the absence of reminders
2. Weekly update would be great
3. Categories: a few broad industry-based ones perhaps
Cheers Peter and thanks for revitalising the forum.

The whole point and essence of a well thought out Health and Safety Plan including whatever instruments the creators want to use: is that it takes any forseeable instance of 'human error' into account and creates controls.

So, no! "Human error" is a comletely unacceptable conclusion in an investigation. It would by 'safety system failure'.

Yes indeed. I am constantly being asked by my smaller clients to assist them with some pre-qualification or another. Some are helpful, some not so much: just time consuming and often inappropriate for the size and activities.

In fairness, the good ones I assist with DO ask for evidence of site-specific records like TAs and Toolbox Talks which ARE evidence of 'theory in use'. However surely pre-qualification of ANY of the systems would suffice for a main contractor? Demanding a certain provider pre-qualification is not reasonable.

The ACC terminology was WSMP Accreditation and yet one only became 'accredited' if one met the requirements laid down by ACC.

So as 'people' I remain a disappointment. I'm still confused because either way certain criteria are being achieved to meet external standards.
OED: Certified officially recognize as possessing certain qualifications or meeting certain standards
Accredited: (of an official body) give authority or sanction to (someone or something) when recognized standards have been met.

Anyhow - doesn't look as if SafePlus is going to replace any qualifications (accreditation OR certification!) demanded of tenderers by bureaucracies and larger corporations.

Chris, yes. I use HSE frequently. Also Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety, and some of the Australian States' H&S sites. Worksafe? Not so much.

Great site. Thank you Chris!

So not trade because no tools. Really? Is a profession merely an occupation which employs no tools? As for Long. Someone said he was God? I must've missed it. Myself I merely cited him as being thought provoking. Good that he DOES have some unusual ideas. That's what keeps people thinking. Long isn't the only person I mentioned though. How about Daniel Kahneman?

Jan Hall: Member of the old forum. Synchronicity! I was just contemplating how good it'd be to have a forum again.

H&S Consultant, largely in commercial construction but also now have 'green' clients community businesses which are fun but after commercial construction do resemble herding cats. Also now the H&S person in a group of forensic engineers and scientists, one of whom has recently returned with some new perspectives on accident investigation from MIT. I'm looking forward to learning more and will share on here.

Personal focus: the human side of H&S. The creation of records, procedures and instruments that work for the users as well as being compliant. Favourite read not yet supplanted: "Thinking Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman; Favourite blog https://safetyrisk.net

Personal dislikes: The constant creation and generation of terms and acronyms mistakenly designed to show health and safety practitioners as a 'professional elite'. These silly efforts do nothing but mystify and antagonise frontline personnel and make health and safety practitioners look like idiots and 'try hards' in the eyes of true professionals engineers, architects, etc.

Since the HSWA 2015 the good old TA has become: SWMS (if you read the dictionary definitions, 'method' and 'statement' are interchangeable), and JSA and there are even dissertations on the difference between them! And I see that into the description of a Health and Safety Policy has crept "Statement of Intent".

Is it time to get down to earth, stop giving ourselves futile airs, and get alongside the people we are purporting to assist and call ourselves a trade as suggested by Dr Rob Long in his https://safetyrisk.net Blog?

The most unfortunate part of our H&S Law is making offenders guilty until they prove their innocence. Too often their insurance companies advise them to plead guilty because such a move is less expensive. Only Worksafe's investigations are considered in the Courts; nothing gets discussed, picked apart, contested. Nothing much is learned except everyone is progressively more afraid and compliance (rather than safety) oriented. As you write Grant #SafetylawyerNZ - corporate paralysis.

Agree totally. Links in with workplace bullying. And ANY poor performing section of a business is a success risk.

Sweet! Thank you for setting this up again Peter.